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September 26, 2007
Smear story
Some new evidence has emerged that interest group efforts to get us all in a lather over phthalates used in personal care products are (pardon the puns) without foundation.
The claim, you have no doubt heard, is that the DEP used in fragrances and the DBP used in nail polish may cause reproductive damage to humans, despite governmental risk assessments that found minimal to no concern as they are used in personal care products today.
Now someone has put the interest group thesis to the test - and a human test at that. Researchers in Denmark smeared a cream lotion spiked with DEP and DBP all over the bodies of 26 young, healthy male volunteers for one week. The researchers were looking to see if some of the chemicals would be absorbed, and if there would be some kind of impact on reproductive and thyroid hormone levels.
Sure enough, the evidence was clear that some of the DEP and DBP was absorbed. But the researchers reported that "the systemic absorption of these compounds did not seem to have any short-term influence on the levels of reproductive and thyroid hormones in the examined young men."
Posted by Marian at 9:45 PM | Comments (2)