New & scary word

Dragon Mood? -- curious

The last time I met with my doctor, Dr. Wendy, we talked about environmental factors in peoples' various illnesses. She mentioned a word that was unfamiliar to me: phthalates. I asked her to spell it, which she did, but I still don't know what she was talking about.

This morning phthalates was in the headlines: "Are phthalates in toys truly dangerous?"" But before reading the article, I decided I need to know how to pronounce this darn word. "Thal-ates" with the 'ph' silent. Actually, "THAL-ates," with the emphasis on the first syllable.

I Googled it and here's an excerpt from one source:

The chemicals are used to make plastics soft -- but what are they? ... There are dozens of types of phthalates, which are oily, colorless liquids that "have been used for about 50 years to make hard plastics softer and more flexible in such products as vinyl flooring and seat coverings, raincoats, shower curtains, garden hoses and even sex toys," as the L.A. Times put it, as well as in hospital equipment, nail polish and "new car smell."

Here's more from a non-U.S. source:

What are they used for?

Phthalates are primarily used as ‘plasticisers’ to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC or ‘vinyl’) plastic flexible. Ninety percent of global phthalates use is for this. Phthalates are a principle component in flexible PVC products such as toys, clothing, flooring, wallpaper and medical products.

They are used in cosmetics to add flexibility, to give an oily ‘moisturising’ film and help dissolve and fix other ingredients. They are also used as solvents in fragrances and to ‘denature’ the alcohol content of cosmetics (make it unpalatable so people won’t drink it). Alternatives to this potentially harmful phthalate addition, such as lavender oil, exist.

What is the problem with them?

Phthalates are the most abundant industrial pollutants in the environment, and are widely present in air, water, soils and sediments. Some have been measured in virtually all fresh water and marine environments including Antarctic pack ice and deep-sea jellyfish. Phthalates are released into the atmosphere during manufacture, can leach from products that contain them, can contaminate food and can be ingested, breathed or absorbed into the body.

Now that I've learned a little bit about this chemical, I'm going to pay more attention.

Maybe we should all pay more attention, huh?