As a manufacturer of vinyl, I come across my fair share of misconceptions regarding the safety of vinyl. It’s very frustrating for everyone here at Presco and boils down to a perception problem, rather than a problem proven by science. I recently read a report by the Texas Consumer Association titled “Assessing Consumer Product Safety: How Science Can Be Sidelined in Product Formulations”. It is a fantastic case report that studies the historical fear associated with BPA, Phthalates and Parabens. If you are a consumer (which we all are) and you have been lead to believe by activist groups that these chemicals are detrimental to your health, you should be mad…really mad. Less well known and tested alternatives are being used because these false claims have forced out the proven safe chemicals.
Why have we been brainwashed into believing that the presence of a chemical equals the presence of a risk?
The activist groups have the easy job – they drum up support for their cause by scaring consumers, especially new moms, without any supporting evidence. No other industry has been hit harder by the BPA and PVC fear mongering than the baby industry. It’s been long practiced in the world of dirty politics that if you say something enough, be it true or not, it becomes the perception and perception becomes reality. The activist groups don’t have to offer supporting data to their claims, they simply restate their claims to whomever will listen enough times that the crowd builds and builds until it can not be ignored. I just had my second child so I am knee deep in the world of consumer mommy guilt. I can see how it plays out, “Should I buy organic clothes, glass bottles, reusable diapers….does it really matter? But should I take the chance? I have a 4 year old to feed and a 6 month old to rock to sleep on top of a full time job so I’m not going to do my own research to know if these claims are valid so I’ll just believe what Jessica Alba tells me and go about my day. It takes too much time and effort to be an informed consumer.” See how easy that was?
As it relates to phthalates in particular, the science does not support any reasonable limitation of phthalates, even in children’s toys. Diisononyl phthalate (DINP) has been put on the ‘bad list’ by these activist groups, for some reason. DINP is a very common plasticizer for vinyl and is wildly used through out many industries and has been since the 1920’s. As far back as the 1980’s, the following institutions have proven that DINP poses no health risk to consumers: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Cosmetics Ingredient Review (CIR), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Toxicology Program’s Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR), and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). And not to mention the European and Australian institutions who have come to the same conclusions about DINP. Yet, just last December DINP made its way to California’s Prop 65 list (more to come on this next week). If these activists continue to ignore or not believe the proven science, wouldn’t their efforts be best served taking the above mentioned institutions to task for misleading the public? But they aren’t because those claims wouldn’t be true and the activist groups would be cornered into providing their own supporting science.
It’s frustrating but it is the world in which we live. Once has to believe that in the end the truth will prevail and it is our job as a vinyl manufacturer to be an advocate for truth. And the truth is that vinyl is safe and a very important part in making the products we use everyday perform better and remain cost effective.