Category: Chemicals

UC-Berkeley’s anti-flame retardant crusader Brenda Eskenazi is back at it with a new study claiming to link maternal exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) with reduced infant birth weight. Continue reading Flame retardants reduce infant birthweight?

A new study of almost 78,000 aircraft workers fails to link the solvents trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE or Perc) with increased cancer incidence — bad news for the EPA which has been after the pair for decades.

“I tawt I taw a chemical,” seems to be University of Washington “researcher” Anne Steinemann’s modus operandi. Continue reading New scare: Scented laundry products and dryer vents

A new study reports that paper money worldwide is “contaminated” with bisphenol A (BPA). Should you be worried? Continue reading Money 'contaminated' with BPA?

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that 300 miles of roads as well as schoolyards, playgrounds and baseball fields in Dunn County, North Dakota have been surfaced with the asbestos-like erionite — a mineral that has been associated with malignant meosthelioma (MM) in Turkish villages. Continue reading Road Scare in the Dakotas?

The Consumer Product Safety Commission voted yesterday to require that toys be 99.99% lead-free, versus the current standard of 99.97% lead-free. Like the old standard, however, the new standard will have no impact on any child’s health.

As we pointed out previously, the only children harmed by lead in toys have been kids who have swallowed solid lead trinkets. There is no evidence that anyone has ever been harmed — not even a single IQ point lost — by exposure to trace lead levels in consumer products or ambient lead levels.

From an Environmental Justice press release: “Companies that try to increase sales of their products by adopting the color pink and pink ribbons to imply that they support breast cancer research—a practice called pinkwashing—but at the same time permit the use of chemicals shown to cause cancer are committing a form of social injustice against women, according to a thought-provoking article in Environmental Justice, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.”

Of course, since no chemicals in consumer products have been shown to cause breast cancer, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. may want to get some new peer-reviewers.

Does the chemical industry have any self-respect? Continue reading Chemicals on autopilot blame for autoimmune disease: Industry, chemists AWOL?

Canada and the Ukraine successfully blocked the banning of chrysotile asbestos from the UN’s politically incorrect list of chemicals that can be banned from import as hazardous. The two countries argued that chrysotile asbestos shouldn’t be banned because it can be handled safely. Of course, there’s not a chemical on the Rotterdam list that can’t be handled and/or used safely. Chemical bans are arbitrary, silly and harmful.