National Health Research Institutes (Taiwan) claimed low DEHP toxicity for irregular consumers!

DEHP poses risks to children's reproductive organs

2011/05/27 Taipei, May 27 (CNA) A national medical research center said Friday that children who drank contaminated beverages with DEHP on a long-term basis are susceptible to reproductive dysfunction. Children who consume 350ml of tainted fluid containing 12 ppm (parts per million) of DEHP per day for 12 consecutive months tend to have six to eight times the risk of developing problems with their reproductive system when they become adults, according to recent research done by the National Health Research Institutes. Kenneth Wu, president of the institute, said the proven health hazards of DEHP is mainly the disturbance of endocrine, which leads to shrinking in size of penis and testicles in men and dysfunction of thyroid glands. The chemical's effect on children is magnified, because the concentration of the harmful chemical is higher in persons with lighter body weight. "The health risk of an adult consuming the same amount of DEHP beverage is cut down by half," he said. The result was inferred based on statistics from a 1980s United States study that tested DEHP on rats. The institute said that these results are from the most recent study done, and no data on human effects have ever been collected. "We are not yet sure of the health risks of DEHP on humans because little academic information was found," Wu said. "But we hope that the incident can help us understand more of the hazards ratio." Wu noted that since DEHP is released from the body naturally within five to 12 hours, the health risks for irregular consumers are relatively low. Nevertheless, Liu Saou-hsing, director of the institute's division of Environmental Health and Occupational Medicine, said that toxic residues might still be left in the body once DEHP is discharged. Parents who suspect their children have been harmed due to excessive DEHP intake should take their children to the doctor for a health checkup, said Lin. Asked about whether DEHP can cause cancer, Wu said there is a lack of research on a large human sample in both Taiwan and in the international community to confirm this. "This is the first time in world that so many people are drinking DEHP-tainted drinks, " he said, noting that most research in the United States and Europe only focus on small-scale exposures in the environment. DEHP is classified as Group 2B, or possibly carcinogenic to humans, according to International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Taiwan is now working with epidemiologists to come up with a two-year, mass questionnaire to trace the health risks of DEHP consumption.