written by: Jeffry Tupa
Comparative Study – Analytical Report
Synthetic Chemicals Used in Consumer Goods
Harmful or Not to Male Reproductive System
Introduction
The purpose of this comparative study is to find out if synthetic chemicals that are used in plastics impact the health developments in males. There are over thousands of unregulated, untested synthetic chemicals that are used in a variety of materials and consumer products.
Some synthetic chemicals that are used in plastics act and mimic the same hormone chemicals in humans and animals, and can cause some unwanted, unintended, damaging effects. The types of toxic chemicals in this comparative study will be examined are: diethylstilbestrol (DES), nonylphenol, dichlorodiphenyl-trichlorethane (DDT), bisphenol A (BPA), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxin, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), tributyltin (TBT), and seven different phthalates (DEP, DEHP, DINP, DBP, BBP, DNOP and DIDP).
This comparative study will examine all the different types of toxic chemicals used in consumer plastics and the effects it has on males in the U.S. This report will also study what most common toxic chemicals are found to have an impact on health affecting the reproduction system in male fetus and infants. This study will find out what U.S. cities produce and manufacture the most harmful chemicals used in all consumer goods and products in the market. This study will find out how often consumers are exposed and aware of exposure to toxic chemicals. This study will also examine what type of male development have been affected and what types of health issues have increased over the decades because of synthetic chemicals used in plastics.
Sources and Methods
This comparative study was put together from all different types of sources including books, experts, statistical and institutional data, Internet sites, magazine and newspaper articles, and surveys. The information for this topic is very controversial and there are a lot of disagreements on what is toxic. The government, industries, and private organizations/associations all try to define what ingredients and chemicals are safe, unsafe, or even how much a certain level of toxic chemical exposure is okay for the public. However, I decided not to use statistics for checking the number of national male population to see if there was a decline in the rate of males versus females, because the chemical industries that produce plastic chemicals depend on which cities they are in, so a national count of the population will not help.
The best sources of information found were from articles gathered from the Internet. The article The Disappearing Male – Doc Zone” by CBC-TV, a Canadian News site, provided a 43-minute documentary about males disappearing because of the “hormone mimicking” chemicals like BPA and phthalates used in shampoo, carpets, cosmetics, food products, and baby bottles. It also discribed how the chemicals attack the male reproductive system causing more males to develop health problems such as ADHD, autism, Tourette’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, genital deformities, low sperm count, sperm abnormalities, testicular cancer, and dyslexia. Another important article used was Factsheet: Male Infertility by the same site. It provided information about industrial nations decreasing in male babies and also on how much sperm count has declined in males.
In addition to BPA, the article Cancer and Chemicals In Our Daily Life (BPA, Dioxin) by Femtalks, a blog site, explained that BPA is a toxic chemical that is mostly used in canned foods and beverage containers because the epoxy resin that lines metal food cans and in some plastic containers of water bottles and baby bottles can cause early puberty, diabetes, obesity, and breast cancer.
Another source gathered from the Internet was from the article Changes In Human Sex Ratio by ourstolenfuture.org, a website that provides information on chemicals that interfere with the endocrine system. The article talked about decreasing chances of having a son and also gave a study report about China, Denmark, Canada, Russia, and Taiwan whose sex ratios of males are declining because of the exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals.
Another useful site on synthetic chemicals in plastics was from Mindfully, a nonprofit research organization. The article For Her It’s Sexy. For Baby, It Could Really Be Poison explained that BBP, DBP, DEP, and DEHP are used as a plasticizer to add flexibility in plastics and to dissolve other ingredients in hair sprays, deodorants, lotions, fragrances, and nail polishes. These phthalates, known as vinyl plastic, or PVC, are also used in adhesives, medical IV, blood bags, paints, pesticides, and some plastic food packages. This article said that the exposure to toxic chemicals becomes harmful from the repeated doses and usage of these products and gave a list of some brand names which are in concern.
Some information was gathered from the article ETOX 80E – Hormone Disruptors found on the environmental toxicology page of University of California. The article explained that DDT is used for pesticides in farms, and that PAH is the by-product of industrial processes and incinerations. Also, DES is a synthetic estrogen that has been used for 20 years in about 6 million women in U.S. and U.K. to help prevent miscarriage and also used to help cattle growth. Some reproductive effects in offspring were increasing miscarriages, malformed or abnormal sperm, and undescend testicles at birth.
A great impact on this comparative study came from the expert interviews. I contacted 3 experts that are familiar with the effects of synthetic chemicals. “The science policy issue is a very complex and involved in a trade-off between environmental health and human health, especially in developing countries,” said Doug Fratz, vice president of the scientific and tactical affairs for Consumer Specialty Products Association (CSPA). The Encyclopedia of Association, located in the Alfred R. Neumann library at University of Houston – Clear Lake (UHCL), referred the CSPA, a trade association that has been working with manufactures in distribution and sales of consumer products. Fratz said that the ingredients used in personal care products are reviewed for safety in the Cosmetic Ingredient Review program. He also said that government sites such as the National Institutes of Health, affiliated with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), are not accurate or up-to-date on consumer product ingredients. Fratz also said that consumer pesticides products are under the EPA regulation, while most other household products are regulated by the Consumer Protection Safety Commission, and all require adequate data in order to be labeled for safe use. The CSPA’s Product Ingredient Review programs allow companies to do joint testing.
