Risks can come in deceptive packages

Potentially dangerous chemicals are still used in everyday consumer items.
TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL
In Barbara Harris's home, you won't find air fresheners, nonstick pans or mattresses containing harsh flame retardants. That's by design: Harris tries to create a lifestyle that minimizes the chances she'll come into contact with harmful chemicals found in everyday products.
"I have a very simple, very scent-free, and very low-chemical household," she declares.
Harris, who lives in Springhill, Nova Scotia, is part of a grassroots effort to minimize exposure to chemicals contained in dozens of consumer items, substances that a growing body of research suggests may pose health risks.
Along with others at the Environmental Health Association of Nova Scotia, she's used her experiences to help put together an Internet self-help guide (www.lesstoxicguide.ca) for those who want to cut potentially harmful substances out of their lives, and may be confused about how to go about it.
"It's more than a full-time job for individuals to try to figure out what's in the products that they're using," Harris says of the difficulties.
Efforts to minimize exposures to chemicals in ordinary products are arising because many everyday household items contain substances such as a bisphenol A, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and perfluorochemicals, compounds that recent research has linked to a host of health problems, ranging from cancer to attention-deficit disorders and declining sperm counts.
The use of these chemicals wouldn't be a problem, except for another recent discovery. The chemicals used to make many consumer goods are migrating from products into the environment, and are now being detected in practically the entire population.
PBDEs, for instance, widely used in mattresses and computers as flame retardants, are found in the bodies of U.S. residents and Canadians at the highest levels in the world.
Canada is looking at many chemicals in long-term use, and is expected to declare later this year that about 4,000 of them may present enough of a threat to either human health or to the environment that they should be given detailed safety reviews.
The chemicals are among 23,000 substances grandfathered in 1988 when the country adopted its modern anti-pollution rules. At the time, Canada decided to require in-depth safety evaluations only for new substances as they were introduced into the marketplace, and put off a decision on reviewing chemicals already used in commerce.
A healthy home
Worry about exposures to poorly regulated chemicals is why, in her home, Harris has looked at practically every consumer item, trying to select products with the lowest health risk. In her bed, is "a very expensive organic cotton mattress. There is really no choice in between for me," she says, a step that has avoided PBDEs.
For household cleaners, she uses mild soaps, baking soda and vinegar. In the kitchen, forget about non-stick pans and the perfluorochemicals that are used to make them; she cooks on cast iron or stainless steel pots and pans, after finding that the fumes from non-stick cookware made her ill.
When she pops food into the microwave, it's never in a plastic container. She uses glass or pottery, a step taken to minimize the chances of chemicals from the hot container leaching into food.
She also advises consumers to relax a bit about the standards they set. For instance, she doesn't buy stain-resistant clothing, and was miffed recently when one of the large U.S.-based mail-order clothing companies began advertising T-shirts with chemical coatings that make them more impervious to dirt.