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[No. 33] Phthalates warning - If on the package of Glacier Bay handheld shower why not at the entrance of an artificial turf field? Glacier Bay handheld shower made in China and distributed in the United States by Home Depot bears the following warning on the package:

\!\ WARNING

This product may contain phthalates, a chemical known to the state of California to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm.

For more information go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov .

Now we all know that artificial turf fields – the plastic carpet strands and the crumb rubber infill – contain phthalates. And so the question for the regulators of product safety and consumer well being is this “Why not include a similar warning in connection with synthetic turf and crumb rubber infill?”

[No. 32] Mothers, do not let your boys grow up to be … well, less than they can be. According to a blog post on The New York Times (21 March 2014) – “To study the impact of everyday chemicals on fertility, federal researchers recently spent four years tracking 501 couples as they tried to have children. One of the findings stood out: while both men and women were exposed to known toxic chemicals, men seemed much more likely to suffer fertility problems as a result. The gender gap was particularly wide when it came to phthalates, those ubiquitous compounds used to make plastics more flexible and cosmetic lotions slide on more smoothly. Women who wore cosmetics often had higher levels of phthalates in their bodies, as measured by urinalysis. But only in their male partners were phthalate levels correlated with infertility.”

“Phthalates belong to a group of industrial compounds known as endocrine disruptors because they interfere with the endocrine system, which governs the production and distribution of hormones in the body. The chemicals have been implicated in a range of health problems, including birth defects, cancers and diabetes. But it is their effect on the human reproductive system that has most worried researchers. A growing body of work over the last two decades suggests that phthalates can rewire the male reproductive system, interfering with the operation of androgenic hormones, such as testosterone, that play key roles in male development. That mechanism, some experts believe, explains findings that link phthalate exposure to changes in everything from testicular development to sperm quality.”

 “’I wasn’t surprised at all by this finding,’ Andrea Gore, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Texas, and editor in chief of the journal Endocrinology, said of the new report. ‘We see the cell studies, the animal studies and now the human epidemiology work, and they are all showing us a similar picture.’  The focus on male fertility dates back to the early 1990s, when researchers in the United States and Europe published a paper suggesting chemical exposures could be linked to a steady decline in semen quality. One of the authors, Niels Skakkebaek, a reproduction researcher at the University of Copenhagen, has since suggested that an increase in malformations in male reproductive systems, which he calls ‘testicular dysgenesis syndrome,’ may be linked to environmental exposure to compounds including endocrine disruptors like phthalates. More recent studies in the United States have also suggested links between phthalate exposure and apparent sperm damage in men. The findings are supported by a host of animal studies, particularly in rats, which have shown that the compounds can interfere with masculinization of young animals and result in odd physical changes to male reproductive tracts.”

 For more on this story go to  http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/a-threat-to-male-fertility/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=2 . Source: Deborah Blum, “A Threat to Male Fertility,” in The New York Times (blog), 21 March 2014, at http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/a-threat-to-male-fertility/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

[No. 3] Can artificial turf field cause or aggravate asthma in children? In October 2008, SynTurf.org posted an item entitled “ “What’s with the phthalates in turf?” at  http://www.synturf.org/warnings.html  (Item No. 31), October 2008); it was followed by an inquiry on “What’s in the artificial turf fiber,” at   http://www.synturf.org/wrapuparticles.html  (Item No. 09). A few days ago, our friends at Environment and Human Health, Inc. ( www.ehhi.com ) called out attention to a new Swedish study that linked vinyl flooring to asthma in children. According to the study – by Huan Shu, Bo A. Jönsson, Malin Larsson, Eewa Nånberg, and Carl-Gustaf Bornehag, “PVC-flooring at home and development of asthma among young children in Sweden, a 10-year follow-up,” in International Journal of Indoor Environment and Health (30 October 2013) http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ina.12074 Synopsis by John Peterson Myers http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/newscience/pvc-flooring-associated-with-asthma/ -  “the association [between vinyl and asthma] could be the result of phthalates, which are chemicals used to soften vinyl. Previous studies have reported links between phthalate exposure and breathing problems, including asthma and wheezing.” However, the scientists acknowledged the limitation “that dust in the bedrooms was not analyzed for phthalates. However, previous research [had] shown that dust in bedrooms with vinyl floors is more likely to have two types of phthalates, DEHP and BBzP. Because these phthalates are not bound chemically to the PVC, they can leach out and be absorbed by dust, which creates a pathway for human exposure.”