The next person that I interviewed was Diana Post, a veterinarian and the president of the Rachel Carson Council. The Washington Information Directory, located in Alfred R. Neumann library at UHCL, referred the Rachel Carson Council, an association that seeks to inform about the impacts of harmful chemicals. Post said that she did not know where nonylphenol, BPA or phthalates were manufactured, but the only company listed in the Crop Protection Handbook that manufactured DDT was King Tech Corp in China. Post explained that PCBs was banned from U.S. in 1970s and that all “active ingredients” used in pesticides are not allowed to be called “safe” under EPA regulations. She said that the exposures to synthetic chemicals that are endocrine disruptors and have estrogenic and anti-androgenic activity have being reported to involve in an apparent decline in human semen quality. Also, Post said, “Most of the insecticides that are commonly used in and around homes are toxic to the nervous systems of insects, and also to a lesser degree than to other animals and people,” She said that chemicals such as PBA, used to harden plastics; nonylphenol, behaving as soap-like surfactants; and DDT, acting as pesticides can have adverse effects on the male reproductive system since they can act like female hormone, estrogen, or can act as an anti-androgen.
The third expert I interviewed was Dan Newton, a chemical risk and government relations manager for the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA). Google, an Internet search engine, referred the Rachel Carson Council, an association that advocates policies of the government and chemical industries to take precaution with synthetic chemicals. He named a few organizations/departments such as the Society of Toxicology (SOT), ATSDR and NTP that have administered surveys on toxicologists recently, which was not a surprise to SOCMA.
Another useful source was the book Reproductive Health and the Environment edited by P. Nicolopoulou-Stamati, which was located through UHCL Library Catalog. This book contains important information supported with numerous studies. It explained exactly how TBT, PCB, phthalates, PHP, and Dioxin affect the reproduction. The book explained that the exposure to PHP derived from coal burning induces a greater number of DNA adducts. In areas where the levels of PHP are higher, DNA adducts are detected in many placentas of fetuses, meaning inhaled PHP interferes with DNA replication and transcription in fetal tissues. Also, the book talked about TBT used as an additive in paints to prevent marine organisms from growing, which also inhibits energy transfer (ATP) in the body by collapsing the mitochondrial membranes and changing the transports of ions among the lipid membranes. The book said that the people accumulate PCBs through the food chain or through dermal contact and inhalation through sealants in buildings built before 1980s.
The Lexis Nexis Statistical database, used through the UHCL Library on campus, offered information about which U.S. cities and states generate the most hazardous waste, the growth value of U.S. plastic industries, and also the amount of money spent on medical drug specifically targeting the reproductive and endocrine systems.
Finding and Analysis
Throughout my seven-step research strategy, I found out much interesting information about synthetic chemicals used in consumer goods and how it affects the health reproduction of males. First, I found that 20 of the most industrial nations have less than three million fewer baby boys in the last 30 years, and that, in the U.S., college students have less than half the amount of sperm count compared to students 50 years ago according to Canadian News. In 2008, the article Is Pollution Weeding Out Male Babies? said that U.S. has had an overall drop of 17 males per 10,000 and from 1972 to 1999, the fetal deaths of males rose nearly two-thirds. According to the article Risk Assessment For Environmental Health, there are at least twenty environmental chemicals and toxicants, some such as Dioxins, PCBs, DDT, and DDE, found in the human umbilical cords that were transferred from mothers to their babies. Also, “DDT and its transformation product DDE have been linked to lower sperm counts and impair semen quality, based on studies of men in Mexico and Africa, where DDT was being used at the time,” Post said.
I also found out in the article Reproductive Health and the Environment that the air pollution from petrochemical industry areas were associated with 2.9 times higher risk of spontaneous miscarriages and that pregnant women and their infants exposed to PHP had an impact on pregnancy outcome by increasing intrauterine growth retardation and lowing birth weight. Air pollution may be detrimental to reproductive health. The book also said that PCBs reduced semen quality and reduced sperm motility, regardless of PCB level and that men living in industrial areas have impaired sperm quality and endocrine alterations, due to the pollution of many endocrine-disrupting chemicals. According to the book Reproductive Health and the Environment and the article Changes In Human Sex Ratio, I found out that the EPA has confirmed that Dioxin is a cancer hazard to people and that dioxin, 2,3,7,8-TCDD, is now considered as a Class 1 carcinogen. The reason fathers are more likely to have daughters rather than sons is because Dioxin and PCB bioaccumulation alter the sex ratio, due to its anti-androgenic effects, which delay fertilization and alter Y chromosomes in sperm.
