Over the last several decades, children have faced an increasingly challenging time just making it through what should be normal stages of growth and development. Incidences of reproductive defects, childhood obesity, early onset puberty, learning disabilities, and many other chronic health problems are on the rise. Many of these problems have been linked with exposure to toxic chemicals.
While a range of factors, from lifestyle to heredity, may contribute to the proliferation of problems associated with a child’s healthy development, the growing body of research suggests that toxic chemicals may play a significant role.
Banning toxic flame retardants in California
In 2003, Environment California Research & Policy Center made tremendous progress in educating the public about the threats of toxic flame retardants to the health of Californians. Known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), toxic flame retardants are added to everyday products such as furniture and electrical equipment to decrease flammability. Studies show that PBDEs build up in breast milk and link these chemicals to many adverse health effects, such as learning disabilities and impaired immune systems.
In an effort to ban PBDEs in California, Environment California Research & Policy Center conducted groundbreaking research on the harmful health effects linked to PBDEs, published and released a hard-hitting report, and mobilized dozens of coalition partners and community organizations around the issue.
In April 2003, we released Growing Threats: Toxic Flame Retardants and Children’s Health, which presented the most up-to-date studies of PBDEs. The report, the first on the issue designed for the layperson, documented studies showing that PBDE levels in women’s bodies were increasing exponentially and rapidly approaching the levels already shown to impair learning and behavior in laboratory animals.
The report also demonstrated the feasibility of alternatives to toxic flame retardants and highlighted industry leaders that had already moved away from using PDBEs in their products. Growing Threats received widespread media coverage within the state.
In August 2003, California passed the nation’s first legislation banning two types of PBDEs, PentaBDE and OctaBDE. In fact, California was the first state to ban a chemical in the U.S. in more than 20 years. Since the bill’s passage, several states have followed California’s lead in taking action against these two PBDEs.
Educating the public about Deca
Following the statewide ban of Penta and Octa, Environment California Research & Policy Center continued to work on efforts to highlight the potential harmful health effects of the third type of PBDE called Deca.
With the proliferation of additional scientific evidence casting doubt on industry claims of Deca’s safety, in February 2004 we released Body of Evidence: New Science in the Debate over Toxic Flame Retardants and our Health, which highlighted the growing scientific support for the theory that Deca may cause damage to the nervous system and impair motor skills.
Body of Evidence also highlighted new research showing that Deca can break down into components of the banned PBDE mixtures, PentaBDE and OctaBDE. In addition, the new research found that Deca itself accumulates in human blood and breast milk.
Body of Evidence garnered significant media attention in the state. Inspired by the coverage that the report received, Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti (13th District) introduced a resolution calling for the phase out of Deca.
Banning toxic toys in California
Building on the success of our PBDEs campaign, Environment California Research & Policy Center continued to pursue the strategy of focusing on the health threats from exposure to toxic chemicals present in countless products that we—especially our children—use in every aspect of our daily lives.
In June 2004, Environment California Research & Policy Center released Growing Up Toxic: Chemical Exposures and Increases in Developmental Disease, which presented the idea that numerous children’s products contain toxic chemicals that can harm proper development. The report chronicled threats to fetal and infant development, with a focus on the toxic chemicals included in everyday products.
Environment California Research & Policy Center’s Stop Toxic Toys campaign focused on the exposure of children to two classes of chemicals highlighted in Growing Up Toxic—phthalates and bisphenol A. Our campaign highlighted the dangers of these toxic chemicals present in popular baby products, including plastic toys and baby bottles.
Phthalates and bisphenol A have been linked to numerous adverse health effects, including obesity, early onset puberty, impaired brain development, reproductive defects, and cancer. Over the last few years, Environment California Research & Policy Center has written and released reports addressing each of these chemical contaminants.
In October 2005, Environment California Research & Policy Center released a report titled The Right Start: The Need to Eliminate Toxic Chemicals from Baby Products, which documents the presence of toxic chemicals in popular baby products. We tested soft plastic teethers, bath accessories, and other baby products for the presence of phthalates, and changing pads, mattresses, and other sleep accessories for PBDEs. We found phthalates or PBDEs in eighteen of the twenty-five baby products we tested.
We released The Right Start in twenty-one states and at multiple sites in California, garnering excellent media coverage. More than thirty-five media outlets covered the story in California, including the major network affiliates in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento; eight radio stations; and several newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News and La Opinión.
In February 2007, Environment California Research & Policy Center released a report, Toxic Baby Bottles: Scientific study finds leaching chemicals in clear plastic baby bottles, which analyzed the extent to which five popular brands of baby bottles leach bisphenol A, a developmental, neural, and reproductive toxicant, into liquids coming into contact with them. We found that all five brands leach bisphenol A at dangerous levels found to cause harm in numerous laboratory animal studies.
