I can’t tell how many times I have bought a new shower curtain and remarked about the smell of it when I took it out of its package. Now they are saying this odor can be a hazard to our health. Now they tell us this? I wonder if after all these years it could be the cause of my headaches.
The Center for Health Environment and Justice is claiming that more than 100 chemicals are being released when consumers open these packaged PVC shower curtains. They are trying to get the Consumer Product Safety Commission to pull all the curtains from store shelves.
During their study of the curtains they found they contain many harmful chemicals including volatile organic compound, phthalates, and organotins. The chemicals could potentially create health problems such as respiratory irritation, central nervous system, liver and kidney damage, nausea, headaches and loss of coordination.
Phthalates and organotins, which are not chemically bonded to the shower curtain, are often added to soften or otherwise enhance the curtain. These additives evaporate or cling to household dust more easily than the chemicals in the curtains themselves, Lester said. Volatile organic compounds also evaporate more easily than the less harmful chemicals, he said.
“PVC is just bad from cradle to cradle,” said Martha Dina Argüello, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “It’s a mess when you create, it’s a mess when you get rid of it, and its off-gassing when you’re using it.”
The American Chemistry Council said Thursday that there was no reliable evidence to show that phthalates were harmful. Argüello said studies are still being done to find how it affects the people.
I think just to be safe for now that I will stay away from PVC shower curtains.
Jan Barrett
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6 users commented in " Shower Curtains Bad for Our Health? What’s Next? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackIf you read the report carefully, you’ll find that when the CHEJ actually tested the shower curtains for offgassing, they failed to detect any phthalate migration. They try to elide this problem in the report by claiming that the phthalates are not bonded to the curtain, so therefore they *must* be capable of migrating. But the test they used failed to find anything. All credit to them for stating that clearly in the report, albeit at the end (it pays to read these things fully). The CHEJ also conceded that it didn’t know whether lead or mercury, which can really pose health problems, could migrate from the curtains in a way that someone might absorb them (difficult to imagine how lead could be aerosolized). Just because something is in a product doesn’t mean the product is toxic. Gasoline is highly toxic, but that doesn’t mean driving a car will kill you from exposure to the gasoline. This cheap, opportunistic “study” reeks of publicity stunt. Bear in mind, that one of the recipients of the 2001 Nobel prize in chemistry, William Knowles, recently denounced this kind of activist-driven paranoia about vinyl. I can’t speak to the safety of the other chemicals which where detected off-gassing, but the level of error and exaggeration in this study doesn’t suggest to me that the CHEJ carefully examined whether shower curtains actually pose a risk. I’m pretty sure slipping in the shower is a much greater threat to health.
These chemicals that are now being considered dangerous in vinyl are present in large quantities in almost all brands of air fresheners. Those are obviously what should be looked at.
Anytime I open a pkg. whether, shower curtain, table cloth, many children’s toys, I’ve always opened them outside, hosed them off and left in sun for several days. Hopefully, this clears gasses. I did this because of nausea and terrible headaches. Obviously this is toxic stuff.
No research is needed to determine that!
Unfortunately, the paranoia is justified. So what if they did not detect “any phtalate migration?” They might detect it tomorrow or 20 years from now. The U.S. government’s (and industry’s) attitude can be summarized as “if it (a product) does not kill people outright, it is safe.” Of course this brings us little disasters like the millions of people poisened by lead paint our goverment did not ban until 1978 (they even mandated it in public housing!!) in spite of the fact they had known about the dangers of lead paint since about 1910. Lead paint was banned in Europe in 1920’s.
Off gassing of products can be minimizes andor totally eliminated by “ozone shock treatments”.
If products that are known to offgas were put in a sealed area and blasted with high levels of man made ozone, they would be taken care of.
Formaldehyde is the greatest offgas of new construction and ozone treatments take care of it. it’s worth trying! It’s kind of like the samonella scare with the tomato, as ultraviolet
germicidal lamps would kill almost all bacteria’it should be part of a fruit and vegetable processors’ process. It works!
I simply switch to Fabric Shower Curtain and bought some real cool ones at this store http://www.justhomedecor.com/estoreusa/home.php?cat=653
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