Tracking Toxic Textiles (harmful chemicals)

[Guest guest]

Very interesting article - what's scary is there is no regulations in

our country ...

Tracking toxic textiles

At Philadelphia University - formerly Textile, aptly enough - a new

institute is testing clothing and upholstery for harmful chemicals

used in manufacture.

By Tom Avril

Inquirer Staff Writer

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/20081006_Tracking_toxic_

textiles.html?viewAll=y

Jeanine Burgin's back started to itch in April. Then came red

patches, blisters and a burning sensation.

Skin-care products only seemed to make things worse. She was in and

out of hospitals, where doctors tried cortisone and other treatments -

all to no avail.

" It was a mystery, " says Burgin, 69, who lives outside Paris.

Turns out the mystery was right inside her house: her new upholstered

armchair.

To the litany of tainted products from overseas - milk powder,

toothpaste, dog food and toys - now add textiles.

Medical complications from chemical additives to clothing and

furniture are thought to be rare, but when they occur, it's the sort

of thing that can literally make your skin crawl. And now the issue

is getting scrutiny from folks who know a thing or two about

textiles.

At Philadelphia University, formerly Philadelphia College of Textiles

& Science, engineers, chemists and technicians have formed a new

Institute for Textile and Apparel Product Safety.

So far they've analyzed children's clothing for formaldehyde, an

agent used in the permanent-press process, finding levels in a

handful of items that would violate standards in Japan. (There are no

such standards in the United States.)

And in children's car seats, members of the team of seven have found

high amounts of flame retardants, some of which are suspected of

disrupting hormone function.

They've also begun to look at dimethyl fumarate, which turned out to

be the culprit in Burgin's case.

In August, she got a letter from the store where she'd bought the

armchair in January. Inside the upholstery, she learned, the Chinese

manufacturer had placed packets of the powdery substance in order to

prevent mold.

For hundreds of customers like her across Europe, it also caused a

severe allergic reaction.

In Philadelphia, the researchers' preliminary findings prompted them

to brief U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.), who in turn introduced an

amendment that would require the Consumer Product Safety Commission

to test for and regulate formaldehyde in textiles. A compromise

measure that was eventually signed into law this summer, part of a

larger consumer-product bill, requires only that the issue be studied

by the Government Accountability Office.

But Casey says he's determined to keep at it.

" You don't often think about a threat being so proximate when it

comes to something like clothing, " he says. " Especially for children.

" It's doubly disturbing when we hear time after time about what's

coming over from China, " the senator adds. " I think we just have to

have a heightened state of awareness. "

Philadelphia University's main campus is located in East Falls, but

some of the research, fittingly, is conducted in a former textile

mill in Manayunk.

" We're just going back to the future, " jokes tein, the

institute's director and also dean of the university's School of

Engineering and Textiles.

Decades ago, formaldehyde was used in such high amounts that textile

mills reeked of its fishy odor, tein says. " Your eyes would

burn. "

Levels dropped dramatically after federal workplace standards were

enacted in the late 1980s in response to cancer concerns. Since then,

most textile manufacture has gone overseas, so the issue has been

largely forgotten.

But it crops up occasionally in the doctor's office as contact

dermatitis - inflammation caused by contact with a foreign substance.

Among patients who are patch-tested for contact dermatitis, roughly 3

percent test positive for allergies to permanent-press chemicals,

says Nedorost, associate professor of dermatology at

Cleveland's University Hospitals Case Medical Center.

In the former mill building, Philadelphia University's Herbert Barndt

once needed a whole day to test fabric for formaldehyde, using a

cumbersome process that involved incubating the sample in a glass

jar.

Now it takes barely 30 minutes, with three machines collectively

referred to as a " formaldimeter. "

The system, called Morapex, costs $53,000; its Swiss distributor gave

it to the university this year with the provision that it be

demonstrated to anyone from the apparel industry who expressed

interest. Indeed, several have already come to see.

Permanent-press khakis

Barndt, a professor of textile engineering, demonstrated the

technique recently with a square piece of material cut from a pair of

permanent-press khaki pants.

First, he placed the sample between two metal plates of a device

called an extractor. With a push of a button, he pumped warmed water

through the fabric and into a test tube, which already contained a

small amount of a chemical that would react with formaldehyde.

He heated the tube of combined liquids for 30 minutes at 140 degrees,

hastening the reaction. If there were a significant degree of

formaldehyde present, the liquid would turn yellow. At a glance, it

was difficult to see any change at all.

To pinpoint the exact amount, Barndt poured some of the liquid

mixture into a small container called a cuvette, which he then placed

into a machine called a spectrophotometer. This device shone blue

light through the liquid and measured the amount of formaldehyde by

gauging how much light was absorbed.

A fractional amount

The result: less than 20 parts per million. If there was any

formaldehyde in the pants at all, it was at a small fraction of the

amount that could cause a problem.

In a separate study, however, the textile institute found levels

ranging from 86 to 136 ppm in three out of 11 boys' khakis and in one

out of 12 boys' dress shirts from Asia and Latin America. Foreign

countries have a range of limits on this chemical; Japan limits it to

75 ppm in items that come into direct contact with skin.

" The most expensive pair we bought, in sort of a boutique store, had

the most formaldehyde, " Barndt says.

Lamar, executive vice president of the American Apparel &

Footwear Association, says that cases of excess formaldehyde in

clothes are very unusual, and that the problem goes away once the

garments have been through the wash.

The association opposed Casey's original proposal to regulate the

substance, calling for more study. But Lamar says most of its members

follow voluntary standards for various resins, dyes and other

chemicals.

Nations' standards

The group also has issued a " restricted substances list " - a

compilation of the most stringent standards enacted by different

nations - so its members can follow them, if they choose.

The Philadelphia University team recently started studying dimethyl

fumarate, the problem powder in upholstery. They've been in contact

with Tapio Rantanen, the Finnish dermatologist who first identified

the culprit last spring.

The malady has stricken 100 people in Finland and hundreds more in

Britain, Rantanen says. Now, according to Denis Sasseville of McGill

University Health Centre, there are a few cases in Canada.

In France, dermatologist e Vigan says there have been about 400

patients, all thought to have purchased furniture made by the same

Chinese manufacturer.

The solution? Get rid of the chair. If needed, a doctor may also

suggest corticosteroids.

That worked for Burgin, the victim who lives in the Paris suburb of

Aulnay-sous-Bois. But it's not an experience she'd like to repeat.

" ly, " she said Friday, " it was not pleasant. "