Word: plastics
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Good thing there's a new chew in town--the Trident Advantage with Baking Soda. This time, Trident's product designers have packaged their goods in distinctly inedible plastic bubbles. While Trident Advantage may boast special powers--whitens teeth, reduces plaque and risk of gum decay--the rectangular gum pieces look and taste strikingly similar to peppermint Chiclets. And guess what--both gum products are manufactured by Warner-Lambert! But if these up-scale Chiclets cost $1.69 for a package of 12 pieces, consider taking a nibble at the packaging--you might get you're money's worth...
...hard could this be? I picked up the wrench and started to loosen the bolts. I loosened and loosened, and it only took me about five minutes to realize that there are plastic covers on each of the bolts. Damn plastic covers...
...just hospital patients who are at risk. Many plastic products--from food wraps to toys--contain similar softeners, known as adipates. A study by the independent Consumer's Union found that cheese wrapped in deli-counter plastic contained high levels of adipates; some commercial wraps left low but measurable traces too. Toys--at least ones meant for toddlers--can be just as worrisome, since they may spend as much time in babies' mouths as in their hands. Whether any of this causes immediate or even cumulative harm is not known...
Preliminary as these findings are, groups like Brody's have seen enough. Some hospitals in Europe have switched to PVC-free IV bags and tubes, and U.S. activists are calling for the same step here. PVC manufacturers object, insisting that their products are safe and arguing that animals in plastic studies are given far higher levels of PVC than a human would ever absorb. In at least one experiment, however, rats were deliberately given low PVC doses and still showed ill effects. Abbott Laboratories, a PVC maker, admits there is too little data to draw hard conclusions; with some...
Household products are less of a concern. Consumers can look for wraps made of polyethylene instead of PVC. To play it even safer, food should never be microwaved in any plastic wrap since this speeds adipate migration. Plastic bowls marked microwavable are probably safer than those that aren't; glass or china bowls are even better. Beyond that, there's little any consumer can do. "Industry develops these products for their physical characteristics," says Peter Orris, a professor of internal medicine at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, "but it doesn't always test them for human toxicity...