Comments on: Shower Curtains Bad for Our Health? What’s Next?

By: jeanne mollie

jeanne mollie — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:39:30 +0000

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

By: dave from ga.

dave from ga. — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:17:46 +0000

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!

By: Skeptik

Skeptik — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 01:21:25 +0000

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.

By: goodness

goodness — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:49:14 +0000

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!

By: Detective Detector

Detective Detector — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:50:36 +0000

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.

By: Trevor Butterworth

Trevor Butterworth — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:37:34 +0000

If 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.