Bentonville-based Wal-Mart told its suppliers to reduce the amount of phthalates, a chemical used to soften plastics. The updated Wal-Mart requirement matches rules in California, standards Toys "R" Us and Target say they will also meet. The California rules limit phthalates to 0.1 percent.

The closed fields include four New Jersey surfaces — in Jersey City, Newark, Hoboken and at the College of New Jersey in Ewing — as well as a high school field in Cicero, N.Y., that were found to contain high levels of lead. Another closed high school field in Liverpool, N.Y. is being tested. New Jersey health officials discovered the lead, used in pigment to color some fields, in the turf fibers. Kids and athletes could be exposed by inhaling or swallowing lead-laced turf fibers or "dust" kicked up by those playing on the fields, state epidemiologist Eddy Bresnitz says. There have been no known cases of illness attributed to the fields, but at least four of the closed fields will be torn up and replaced with new artificial surfaces.

Senator Sandy Rummel, DFL - White Bear Lake, is the chief author of the bill in the senate. She said she was elected to protect people from harmful things and who better to protect than Minnesota's children. "We need to remove risk and there should be no acceptable risk especially when it comes to children," said Sen. Rummel. "We live in a chemical world and some of those chemicals are unsafe and we know that."

Vom Saal is a controversial figure in his area of expertise — at least where the manufacturers of bisphenol A are concerned. His willingness to speak frankly about his findings is alarming to the top five makers of bisphenol A: Dow Chemical, Bayer Material Science, Sunoco Chemicals, SABIC Innovative Plastics and Hexion Specialty Chemicals. More than 6 billion pounds of bisphenol A are produced every year. "If I were to say to you, 'Oh, here's a pack of birth control pills. I'm going to extract out the hormone and make plastic out of them,' you'd think I was crazy," vom Saal says. "And indeed, the idea that you're using sex hormones to make plastic is just totally insane." For a decade, vom Saal has seen the chemical industry distort his research and government regulators ignore it. But after years of quietly publishing studies in scientific journals and presenting papers at toxicological conventions, vom Saal is starting to be heard. Since the first study of bisphenol A came out of vom Saal's lab in 1997, he has been interviewed about the chemical for PBS' Frontline series and by ABC's 20/20. For Fox News, he has measured the amounts of bisphenol A that leach out of plastic baby bottles, and he has even been quoted in subculture-celebrating Vice magazine regarding the Texas-sized island of discarded plastic floating in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. Recently, he has flown around the country to testify in front of state legislators writing measures against the use of bisphenol A.

Vom Saal says he'll never forget Waechter's words: "Can we arrive at a mutually beneficial outcome where you withhold publishing this paper until authorized to do so by the Chemical Manufacturers Association?" The scientists felt they were being offered a bribe. Mark Walton, the lead spokesman for Dow Chemical, has been asked about Waechter's visit by media outlets before — Frontline, specifically. He tells The Pitch that what felt to the scientists like bribery was "simply an enormous misunderstanding between what Dr. Waechter attempted to communicate and what was heard by Dr. vom Saal. And there was no intent or effort in any way, shape or form to do anything that would cause Dr. vom Saal to do anything other than to publish science that was accurate." Vom Saal says that he told Waechter, in no uncertain terms, what he could do with his offer. It was the MU scientists' first glimpse of industry backlash.