USA Today is confirming what many have long suspected — that despite the recent consumer protection act banning phthalates in toys effective February 10, the ban does not apply to those toys manufactured prior to the effective date.  The law was passed over the summer.

This means that toys with dangerous and hormone-mimicking chemicals can continue to be sold.  This is  according to a letter written this week by the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) general counsel, Cheryl Falvey, in which she states that the new law does not contain, “a clear statement of ambiguous intent,” reports USA Today. (more…)

China has been making headlines in recent months over  seemingly endless scandals regarding food contamination, specifically with the industrial chemical melamine.  Now, the NY Times’ edition of the International Herald Tribune is reporting that China just announced plans to implement a variety of health reforms, specifically concerning the dairy industry.

The International Herald Tribune states that China’s State Council—China’s cabinet—released regulations for the dairy industry that begin with breeding, include feed, and end with the packaging and sale of milk.  The sweeping move is being made following the melamine scandal that broke in September—but that was covered up for some time prior—in which 54,000 children were sickened and at least four infants died.  Chinese-produced milk formula powder tainted with melamine turned out to be responsible for the deaths and illnesses.  According to Reuters, China’s Health Ministry confirmed yesterday that over 1,000 infants are  still “hospitalized with kidney damage.” (more…)

Victoria’s Secret is facing more lawsuits over bras that wearers claim caused horrific skin reactions.  Two more class action lawsuits, filed in federal courts in Florida and New York, are seeking reimbursement for medical bills and return of the purchase price for consumers who bought and wore defective bras from Victoria’s Secret.

Last week, it was reported that Victoria’s Secret had received hundreds of complaints from women who said the company’s bras had caused serious skin problems, including allergic reactions, contact dermatitis, blistering, itching, hives, rashes and scarring.  According to those reports, some Victoria’s Secret bras had tested positive for the presence of formaldehyde, which is sometimes used in the textile industry to make fabrics crease resistant. (more…)

For the first time since the most recent China melamine scandal broke, authorities there are finally admitting that some ingredients used to make pet food did contain melamine, reports USA Today.  The admission led to increased investigations into two Chinese companies and their links to enormous animal food recalls here, said USA Today, which also noted that China claims melamine did not harm pets.

“There is no clear evidence showing that melamine is the direct cause of the poisoning or death of the pets … China is willing to strengthen cooperation with the U.S. side … to find out the real cause leading to the pet deaths in order to protect the health of the pets of the two countries,” Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quoted as saying by USA Today.  Meanwhile, USA Today reports that Chinese police sealed Binzhou Futian Bio-Technology’s headquarter offices; the company exports rice protein concentrate to the U.S. for use in pet food. (more…)

An analysis published by  the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel this weekend revealed that plastic products labeled “microwave safe“ release “toxic doses” of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA).  The paper also reported that all of the products it tested—10 in total—leached dangerous BPA levels, according to the paper’s online version, JSOnline.

JSOnline also reports that federal and state lawmakers are looking to ban BPA from food and beverage containers and noted that Representative Edward J. Markey (Democrat-Massachusetts) said he plans on reintroducing a bill in Congress this January to do just that.  “This test of ‘microwave safe’ containers adds to the already vast and compelling body of knowledge indicating that BPA is dangerous and unsuitable for all food and beverage containers,” Markey was quoted as saying in JSOnline. (more…)

Canada’s CBC News is now reporting that the number of deaths linked to China’s ongoing melamine scandal may be higher than first reported by the Chinese government.  According to the CBC, no less than five more children died after drinking melamine-tainted formula.

One twin baby girl died of kidney failure in early September, and four other infants, as reported by the Associated Press (AP), died and were not included in the numbers of those who died and which have long been reported out of China, said the CBC. CBC stated that because there were such large time lags between the initial poisonings and the scandal breaking, it is possible that the number of those affected are greater than firs suspected.  CBC notes that those families who are unable to link the cause of death to tainted milk are unable to “sue for compensation.” (more…)

Toxic trailers used to house Hurricane Katrina victims are being sold as scrap by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  At least one lawmaker has already expressed concern that the trailers, which are likely contaminated with formaldehyde, could end up as housing once again, even though FEMA has designated them as scrap.

In 2005, thousands of people in Mississippi and Louisiana were given FEMA trailers as temporary housing following hurricanes Katrina and Rita. But by 2006 FEMA was getting reports from field workers along the Gulf Coast that residents of FEMA trailers where getting sick from the air in the toxic trailers. The first suspect was formaldehyde, which is used in the manufacture of the trailers. Despite the reports, e-mails uncovered last summer during a congressional investigation into the trailers showed that FEMA lawyers told the agency to drag its feet on air quality testing. FEMA’s Office of General Council also advised the agency not to test the trailers because doing so “would imply FEMA’s ownership of the issue”. (more…)

Bisphenol A, commonly referred to as BPA, that ubiquitous, estrogenic chemical that has long been making headlines and has been written about by us for some time, may affect also human reproduction, according to one of some new recent research reports, says MedicineNet.com’s HealthDay News.  BPA is found in a wide variety of consumer and children’s products, including baby bottles, the linings of food cans, and some sport drink bottles.  An industrial chemical, BPA is used to harden plastics.

In one report presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, researchers state that BPA could adversely affect successful vitro fertilization, or the ability of embryos to attach to the uterus, said HealthDay news.  “The issue of environmental toxicants upon human reproduction is very important,” said Dr. Richard J. Paulson, chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, who was not involved in the studies, but was quoted in the HealthDay News report. (more…)

According to a Washington Post article, federal food safety officials are stepping up measures to keep melamine out of the American food system.  Yesterday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began “holding up shipments of food from China that contain milk or milk-derived ingredients,” said the Washington Post.

The FDA, on its Website reports that:  “As part of its ongoing strategy to address the present problem with melamine contamination of consumer products exported from the People’s Republic of China, FDA has expanded its import controls on Chinese dairy products, and food and feed products manufactured in China that contain dairy ingredients.  Since Oct. 10, 2008, FDA has had an import alert in place for specific products found contaminated with melamine and melamine-related compounds.  FDA has collected additional information on the scope of the melamine contamination problem in China, and determined a countrywide import alert is warranted.”  Many see this as the FDA’s largest effort since news of the current China melamine scandal broke, said the Washington Post. (more…)

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting that Chinese families are filing a class action lawsuit against one dairy in the hopes that the government there will initiate compensation payments to the tens of thousands of families affected by China’s widespread and ongoing melamine tainting scandal.

The class action case involving some “15 lawyers” and “nearly 100 families,” the AP says, is targeted against the “state-owned Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group” Company and is looking to point out the delays and cover-ups in what many feel is the largest such scandal in China’s history of product and food safety debacles. (more…)