'Rubber Ducky' authors tested their own exposure to not-so-friendly chemicals in

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'Rubber Ducky' authors tested their own exposure to not-so-friendly chemicals in

home products

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

New book asserts the looming pollution danger is now from common items around

the household.

The Sesame Street sing-along song goes " Rubber Ducky, you're the one. You make

bathtime lots of fun. " But, according to a recently published book by Canadian

environmental activists Rick and Bruce Lourie, maybe not.

Make that definitely not.

" Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things, " posits that

the worst chemical pollution impacting human health isn't belching out of

smokestacks but is instead found inside the home in everyday things like food

cans, sofas and children's plastic toys.

The book details the health impacts experienced by Mr. and Mr. Lourie

following a week spent in a Toronto condo where they came into contact with

food, furniture, air fresheners and a host of personal and household cleaning

products containing toxic chemicals.

" There's a new kind of pollution in town and it's not the obvious industrial

pollution of the past, " said Mr. , who along with Mr. Lourie, will deliver

the afternoon keynote speech at the Women's Health & the Environment conference

in the L. Lawrence Convention Center today. " The pollutants most linked to

human disease are more subtle chemicals in our homes and offices. "

He said there are 100,000 chemicals used in common products in everyday use and

most have not been tested for their effect on human health.

In perhaps the scariest self-experimentation since the 2004 documentary film

" Super Size Me, " or maybe 1986's " The Fly " starring Jeff Goldblum, Mr. and

Mr. Lourie live with plug-in air fresheners, lather with shaving gels and

scented shampoos, sit on a sofa and carpet treated with stain- and

flame-retardant chemicals and eat canned food heated in plastic containers.

They measured the levels of seven chemicals in their bodies' blood and urine

before, during and after the weeklong experiment.

Mr. said that after three days using shampoos, conditioners and

antiperspirants containing phthalates, a group of chemicals commonly found in

flame retardants, soaps, household products and children's toys, including some

rubber ducks, the level of phthalates byproducts in his blood spiked to 22 times

safe levels. The highest level measured was for a phthalate byproduct linked to

male reproductive problems.

And after drinking from one of his son's old plastic baby bottles and eating

canned food microwaved in plastic containers for two days, Mr. experienced

a significant increase in the level of bisphenol A, or BPA. A report by the Food

and Drug Administration earlier this year raised concerns about BPA exposure to

fetuses, infants and young children, and Canada recently banned use of

BPA-containing baby bottles.

" Even the most innocuous of activities, shampooing, sitting on a sofa, eating

out of certain containers can have a most dramatic effect on a body's

pollution, " said Mr. , executive director of Environmental Defence Canada,

which was instrumental in pushing for the BPA ban in Canada.

Despite the seemingly ubiquitous chemical landscape, hope can be found, Mr.

said, in educating people to read labels and make informed decisions about

the products they use.

" There are some things we can control, " he said, " choices we can make, to

drastically reduce our bodies' levels of pollutants. "

He said " Slow Death by Rubber Duck " contains a " toxics shopping list, "

information about how people can detoxify their homes and lifestyles and Web

links to online resources for healthy toys, household products and cosmetics.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10111/1051952-114.stm#ixzz0lliPdqW6