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September 26, 2008 02:00 AM

When science trumps politics

David Cadogan
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    (Sept. 26) — The U.S. Congress upheld science over politics with their passage of H.R. 4040, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. The final passage of the bill showed that U.S. lawmakers were diligent in reviewing all the facts surrounding chemicals in toys, and issued a strong piece of legislation that was grounded in sound science and rose above the influence of political pressures.

    After a year of toy scares and recalls, there was a strong push in the U.S. to imitate Europe and ban substances such as phthalates, including diisononyl phthalate, the primary phthalate used in children's toys. Special interest groups cited the European Union ban on phthalates in toys as evidence of the need to implement similar legislation in the U.S.

    As the former director of the European Council for Plasticisers and Intermediates, I was heavily involved in the EU risk assessments of the five most common phthalates and also witnessed the development of EU toy restrictions and food-contact legislation. In 1993, EU passed a regulation to properly assess the risks imparted by all chemicals to both humans and the environment. This was achieved by first assessing the intrinsic hazard of each chemical and then the level of exposure to the chemical of various sectors of the population, including workers, adult consumers and children. Phthalates were examined under this regulation due to their high production volume and because concerns were raised regarding exposures of people to phthalates.

    The EU took 10 years to complete its comprehensive risk assessment of DINP and concluded that DINP is safe for use in all of its applications, including use in infant products and children's toys. The official conclusions of the EU Risk Assessment on DINP were published in 2006.

    There is no evidence that any phthalate has had any adverse effects on humans. However, in 1999 a General Product Safety Directive had already been used to introduce a temporary ban on the use of certain phthalates, including DINP, used to make products intended to be placed in the mouth by children under the age of 3. At the time, the head of the EU's scientific committee on toxic substances, Professor James Bridges, expressed concern that this emergency ban was not justified by scientific evidence.

    Upon completion of the EU Risk Assessment on DINP in 2006, there was already legislation in place in some individual EU member states restricting its use in toys, as well as the temporary EU-wide ban that was being renewed at regular intervals. Therefore, it was not politically feasible for the commission to declare DINP safe for use in toys. Hence for political reasons, the EU made the temporary ban permanent.

    The U.S. approach differs in several regards to that of the EU. First, the U.S. rejected the call for an outright ban on phthalates, and instead adopted legislation that places interim restrictions on high-molecular phthalates, like DINP, pending the completion of an updated scientific review by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

    Secondly, U.S. legislation requires CPSC to test and review all plasticizers in addition to phthalates. This will ensure that children are protected from the unknown dangers of phthalate alternatives that have much less test data and have not been examined for use in toys by CPSC or the EU.

    While the EU scrambled to find a political solution to a political problem, the U.S. Congress refused to rush to judgment under the pressure from special interest groups. Instead, Congress listened to the scientists and took the responsible approach of letting science determine the safety of chemicals and other products in children's toys.

    Congress could just as easily have taken the path of least resistance and followed the EU's lead in banning phthalates outright. Thankfully, science won with the passage of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, and we should applaud them for putting child welfare ahead of political considerations.

    David Cadogan was director of the European Council for Plasticizers and Intermediates, a Brussels, Belgium-based trade association representing the interests of European plasticizer and plasticizer alcohol producers. He is retired and living in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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