Originally published June 23 2005
Bay Area hospitals find dangerous levels of plastic chemical DEHP in intensive-care newborns
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
According to a recent San Francisco Chronicle article, Bay Area hospitals are calling on plastics suppliers to provide safer materials after finding dangerous levels of DHCP, a plastic softening chemical, in newborns in the intensive care unit.
Researchers have found a plastic-softening chemical used in some medical devices in the systems of newborn babies getting treatment in intensive-care units at high enough levels to drive hospitals to seek safe alternatives.
The new study, which appeared Wednesday in the online edition of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, is the first to directly link the greater use of intravenous tubes and other devices containing the chemical, phthalates, to higher levels of the chemical in babies' urine.
There are no data that show adverse health effects from phthalates exposure to newborns, but California health officials consider the chemical both a carcinogen and a toxicant that causes reproductive harm.
The study was conducted by scientists in the Harvard School of Public Health who worked with two Harvard-affiliated hospitals and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
In the urine of infants who had been exposed to devices containing the highest amounts of phthalates, researchers found traces of the chemical at average levels more than 17 times greater than average levels in the general population of 6- to 11-year-olds.
"When you put our study together with animal studies and recent studies in humans, there is justification for considering causation and looking for potential substitutes to the DEHP products,'' Hu said.
DEHP is widely used to soften the rigid polymer PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, in dozens of medical devices, including intravenous bags, blood bags, catheters and other tubing.
Kaiser Permanente, with 412 intensive-care beds for newborns in 28 California hospitals, has been a leader in trying to eliminate the chemical.
At Catholic Healthcare West in San Francisco, which is sponsored by seven religious orders, Dominican Sister Mary Ellen Leciejewski hopes to have all 40 hospitals -- 38 in California -- free of DEHP in IV bags by 2006.
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