Testimony by Robert Johnson, President
Consumers for Competitive Choice
House of Delegates, Maryland General Assembly
HB 56: Phthalates and Bisphenol-A – Prohibitions – Toys and Child Care Articles I thank the leadership and members of the Maryland General Assembly for the opportunity to present this testimony.
A balanced approach
Good science makes good public policy. That is a given. Policymakers do well to protect consumers from things proven to be harmful.
The converse is just as true, however. Bad science can lead to bad public policy.
That is the unfortunate scenario in a few isolated jurisdictions across the country as legislators react to recent headlines about lead levels in toys by casting too wide a net and outlawing substances that have not been shown to be harmful.
Overreactions are harmful to consumers too, as proven, safe ingredients may be replaced by less-tested and less-effective alternatives.
A balance should be sought. Objectivity should not be sacrificed. Consumers should be protected from substances that have been proven harmful. Those decisions should be based on sound science, though, not speculation. Good public policy demands a firm foundation.
A focus on phthalates
A case in point is the effort by some states to include phthalates in legislation limiting the amount of lead and other proven carcinogens in children’s’ toys. The effort is misplaced and ultimately detrimental to consumers.
Phthalates are a softening agent used to make plastic pliable. They have been in common use in consumer goods for the past fifty years. Shoes, automobile seats, flooring, garden hoses, and Emergency Room IV bags and tubes, all contain phthalates. So do the rubber duckies we played with yesterday.
Because of their ubiquitous presence in many useful consumer goods, phthalates are one of the most tested compounds known to man. Yet, in more than 50 years of use and extensive analysis, no reliable evidence has ever shown that phthalates ever caused harm to anyone.
“No demonstrated risk”
One of the most common phthalates is a compound called diisononyl phthalate, or DINP. It commonly found in vinyl toys, and independent safety reviews have found DINP to be safe for use in toys.
Here is what the leading safety organizations have concluded in their reviews over just the past few years.
- 1. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission spent four years studying DINP and concluded that there is “no demonstrated health risk” from its use in toys and “no justification” for banning its use.
- 2. The Centers for Disease Control have found that average human exposure to DINP is far below safety levels set by EPA. How far below? A person could eat 3,400 rubber ducks and not reach the level where exposure to DINP is a concern.
- 3. Scientists for The European Union and National Institutes of Health have reached similar conclusions.
In search of a villain
Despite this body of scientific research and the dearth of empirical evidence to the contrary, some very elementary observations have raised questions about a number of compounds, including phthalates. In a political atmosphere charged with legitimate consumer concerns about lead in children’s toys, this open-ended speculation has found fertile ground and led to proposed actions to ban phthalates and other compounds.
The most visible of these observations are found in a website called www.HealthyToys.org. There, researchers using admittedly varied protocols from different sites across the country utilized a handheld x-ray device to detect the presence of certain substances in toys. They concluded, among other things, that they could not detect “a number of chemicals of concern,” but did conclude that some toys contained phthalates based on their use of PVC as a proxy for phthalates.
The research, while undoubtedly well intentioned, is hardly earth changing. Indeed, since the researchers admittedly could not find a number of chemicals for which they were seeking, but did find phthalates (or, at least, a proxy), it is not surprising that phthalates became a target for legislation. But this is certainly not sound science. This is akin to Columbus sailing in search of the New World, running into Dominica and concluding, “this is what I found, so this must be it.”
Nor is there significant empirical evidence that phthalates, whether in toys or elsewhere, present health risks in normal doses. At best, there are scattered anecdotal studies that suggest further examination may be appropriate. To date, none of those studies provide a policy basis for overturning the wealth of independent research that indicates phthalates are safe for use in toys and other consumer products.
A misguided rush to judgment
For consumers, the rush to judgment regarding phthalates is more than bad (or more correctly, tentative) science leading to bad legislation. Bad legislation has it owns consequences for consumers.
DINP is the most tested compound for making plastic toys pliable. If it is banned, the need for this type of compound will not simply vanish. Consumers will still demand soft plastic toys and the myriad of other consumer products made with DINP. Instead, these products will be made with an alternative. Of all the known alternatives, none of them has been tested and cleared by scientific experts like DINP. This may be a case of “be careful what you wish for,” as less tested alternatives enter the marketplace and consumers bear the risk.
There is a better way.
The correct approach is to refrain from a rush to judgment. Policymakers should rely on existing science—not anecdotal evidence extrapolated by proxy—to legislate in a thoughtful and deliberate manner. That approach recognizes the need to
protect consumers from proven hazards like lead, but not from compounds that have not been shown to cause harm like DINP.
Simply put, good science should make good public policy.