According to ANSES (National Health Security Agency), baby diapers contain too many toxic substances, potentially threatening the health of children.
ANSES released its risk assessment of chemicals in baby diapers on Wednesday, and it’s not good. Public health experts have highlighted health thresholds being exceeded for several toxic substances. These are “fragrant substances (butylphenyl methyl propional or lilial®, hydroxyisohexyl 3-cyclohexene carboxaldehyde or lyral®), certain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), PCB-126, the sum of PCB-DLs and the sum of dioxins , furans and PCB-DL”.
“We cannot exclude a risk”
The majority of babies in France wear single-use diapers, which represents approximately 4,000 diapers used in the first three years of life. As a result, toxic substances can migrate into children’s urine and come into prolonged contact with their skin, causing allergies in particular.
In order to be as realistic as possible, “we calculate an absorbed quantity according to the time of diaper wearing, the number of diapers worn by babies, up to 36 months, and we compare to toxicological reference values for each substances”, explains in LCI Gérard Lasfargues, Deputy Director General of the Sciences division for the expertise of the National Health Security Agency. “We cannot exclude a risk (…) since we observe an overrun of the health thresholds for a certain number of substances”, he adds.
Manufacturers summoned to Bercy
In view of the risks that these substances may pose to the health of babies, ANSES recommends eliminating them or reducing their presence as much as possible in disposable nappies, strengthening the control of these substances in nappies placed on the market and put in place a more restrictive regulatory framework governing these products. Guidelines taken over by the government. “Ministers require manufacturers and distributors to make commitments before 15 days to eliminate these substances from baby diapers”, explains an official press release. The manufacturers were summoned Wednesday morning to Bercy.
ANSES’s expertise was based on analyzes and tests carried out by the Joint Laboratory Service (SCL) and the National Consumer Institute (INC) between 2016 and 2018 on several diaper references representative of the French market .
Glyphosate, pesticides, VOCs
Two surveys of 60 million consumers had already shown that certain brands of baby diapers contained products dangerous to health. We were talking about glyphosate, pesticides, dioxins and volatile or halogenated organic compounds (VOCs), present in 2017 in the sector leader Pampers, and in 2018 at Mots d’enfant, the supermarket brand E. Leclerc, Love & Green, Lotus Baby, Pommette or even Lillydoo.
If the levels of undesirable substances are very low in these diapers, the health risk “cannot be ruled out”, estimated as ANSES 60 million consumersbecause “infants are also exposed to glyphosates and VOCs via other sources.”
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