ICTI Claim: One of the principal charges made by Greenpeace claims that phthalates, a class of chemicals used to plasticize polyvinyl chloride products, mimic estrogen and act as hormonal disrupters. The implication was that these phthalates are used in the manufacture of toys.
FACT: The principal charge made by Greenpeace is that vinyl toys expose children to toxic chemicals and that this exposure is unnecessary due to the wide variety of alternative materials. The estrogenicity of phthalates is still under study but some phthalates, including those commonly found in toys, are capable of binding to the estrogen receptor in human cell lines. This is only one hazard among a collection that includes liver and kidney toxicity, reproductive toxicity, and possible carcinogenicity.

ICTI Claim: The latest study reported to the Society of Environmental Toxicologists and Chemists confirmed that none of the phthalates used to make toys show any estrogenic effects.
FACT: That study was funded by Chemical Manufacturers Association. It actually demonstrates that a phthalate found in toys (DEHP) sold in Europe, Asia and Latin America, was estrogenic in cell culture.

ICTI Claim: Previously, the United States Environmental Protection Agency found that other phthalates were also not estrogenic.
FACT: This claim refers to the EPA Special Report on Endocrine Disruption (1997). The report describes a group of "estrogenic environmental chemicals" that included a phthalate (BBP) along with DES. The report later mentions that BBP reduced testicular size and sperm production in the offspring of female rats exposed to it from drinking water.

ICTI Claim: The metabolism of phthalates has been intensively investigated over the past 40 years in a variety of species including rats, mice, monkeys and man. The studies show they are very readily broken down and rapidly excreted. No buildup occurs.
FACT: Phthalates are widely found in human blood and urine. The US Centers for Disease Control considered phthalate body levels to be high enough to initiate a national study of their metabolites.

ICTI Claim: Greenpeace attributes the growing emergence of feminine characteristics in fresh water fish to the increased presence of so-called estrogen mimics, which it blames on the manufacture of organochlorine compounds, like vinyl. A new study of waste water effluents conducted by the Environment Agency in Great Britain found that natural hormones activated by the waste water treatment process are at fault, not man-made chemicals discharged into the water.
FACT: Greenpeace has never attributed feminized fish to vinyl. ICTI mistakenly cites a study that deals with household sewage, not industrial waste. The Scottish EPA studied industrial alkylphenols and other synthetic chemicals discharged via sewage effluents and found a significant number of sites (>15%) that exceeded the no-effect level for hormone disruption in fish.

ICTI Claim: Greenpeace claims that production of organochlorine chemicals and their disposal are responsible for the emission of highly toxic dioxin.
FACT: This is true. Independent laboratory measurements of samples from organochlorine production facilities and incineration disposal sites demonstrate significant dioxin levels. The American Public Health Association has called for a phase out of vinyl in medical devices because medical waste incinerators are a major source of dioxin emissions.

ICTI Claim: A review of the sources of dioxin emissions in the UK carried out by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution a year ago examined emissions from a wide range of industrial and non-industrial sources. Municipal solid waste incineration and manufacture of ferrous and non-ferrous metals were found to be the principal culprits, while only trace amounts of dioxin could be attributed to vinyl production.
FACT: One reason that municipal solid waste incineration is a significant dioxin source is because it contains vinyl as a chlorine donor for dioxin formation. Trace amounts are attributed to vinyl production because manufacturers traditionally ignore areas with high dioxin levels in their "self-regulating" reports to government agencies. Greenpeace sampling of vinyl production in several countries demonstrated dioxin levels were found in industrial waste in high levels.

ICTI Claim: Studies carried out in the UK, Germany and the US point out that dioxin emissions declined by 50 percent since 1970, a period in which vinyl production in these countries more than doubled.
FACT: The reduction refers only to air emissions that have occurred by cleaning up sources such as open incinerators, chlorinated additives in gasoline and heavily contaminated herbicides. Other air emission reductions have occurred at the incinerator stack. However, what’s forgotten here are the contaminated filters and ash from incinerators that are buried in landfills as well as the water discharges and other production wastes from the vinyl industry.

ICTI Claim: A comprehensive study by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers found no correlation between the presence of vinyl wastes and dioxin emissions in more than 1,900 incineration tests conducted at solid and hazardous waste facilities around the world.
FACT: The study was conducted by Gregory Rigo, who was contracted by the Vinyl Institute (VI), a PVC manufacturer’s association. An internal VI memo shows that Rigo was chosen because "He is also user friendly (i.e. willing to set his priorities to our needs) and appears to be sympathetic to Plastics, Vinyl, PVC, and Cl₂." The VI-purchased conclusions of Rigo’s report ignores technical literature that finds a high degree of correlation between chlorine input and dioxin formation. PVC can be up to 50% of the chlorine fed into an incinerator.

ICTI Claim: Toy manufacturers voluntarily withdrew DEHP in 1986 after it was shown that large doses of it caused increases of microbodies in the liver called peroxisomes, leading eventually to tumors. Later studies have shown however that the same chemicals, administered to non-rodent species such as marmosets, guinea pigs and humans, do not produce the same effect, and DEHP is being rehabilitated for use as a plasticizer.
FACT: The US Consumer Product Safety Commission considers tumors in animals to be relevant to humans and disregards the studies cited by ICTI. The US National Toxicology Program lists DEHP as a probable human carcinogen. Its maximum limit in drinking water is 6 ppb, similar to the 5 ppb limit set for benzene.

ICTI Claim: The largest and most authoritative study of sperm counts in American men has been conducted by Dr. Harry Fisch at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical School over a 25-year-period. Looking at 1,283 men in New York, Minnesota and Los Angeles, the study found no decrease in sperm counts and in fact found a major increase among New York men.
FACT: Fisch has admitted that "If we looked at our data from 1984 to 1994, we would also have concluded a decline." At least four other studies in Europe and the US have found a decline. One was a large analysis of worldwide sperm counts by Dr. Shanna Swan, California Department of Health Services, which found a signficant global decline.

ICTI Claim: No heavy metal stabilizers, including lead, are used in toys. None.
FACT: Lead is toxic whether present as a stabilizer or as a component of pigments. Both lead and cadmium have been found in vinyl toys available at national chain stores in the US and Austria by CNN, CBS, NBC, the State University of New York, and Greenpeace. The Vinyl Institute, a trade association, later admitted that both toxic metals are deliberately added to vinyl products.

ICTI Claim: Vinyl does not crack or break. It is non-toxic.
FACT: Without additives, vinyl is a highly unstable plastic. It can degrade and release toxic additives. The Consumer Product Safety Commission found that vinyl window blinds degrade in the sunlight releasing lead dust. Greenpeace found this can also occur in vinyl children’s products.

ICTI Claim: Its life cycle has been found to be more environmentally friendly than suggested alternative materials.
FACT: Vinyl, arguably, has the most toxic lifecycle of all plastics. Dioxin is formed during its production, toxic additives leach out during product use, and dioxin is formed again when the plastic is incinerated. Less than 1% of vinyl is recycled.