This year, the biggest Christmas scare isn't the Grinch. It's "toxic" vinyl toys that contain "dangerous" chemicals called phthalates to make them soft.
Toy companies and retailers are quickly caving in to environmentalists' demands that teething rings, rattles and rubber duckies containing phthalates be taken off the shelves.
Yet some scientists say the scare has about as much factual basis as Dr. Seuss' fictional monster. If toymakers no longer use these thoroughly tested chemicals, the industry could end up substituting lesser-known materials that pose greater health risks. And some critics say the move to ban soft toys is just part of a scare campaign against the chemical industry.
The move to ban soft toys is nonsense, says Michael Gough, who advised Congress on science policy at the now-defunct Office of Technology Assessment.
Gough, director of science and risk studies at the free-market Cato Institute, said the scare is "typical of the environmentalists' cry that 'Chemicals are killing us!' "
Soft vinyl toys have been pummeled hard over the past month, but the environmental group Greenpeace has railed against them for more than a year in Europe and the U.S.
On Nov. 13, it released a report titled "Warning: Children at Risk. Toxic Chemicals Found in Vinyl Children's Products."
On Nov. 19, Greenpeace and other groups - including the Consumer Federation of America and the National Environmental Trust - petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban all toys containing polyvinyl chloride for children age 5 and younger.
On Nov. 24, the Ralph Nader-founded U.S. Public Interest Research Group's annual list of "dangerous" toys included toys containing phthalates. Typically, the group lists toys that could cause health risks like choking if they weren't used properly.
A blitz of stories citing the presumed dangers of soft toys appeared in outlets like ABC News' "2 0/20," CNN, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
A group called Generation Green even illustrated the toys' alleged dangers in a coloring book. "In your toy box there can lurk the toxic terrible toy box jerk," the book said. "So get your moms and dads to write those they elect and tell their plight. Tell them you want legislation to make this a PVC- free nation."
PVC stands for polyvinyl chloride, the technical term for vinyl. Because vinyl is brittle, phthalates are added to make vinyl products softer and more durable. This is especially important for toys like teething rings that kids put in their mouths.
Toymakers concede that when children suck on toys containing phthalates, a tiny amount of the chemical can leach into their mouths.
DINP, the phthalate most American toy companies now use, can cause liver or kidney tumors in rats and mice at high doses. The groups complaining about phthalates say children shouldn't be exposed to them.
But the Consumer Product Safety Commission disagrees. It refused to ban the toys. "Few if any children are at risk from the chemical, because the amount that they ingest does not reach a level that would be harmful," said a Dec. 2 CPSC press release summarizing an agency study.
"Generally, the amount ingested does not even come close to a harmful level," the agency said.
The CPSC relied on a study commissioned by the Netherlands' Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Sports. Researchers measured both the time children spent sucking on toys and the content of chemicals in the saliva of adult "chew and spit" volunteers.
The Dutch study - which tested children up to 3 years old - concluded that 95% of kids received less than one-third of the Tolerable Daily Intake of phthalates set by the European Union. This level is similar to that accepted by U.S. regulators. Only 1% ingested two-thirds of the allowable limit.
The study also said the possibility of a child 12 months or younger consuming more than the phthalate limit is "so rare that its statistical likelihood cannot be estimated." The risks go down even more for kids older than 12 months.
Greenpeace biochemist Joseph Di Gangi counters that the report underestimates the time children spend sucking toys. He also questions the study because industry participated in it.
But the study's conclusions were endorsed by a group that included officials from European governments, industry and consumer groups.
Although the chemicals may cause tumors in mice and rats, researchers say they have not harmed guinea pigs or monkeys. Those animals are considered a better proxy for humans for testing purposes than mice or rats. There were no problems in lab tests on human cells.
Greenpeace's Di Gangi argued that rats and mice are used to test drugs, however. "The results of animal tests are taken very seriously when a drug is being examined for its toxic effects."
But drugs and chemicals are tested differently, says science journalist and former Investor's Business Daily reporter Michael Fumento. Drugs are most often tested on animals at doses based on their body weight that are proportional to the levels people would take.
In contrast, when chemicals are tested to see whether they cause cancer, they're given to animals in doses that nearly poison them - hundreds of times greater than what people would normally be exposed to.
"There may be doses that really don't cause a problem, and then there are doses that we know that do," said Steven Cohen, director of the toxicology program at the University of Connecticut and president of the 4,600-member Society of Toxicology.
At some low levels, chemical exposure isn't harmful, he says.
Cohen says that phthalates generally haven't been shown to cause cancer by changing DNA. Phthalates appear to have different physical effects on rodents than on humans and other primates.
"To my knowledge, there's no evidence of these chemicals posing any significant likelihood of cancer to humans," Cohen added.
Although the CPSC couldn't justify a ban, the agency hedged a little: "As a precaution, parents of young children who mouth these products for long periods of time may wish to dispose of (the toys)."
Former CPSC Commissioner Carol Dawson, editor of the CPSC Monitor, a newsletter published by the free-market group Consumer Alert, said the agency "went too far" in making this recommendation.
Dawson added: "There's no scientific evidence to back up such a recommendation."
The major toy companies may have caved in. They've promised they'll phase out the chemicals in toys for small children.
"Our commitment is to remove phthalates from all products specifically designed for children (younger than age) 36 months that are used for long periods of time in the mouth," said Sean Fitzgerald, vice president of corporate communications for Mattel Inc.
Fitzgerald insists that the chemicals pose no danger. But he said that Mattel was responding to "confusion and concern in the marketplace."
But toxicologist Cohen wonders whether replacement chemicals will be as thoroughly tested as phthalates.
"If it were my family, I would rather know that I'm dealing with a compound that has an infinitesimally small risk than a compound where we don't have any idea (of the risk)," Cohen said.
Fitzgerald said Mattel is looking at different plastics that don't require a softener. "It's possible that we will be unable to duplicate some of our toys" using different chemicals, he said. "We may have to drop a couple of our toy lines."
Fitzgerald said the new plastics the company plans to use have been "pretty thoroughly tested." Still, he admitted that "few plastics have the pedigree and history of PVC. It is certainly the most tested plastic in the world."
Some business observers say retreating in the face of a baseless scare is a bad long-term strategy.
"Giving in quickly to these kinds of exaggerated threats sets the stage for the next exaggerated threat," said Kenneth Chilton, environmental program manager at Washington University's Center for the Study of American Business in St. Louis.
Indeed, the stage may already be set. "Toys Are Not the Only Hazard Posed by Vinyl Products," reads a Greenpeace press release from early December. The release says PVC pipes and miniblinds are also hazardous. "Vinyl is not a safe material," Di Gangi concluded in the release.
And the group still hopes to phase out the entire industrial use of chlorine - an issue it has pursued for several years. "That is the ideal," said Rick Hind, legislative director of the Greenpeace Toxics Campaign.
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