I found out that TBT intake is bioaccumulated through seafood, because fish near port waters become polluted with TBT and the fish species swimming through the port can migrate to where fishing does occur, according to the article Reproductive Health and the Environment. Toxic chemicals also penetrate the body through the use of consumer personal care products. “The dose is the poison” is the fundamental fact of toxicology, which means that all substances are toxic at high enough dose or exposure, and all chemicals are non-toxic at low enough dose/exposure,” said Fratz. When I asked Fratz if there were any toxicity concerns with phthalates and BPA chemicals, he said yes, because of the chains structures that were formed. For instance, he said that BBP is used as a plasticizer to bind with parts of the plastic to make it flexible and that DEP is used “as a solubilizing oil in some products.” DBP and DEHP (phthalates) have anti-androgenic activity that suppresses cell production in fetal Leydig and may lead to cryptorchidism. Cryptorchidism is a frequent malformation. An article from the New York Times said that Canada was about to regulate the use of DEHP, DINP, DBP, BBP, DNOP and DIDP in any type of vinyl plastics because it can cause liver and kidney failure. I also found out that BPA was detected in 96% of soft drink cans, according to the article Cancer and Chemicals In Our Daily Life (BPA, Dioxin).
In the survey conducted for this comparative study, 56% of respondents bought one to three food cans a week and 44% bought soft drink cans and 36% used plastic packages. The survey also reported that 88% of soap/shampoo and 36% of hand cream products were used all the time. About half of all the respondents used plastic cups at home. I found out that 98% said if they were aware of a product that could be harmful to the reproductive system, they would stop using it. Dan said that manufacturers “are concerned about potential adverse effects of chemicals to health and the environment.” However, in the survey, 42% of respondents disagreed that manufacturing companies cared about the health of its consumers and 41% felt neutral. In the article Strategy Being Devised To Protect Use of BPA, I found out that manufacturers were using fear tactics vecause they were struggling to develop a clear defense for the use of BPA and that the FDA will not ban BPA because of two studies funded by the chemical industry saying it was safe. Also, what was even more surprising was the article Chemicals And Our Health when it said that manufacturers sometimes do not disclose when phthalates are being used in products. Fratz said, “Each chemical supplier tests their ingredients and does their own safety assessments on chemicals.” I didn’t know chemicals in the consumer products are regulated by the same companies who make the chemicals.
Table of Appendixes:
Appendix A – Survey Sample
Appendix B – Survey Results
Appendix C – Survey Analysis
Appendix D – Survey Question 1
Appendix E – Survey Question 2
Appendix F – Survey Question 3
Appendix G – Survey Questions 4 and 5
Appendix H – Survey Questions 6 and 7
Appendix I – Survey Question 8
Appendix J – Survey Question 9
Appendix K – Survey Question 10
Appendix L – Survey Question 11
Appendix – U.S. Value of Plastic and Rubber’ Shipments from 2000-2007
Appendix N – U.S. Manufacturing of Pharmaceutical Preparations
Appendix O – Largest City Hazardous Waste Generators in U.S.
Recommendation
All the different types of toxic chemicals used in consumer plastic and the effects it has on males in the U.S. are evident, however, I recommend that pregnant women and infants need to stay away from these endocrine-disrupting chemicals used in plastics of toys and cosmetics. The most prevalent toxic chemicals are BPA and phthalates. I would recommend women not to wear cosmetic products or use personal care products that contain these chemicals because of the estrogenic activity can speed up the growth rate of breast cancer cells and be passed in offspring, causing the permanent health damage in their future. I also recommend using metal or glass plates, bottles, and cups for food at home and avoid buying canned products until BPA is not used anymore. I recomend not useing Styrofoam or anything plastic to heat up food in the microwave, which increases exposure to toxic chemicals.
There are some precautions and active measure that can help to reduce the amount of exposure to Dioxin and PHP, and by choosing not to live near an area where petrochemical industry processes plastic chemicals or where incineration take place. Also, try to avoid fishing and eating fish near water ports where many ships dock and import, so that the bioaccumulation of TBT does not increase in the body.
The government should take a more proactive role in pressuring manufactures to find alternative ways to make plastics and ban the production of endocrine-disrupting chemicals that threaten the health population of male babies. Information needs to be easily found, especially when it involves in the development and health of children. Manufacturing companies need to list every ingredient, even the chemicals used to make plastics, pesticides, fertilizers, animal feed, toys, and on food products. Everyone wants to know this so that they can protect themselves.
I don’t trust sites that are affiliated or funded with chemical industry. I recommend using published studies by the governmenal scientists and university laboratories that have tried to raise concerns about toxic chemicals used in products, instead of using the Cosmetic Ingredient Review or any other reviews that are funded and owned by the chemical industry.
I believe it. Companies only care about making money and improving shelf life, not what the product does to our bodies.