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PVC Council DK present in Public Funded Education Material on Phthalates
Several phthalates can be used without any risks, the director of the council says
01-03-2004
“Det globale miljø” (the Global Environment) is an educational website on the environment addressing high school students. The website is produced and financially supported by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency and DANIDA (Danish International Development Assistance). The website includes four main topics: Energy, Forest, Water and Chemicals. All features of communication on the internet are demonstrated to visualize the topics in form of articles, quizzes, animations, votes and videos.
As for the videos the four main topics are visualized by interviews of various representatives with various viewpoints. On Energy former Minister for the Environment Svend Auken is contrasted to Bjørn Lomborg, Director of Environmental Assessment Institute. On Marine Environment Henrik Høgh, Vice President for Danish Farming, is contrasted to Poul Henrik Harritz, Director of Danish Society for the Conservation of Nature. The subject Chemicals is dealt with through video interviews with Jette Rank, Associate Professor, Roskilde University, member of the board of Ecological Council, and Ole Grøndahl Hansen of the PVC Information Council DK.
The interviews with Jette Rank and Ole Grøndahl Hansen are on phthalates in general and on DEHP in particular. During the interview with Ole Grøndahl Hansen the EU risk assessments of phthalates are mentioned. The temporary conclusions on these risk assessments are, according to Ole Grøndahl Hansen, pointing at the fact that it is very few applications, of which EU will limit the use of DEHP. E.g. it has shown that there is no problem in connection with the use of DEHP, when it comes to environmental exposure. He also informs that it is very important to differ among the various phthalates. Some may cause a risk in some applications, while others are without any risk.
Ole Grøndahl Hansen is stressing during the interview the importance for Danish companies that any regulation of DEHP will be on a European level and not a particular Danish regulation. And he points out that the industry has no interest, what so ever, to market products, if there might be any risk in using them. However, the conclusion must be not to substitute blindly, but to have a reasonable pan European knowledge to build on, he says.
Asked the question, what is Jette Rank’s position to the existing legislation on phthalates in plastics, she says there is not enough regulation, neither in Denmark nor in EU. In Denmark there are e.g. guidelines telling not to use DEHP in medical devices for premature infants. Guidelines are not sufficient, Rank says. Legislation is needed.
Jette Rank also questions the usability of the studies in primates, which have shown that DEHP does not cause any negative effect. She does not find that the studies performed on primates necessarily tell anything on possible effects in humans. The reason for this is, according to Rank that the studies are not made in pregnant primates. First when studies like that have proved to have no effects in female primates’ foetus, you may say with “some conviction that it is not harmful for humans”.
In the video interview Rank expresses also the wish to have studies performed in pregnant women from the plastics industry in order to tell, whether their boy children have been affected because of their mothers’ occupation. There is simply a lack of methodical studies in the publication in this property, Rank says. Until we have these studies, the most sensible way is limitations of applications.
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