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Chemicals in non-stick pans may retard babies' growth
Geoffrey Lean
London
Independent
Monday Aug 27, 2007
Chemicals used in non-stick pans, fast-food containers, carpets,
furniture and a host of other everyday household products are
retarding babies' growth and brain development, two startling
new studies suggest.
The studies – from the United States and Denmark, both
published in the past month – found that babies with increased
levels of the chemical in their umbilical cords were born smaller
and with reduced head sizes. Though the changes were small, reductions
in weight and brain development at birth have been associated
with health problems throughout life.
The chemical – perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) – has
been used so widely and is so persistent in the environment that
it has been found all over the world – even in the Arctic
and in remote Pacific atolls – in rain and water supplies,
food, wildlife and human blood.
(Article continues below)
One of the studies, carried out by researchers at the blue-chip
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore,
Maryland, found the chemical in every single one of the 299 umbilical
cords analysed, suggesting that every baby is born already contaminated
by it. Similar levels have been found in babies in Europe and
Japan.
It also found that the babies whose cords had the highest concentrations
of PFOA were born lighter, thinner and with smaller head circumferences
than others. The second study – carried out in the US and
Denmark, with babies drawn from the Danish National Birth Cohort
– came up with similar findings for birth weight, the only
measurement it made.
The studies, published in the prestigious journal Environmental
Health Perspectives, are important because they measure effects
on people, and suggest that PFOA is damaging at far lower levels
in the blood than had been realised. Laboratory research has previously
shown that the chemical causes rats to be born smaller, but only
at levels many thousands of times higher.
The results are bound to cause increasing controversy over the
chemical, which is used to make non-stick pans and stain resistant
coatings for fabrics. It has already been under attack as a suspected
cause of cancer , but this is the most damning evidence of damage
to date.
Non-stick pans left accidentally on rings and in ovens to heat
up without food in them are known to give off the chemical at
high temperatures, and it has also been found in household dust
– but nobody yet knows how it is getting into women's blood
and being passed on to their babies. The results are bound to
increase pressure for it to be banned.
Professor Lynn Goldman, the main author of the Baltimore study
and a former head of toxic substances at the official US Environmental
Protection Agency – calls for the chemical to be phased
out and "not released to the environment".
And Dr Gwynne Lyons, the director of Chem Trust, a new British
charity for protecting people and wildlife from harmful chemicals,
says that failing to do so would be "sheer folly".
DuPont, the only US manufacturer of PFOA, has announced plans
to phase it out – but not until 2015. The company says it
is taking the step merely because of the chemical's persistence
and as a result of public concern.
DuPont has long insisted that "there are no human health
effects known to be caused by PFOA", and now adds: "Our
position is that the studies have not changed our position.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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