The Canary Report

Researchers show common household products are poisoning us

Posted on May 09, 2009 by Susie Collins in Blog, Media/Videos, Research

Seven toxic chemicals show up in high levels in blood and urine tests conducted on volunteers.

Health Zone reports two researchers directly dosed themselves by eating certain common foods and using familiar chemical-laden products, then underwent blood tests.

Commonplace things – an upholstered chair, deodorant, non-stick cookware, stain-repellent clothing, bath toys – are poisoning us.

That’s the message in Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health by Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence, and Bruce Lourie, environmentalist and president of the Ivey Foundation. They write about seven troubling substances showing up in high levels in blood and urine tests conducted on volunteers.

As an experiment, Smith and Lourie directly dosed themselves by eating certain common foods and using familiar chemical-laden products, then underwent blood tests. The Toronto-based environmentalists talked to the Toronto Star about the test results and the toxicity of tuna and toy boxes.

Why be guinea pigs?

Smith: In our Toxic Nation campaign, we’ve now tested 50 people across the country and everybody has the same questions: How did this get into me? What can I do to prevent it? They want specific answers. So it was a desire to answer those questions, to manipulate the levels of pollutants in our own bodies in real time and demonstrate cause and effect.

What did you take and what were the results?

[...]

Smith: Phthalates are associated with fragrance in personal care products. I steer away from scented products, but for this research I showered for two days with highly scented products – soaps, shampoo, conditioner, shaving products – all brand names off the drugstore shelf that millions of people use every day. As a result, my levels of monoethyl phthalate (MEP), one of the most common, went up 22 times.

These products also contained triclosan, present as an “antibacterial” agent. My levels for that went through the roof, increasing 2,900 times.

For bisphenol A, I mostly ate for two days canned food reheated in plastic containers in the microwave and drank out of a polycarbonate baby bottle. My bisphenol A levels went up more than seven times.

Link to full report at Health Zone.

Thanks, Linda!

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Tags: Air, Asthma, Books, Chemicals, Children's Health, Cosmetics, Fragrance, Home, Indoor Pollution, Personal Care, Products, Research, Stink, Toxic