Hidden Chemicals in Consumer Products: What’s Not on the Label

Hidden Chemicals in Consumer Products: What’s Not on the Label, recorded June 28th, 2012, was presented by ACAT’s Alaska Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE-AK). Health conscious consumers often pore over product labels trying to avoid certain ingredients. But those labels can be incomplete. A new Silent Spring Institute study shows that everyday products contain a wide range of potentially harmful chemicals, including many that are not listed on product labels. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives, marks the largest investigation that actually tested the products themselves for the presence of many suspect chemicals. All 50 different categories of conventional products contained some target chemicals. And the majority of the “alternative” products—marketed for having safer ingredients than their conventional counterparts—also contained chemicals of concern. Investigators tested products for the presence of hormone disruptors that raise concerns for breast cancer, growth, and reproduction, as well as chemicals associated with asthma. Join Robin Dodson, Sc.D., lead author of the study, for a discussion of the study’s findings and how you can reduce exposures.