Moms Clean Air Force will continue our fight against toxic chemicals. We are now tackling the huge problem of harmful food additives. More than two-thirds of the 10,000 food additives allowed in food have not actually been adequately tested for safety. Some of them are harmful. They don’t belong in anyone’s lunch, much less a vulnerable child’s.
Right now, we are focusing on phthalates — pronounced THAL-ates — because we have an urgent petition for you to sign, with a deadline coming right up.
Thirty different toxic phthalates can be used in plastic packaging for our foods, or in food handling equipment, including those plastic gloves food workers wear. These chemicals move or leach so easily from the plastics into the food they touch that the FDA actually classifies phthalates as food additives. From our food, these chemicals enter our bodies.
Phthalates disrupt the endocrine system that regulates our hormones. They are linked to reproductive and developmental problems. In baby boys, phthalates can cause genital defects. Pregnant women are especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of phthalates.
And under FDA rules, this is perfectly legal.
But it is completely wrong. And dangerous.
We have until September 19th to tell FDA that they must stop allowing phthalates to be considered food additives. That way, plastic manufacturers will be forced to redesign their products without toxic chemicals, and phthalates will be kept out of our food.