US has no plans to ban phthalates

07 January 2008 20:56  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--Federal product safety regulators said on Monday they have no plans to impose limits on use of phthalates in children’s toys but that they remain open to new scientific information that might trigger further examination.

 

Julie Vallese, director of public affairs for the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), said the commission has done extensive research on phthalates - widely used as a softening agent in plastic toys - and determined that “there is not a great risk to safety and health because of phthalates”.

 

Vallese was responding to a question about demands by California legislators that the commission institute a nation-wide ban on phthalates in products used by or to care for infants.

 

In October last year California passed a law that bars the manufacture, sale and distribution of child-care products containing di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), diisononyl phthalate (DINP), diisodecyl phthalate (DIDP) or di-n-octyl phthalate (DnOP) in concentrations exceeding 0.1%.

 

The statute, which took effect last Tuesday (1 January), applies to all products “designed or intended by the manufacturer to facilitate sleep, relaxation, or the feeding of children, or to help children with sucking or teething.”

 

The California statute was criticized by US chemical industry officials who charged that the action was the “unsound result of fear politics” and that it puts at risk the state’s long-term plans to address chemical health and safety issues “in a rational and science-based way”.

 

California Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (Democrat-San Francisco), sponsor of the state law, said that she wanted to see the CPSC enact a nation-wide ban on such phthalates and would work with environmental groups and other state legislatures to put pressure on the commission for a phthalates ban.

 

Vallese said the commission was aware of California’s statute and Ma’s call for a national ban on phthalates.  “The CPSC has looked at phthalates extensively in the past, and there was a lot of scientific work done by CPSC staff to look at the risk posed by phthalates,” she said.

 

“That’s what the commission has to do, base its work on risk,” Vallese said.  “And it was determined through our staff research that there is not a great risk to safety and health because of phthalates.”

 

“However, the commission is always open to new information and new science, and if anything should change, then the commission may look at it,” she added.

 

“But the determination is that the risk from phthalates is not where the commission’s priority is right now,” Vallese said.

 

Vallese spoke after commission chairwoman Nancy Nord told reporters she is hopeful of getting additional funding and broader authority from Congress this year to ensure more monitoring of potentially harmful toys or other products from foreign producers, such as the lead-tainted toys from China that caused widespread concern late last year.

By: Joe Kamalick
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