We released Toxic Baby Bottles at three locations in California—Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. The report release was covered by the major television network affiliates in all three locations; major news radio stations, including CNN radio, National Public Radio, and local news radio stations; Reuters, La Opinión, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Mateo Times; several Spanish, Chinese, and Korean language television stations and newspapers; and major news websites, including CNN.com and Grist.org. As news of the report findings spread, the report continued to generate widespread media coverage, including stories in the Los Angeles Times, Ventura County Star, and numerous newspapers and television outlets in multiple states, including Oklahoma, Missouri, New York, Florida, Colorado, Massachusetts, Ohio, New Jersey, Texas, and Virginia.
In addition to generating extensive media coverage, the report release led to unexpected action by external parties, including shareholder interventions with a few of the companies that manufacture baby bottles in which we found bisphenol A leaching, a significant increase in demand for glass bottles as evidenced by back orders for this product by the then-only manufacturer of glass bottles (Evenflo), the issuance of a news release by the largest manufacturer of breast pumps indicating that their products did not contain bisphenol A, and multiple class action lawsuits against the manufacturers of the bisphenol A-leaching bottles.
In October 2007, after an almost three-year campaign, California became the first state in the country to ban the use of phthalates in children’s products with the enactment of legislation co-sponsored by our 501(c)(4) sister organization, Environment California. Unfortunately, bisphenol A was removed from the bill during policy committee due to the United States National Toxicology Program’s then-current review of the chemical.
As a result of the new law, toy manufacturers across the country set up internal task forces to evaluate how to remove phthalates from the children’s products they sell nationwide. In addition, several states have followed California’s lead in introducing similar legislation, and California Congress members introduced federal legislation modeled on our new law. We continue to work on ways to restrict the use of bisphenol A in children’s products, including efforts to ensure the chemical is listed on California’s Proposition 65 list of harmful chemicals.
Report shows common baby furniture releases formaldehydeEnvironment California Research & Policy Center has continued to hightlight the need for chemicals policy reform through research showing that toxic chemicals can be found in a wide range of consumer products.
In May 2008, we released Toxic Baby Furniture: The Latest Case for Making Products Safe from the Start, which demonstrates that common baby furniture emits formaldehyde at levels associated with an increased risk of developing childhood allergies and asthma. Formaldehyde has been classified as a human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the state of California and as a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
To collect product testing data for Toxic Baby Furniture, we purchased and sent twenty-one baby nursery items, including seven cribs, four changing tables, and many nursery décor items, such as wall shelves, waste paper baskets, lamps, valances, and wall hangings, to an independent lab for testing for their formaldehyde emissions. Three of the cribs and three of the changing tables emitted formaldehyde at very worrisome levels. In fact, a home furnished with the highest emitting crib and highest emitting changing table—and no other furniture—emitted levels of formaldehyde that would increase the risk of a child developing allergies or asthma.
We released Toxic Baby Furniture at Playmates Cooperative Nursery School in San Francisco with Dr. Alan Greene, a clinical professor of pediatrics at Stanford Medical School and award-winning author of Raising Baby Green, and Kristi Chester Vance, a representative from Making Our Milk Safe (MOMS). Our report release garnered extensive television and radio coverage, including the ABC, NBC, and Fox television affiliates and NPR, KQED, KCBS, KGO, KFI (Los Angeles), and Chinese-language radio. In addition, a story on the report ran on the day of the release in The Sacramento Bee. Other online resources for parents and environmentalists ran stories on the report as well.
Green Chemistry in California
While continuing our work to highlight the problems with individual chemicals currently in use, Environment California Research & Policy Center has been heavily involved in the California Green Chemistry Initiative. Launched in the spring of 2007 by the California Environmental Protection Agency in response to the many advocacy campaigns to ban individual chemicals in the state, the Green Chemistry Initiative seeks to address the problems with how chemicals are regulated in California. From the initiative's inception, we have been actively engaged in providing input on policy options and helping to provide a framework for moving the state toward the creation of a green chemical economy.
In July 2008, Environment California Research & Policy Center released Moving Toward a Green Chemical Future, which calls on the state to establish a chemicals management program that provides for the collection and evaluation of health and environmental impacts data, prohibits or restricts the use of chemicals known to cause harm or for which data do not exist to make such a determination, and incorporates substitution policies that drive businesses to use safer chemicals or practices. Such a scheme must be transparent at every step, enabling businesses to make informed decisions about the chemicals they use and providing the public with understandable information about potential toxic threats and safer choices in the marketplace.