PHTHALATES (not a floor exercise)

Herb Payson (Blown Away, Advice to the Sealorn) has a page in the advertiser SAIL called 'Things That Work.' Last entry on page 122 in the Jan 2005 issue is this and I quote:
"A thing that didn't work.
David L Jennings read about using Ziplock bags instead of mixing bowls for mixing ingrediernts in Things That Work (July) and thought he should tell us his experience. Provisioning for an extended offshore cruise, he and his wife, Monica, a trained chef, decided to stow flour, rice, sugar, and other staples in Ziplock bags (they used three bags per item). They set sail from San Francisco and realized later in Mexico that their food had acquired an oily taste. It appeared that chemicals had leached from the bags, tainting all their food.
Because they were still cruising coastwise, they were able to restock, but Jennings points out that had they been crossing the Pacific they would have been in trouble. Jennings wrote to the manufacturer SC Johnson* to alert them of a possible product problem and in return received a form letter thanking him for his business along with a coupon for 25 cents off his next purchase."

Phthalates (DEHP, DINP, DBP, DEP, DIP) is a group of synthetic chemicals used to soften plastics in 1000s of products. Nonyphenol, a nonbiodegradable carcinogenic plasticizer, (the bugaboo found in adulterated epoxys I've mentioned here) as nonylphenolethoxylate is used as an emulsifier and stabilizer in the plastic softeners. Not only is it found in food wraps and packaging but as 'breakdown' products in household and industrial cleaning products which contaminate food. There are links to cleft palate, male reproductive organ defects, lower testosterone, destruction of sperm producing cells in young and older human males. And liver cancer.

Studies have linked phthalates to premature breast development in Puerto Rican girls even as young as SIX MONTHS to these softeners. Also in the media soft PVC and Polycarbonate used in vinyl blood bags and tubing, cling wrap, baby toys, teethers, bottle nipples, and baby bottles. It is fat soluable, found in dairy produce.
In a media response I found the American Plastics Council saying this about the polycarbonate baby bottle scare:
"Parents have enough to worry about when it comes to rearing their children. Diversions like the one that critics are creating about polycarbonate baby bottles only serve to scare parents and take the focus off real children's health issues." Every reference at the bottom of the page is generated from plastics industry reports.
http://www.plasticsinfo.org/media/softplastic-wsj.html

Disingenuous in the extreme. This false friendliness, this patronizing response to real problems, real concerns, and real dangers is as despicable and as unethical an answer imagineable. Worth exactly the 25 cent coupon on 'your next purchase.' Indeed.


*SC Johnson, "A Family Company" makes Oust, Off, Raid, Edge, Shout, Draino, Windex - and Saran Wrap and Ziplock

If it needs to be said: The contents of this post are my own opinion. What's in your plastisizer pacifier?