Fast Food Companies Are Replacing One Toxic Chemical With Another

Why does this matter? Well, like other chemicals that industry has previously developed to replace their more toxic predecessors, phthalate alternatives such as DEHA and DEHT are being used before their long-term effects on human health are fully understood.

Environmental health experts have seen this scenario play out before. It happened when research about the risks of BPA led to public outcry that prompted manufacturers to replace it with similar chemicals like BPS and BPF, while declaring their products “BPA free.” It’s happening now with phthalates, as growing awareness of their potential harms have led to increased use of alternative plasticizers.

“When a spotlight is shined on a particular phthalate or bisphenol, the manufacturer quickly moves on to a first cousin chemical,” says Philip Landrigan, MD, a pediatrician and the director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College. “Oftentimes we have little or no information on the substitute, and this speaks to a much bigger problem: Chemicals are allowed to come on the market in this country with almost no premarket safety testing.” That gap is why safety advocates say regulators should apply the “precautionary principle” when new, related chemicals come on the market, and assume them to be unsafe until proved otherwise.

And they say that potentially harmful chemicals should be regulated as classes rather than individually. For example, while the Environmental Protection Agency recently announced that it is considering placing limits on certain PFAS chemicals in drinking water, experts worry that still leaves out thousands of other related compounds that could pose similar risks.

“Otherwise, regulators are just playing whack-a-mole as they try to keep up as industry creates new, potentially toxic chemicals, without adequate testing,” says Michael Hansen, PhD, a senior scientist at CR. “We need to get ahead of the problem, not play catch-up.”