Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs), which are included in various products such as toothpaste and cosmetics that we use every day, are also found in food and tap water.
The first scientific paper to confirm that bisphenol A (BPA), one of the most widely used synthetic chemicals on Earth, can interfere with our body's endocrine system was published in 1938, but scientists point out that no proper action has been taken for a long time.
Of course, in the case of BPA, it is a trend that is regulated in some countries or products used by vulnerable groups such as children. BPA was classified as a reproductive toxicant in the European Union and identified as EDC, and the use of receipt thermal paper was also prohibited to protect baby bottles and fetuses of pregnant cashiers.
However, other bisphenol-based chemicals used as substitutes for BPA are also pointed out, and we need more alternatives, especially for the vulnerable, due to cocktail effects caused by exposure to numerous environments, simply because they are insignificant enough to affect the human body or escape through urine.
At an international conference to make Asia safe from environmental hormones held on the 31st of last month, Won-jin, head of the Labor and Environmental Health Research Institute, said, "A study has been conducted on whether daycare centers, one of the places where children spend the most time, can be kept safe from environmental hormones."
"In fact, the concentration was significantly reduced when the source of environmental hormones (source) that could be exposed in daycare centers was removed."
19 daycare centers were recruited to select six of them that needed remodeling so that 10 children could participate in the study with their parents' consent, and urine and daycare center dust were collected before and after the remodeling.
The daycare center surveyed 2,700 building materials, children's toys, parish, and furniture, and 37% of them were confirmed to be PVCs. It was surprising that these numbers were identified in the constituent materials in the environment used by children, and PVC was identified as the highest in buildings such as flooring and wallpaper.
The wider the area of flooring using PVC, the higher the phthalate content of dust in it, so the daycare center was remodeled by replacing flooring with products certified by the Ministry of Environment.
"The phthalate concentration in the dust before the remodeling was almost the same in the first and second surveys, but we found that more than 70 percent of the environmental hormones were reduced in the dust after the remodeling, which had essentially removed the source. In children's urine, phthalate metabolites have decreased significantly to 30% since before remodeling."
"We have confirmed that there are various types of environmental hormones in the space where children are active, which we don't know very well. It has been confirmed that children can only be protected by replacing them with fundamentally safe ones. Regulations to protect children's spaces are being tightened and the effects are shown by scientific research. These are private and civic groups. This is a real case where the government's cooperation is needed together."
Grouping the chemicals in question and preventing delays in the assessment process to quickly control them
"It's a very sad story that we and the environment have continued to be exposed to BPA over 20 years of time and a lot of research," Jitka Straková, a global researcher and biology doctor at IPEN, an international POPs removal network NGO, told the Asia Safe from Environmental Hormones conference.
What action should be taken by learning lessons from cases where humans and wildlife cannot be protected in a timely manner from hazardous chemicals. Strakova said, "It is not necessary to regulate just one BPA, but to regulate all bisphenols, and to do so, we need to group the chemicals in question."
Grouping chemicals in the evaluation and limitation of environmental hormones can quickly and effectively increase the level of protection.
"For prevention and timely protection from environmental hormones, the focus of the evaluation should be changed not to 'lack of evidence' but to 'evidence with harmful effects' so that the evaluation process can be accelerated without being delayed."
This has long taken enormous resources to prove evidence of the dangerous nature of BPA, and some companies have continued to insist on more evidence before agreeing to the risk, and have delayed it by challenging regulatory decisions through courts.
As a result, exposure continues decades after discussions on BPA began, with only some prohibited and still allowed for other consumers.
The reason why phthalates were not found in Korea's erasers in Asia in the contents announced at the "EDC free ASIA" conference is that domestic regulations, which were limited to toys, have led to restrictions on children's products and spaces.
These laws don't spring up all of a sudden. The investigation and results of environmental hormones should be shared, and proposals and voices from various civil society should be gathered to create and expand regulations by the government.
Writer: Yeyoung Jeon
(Picture from Unsplash)
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