From Andrew Bose, The British Plastics Federation
London
Having read Debora MacKenzie’s article on “toxic teething rings”
(This Week, 14 June, p 10),
I would like to set the record straight on a few of the claims made.
The label “toxic” is a misleading and alarmist one for phthalates, which have
been used for over forty years, and as such are well researched and understood
materials.
The toxicology and product safety performance of phthalates are well
established. Phthalates have been approved for use in a number of medical
applications such as blood bags and surgical tubing and are used in life-saving
second skins for burns victims—hardly the mark of a toxic substance.
Advertisement
Phthalates are not carcinogenic to humans. Only one,
di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP), was suspected of being a carcinogen when, in
the early 1980s, it was shown that feeding high levels of it, other chemicals
and hypolipidaemic drugs to rodents caused an increased incidence of liver
tumours. However, it has since been demonstrated in many studies that these
effects are specific to rodents. Administration of phthalates and hypolipidaemic
drugs to non-rodent species such as marmosets and monkeys (which, being
primates, are metabolically closer to humans) does not lead to liver damage.
In addition, the hypolipidaemic drugs which caused problems in rodents have
been used by humans for many years with no ill-effects. In a decision dated 25
July 1990, the European Commission stated that DEHP shall not be classified or
labelled as a carcinogenic or an irritant substance.
The unusually high results of migration tests from teething rings were
specific to one particular manufacturer. This would seem to indicate that this
is a specific product quality issue, rather than an inherent problem with the
materials used to make teething rings.
