KILLER

CLOTHES
Anna Maria Clement , PhD, NMD, LN
and Brian R. Clement , PhD, NMD, LN
Co-Directors, The Hippocrates Health Institute
 © 2011 Brian R. Clement and Anna Maria Clement

Cover design: Jim Scattaregia

Interior design: Jim Scattaregia

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced by any

means whatsoever, except for brief quotations in reviews, without written
permission from the publisher.

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ISBN 13: 978-1-57067-263-7

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17 16 15 14 13 12 11 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clement, Anna Maria.

Killer clothes! : how seemingly innocent clothing choices endanger your
health-- and how to protect yourself! / Anna Maria Clement, and Brian R.
Clement.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-57067-263-7
1. Textile fibers, Synthetic--Health aspects. 2. Environmental toxicology. I.
Clement, Brian R., 1951- II. Title.
RA579.C54 2010
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2010051721

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 Contents
Introduction: Why the Emperor Wears No Clothes

Chapter 1: Tight Clothing’s Link to Health Problems

Chapter 2: Chemical Clothes Surround Us

Chapter 3: Health Effects of Synthetics

Chapter 4: We Are All Guinea Pigs

Chapter 5: Fabric Care That Creates Toxins

Chapter 6: Dressing Yourself and Others Safely

Chapter 7: The Dangerous Future of Clothing

Appendix

References

About the Authors

 INTRODUCTION:
Why the Emperor Wears No Clothes
As a young girl growing up in Sweden, I (Anna Maria) often heard a
Scandinavian folk tale about two swindlers pretending to be weavers who
convinced an emperor to purchase clothes made from a material of such high
quality that they were “invisible to any man who was unfit for his office or
unpardonably stupid.” Though the emperor realized that he couldn’t see his new
clothes, he refused to admit this to anyone out of fear he would be considered
stupid or unfit to rule. The emperor’s attendants and subjects similarly played
along and pretended they could see the clothes.
When the emperor wore his new “clothes” in a public procession, it fell to a
little child to exclaim, “He has nothing on at all.” This innocent observation
broke the spell so that everyone in the kingdom could admit to themselves and to
each other that the reported clothes were nothing but a delusion.
This parable, “The Emperor’s New Suit,” by nineteenth century author
Hans Christian Andersen, should hold new levels of meaning for us today. Pride,
vanity, and stubborn denial, all on display in this story, also characterize our real-
life clothing choices. Our Western culture’s refusal to recognize an
uncomfortable reality about the clothes we wear carries with it documented
threats to personal health and environmental well-being.
Synthetic-fiber clothing is worn with an illusion of safety but hides
invisible chemical and other dangers that clothing manufacturers and much of
the world’s health-care industry ignores, or attempts to rationalize away. The
“emperor” that rules most wardrobe choices today is fashion. This emperor is
worshipped at an economic altar on which considerations of health and safety
have largely been sacrificed.
Only in recent times have humans faced a fashion versus safety dilemma.
Ornamenting the human body, whether with paint or tattoos or clothing, seems to
have always been our natural impulse, but it was usually a secondary
consideration to comfort and protection from the elements. Humankind’s earliest
clothing may have consisted of leaves and grass matted together and draped
around the body, followed later by the use of animal hides to provide protection
from sunlight, heat, cold, and the other elements of nature. Some of the earliest
sewing needles made from ivory and bone have been carbon-dated to about
30,000 BC by archeologists, so we know that for much of human history the
production of clothing from animal and plant sources was labor intensive and
time consuming.
All of that changed dramatically with the Industrial Revolution of the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a period in which the textile industry
was mechanized so that the mass production of clothing became both possible
and profitable. Natural fibers such as cotton, flax, wool, and silk remained the
mainstays of this industry until the petrochemical revolution of the twentieth
century resulted in the creation of synthetic fibers in chemical laboratories.
Perhaps the most restrictive and unsafe item of clothing introduced in the
name of fashion during the nineteenth (or any other) century was the corset. It
squeezed women’s bodies and crushed their internal organs, even displacing
their ribs, until women could hardly breathe or move without experiencing pain.
These virtual straitjackets were worn because many women chose to believe
these garments made the feminine form more shapely and desirable to men.
There were some notable dissenters to the corset fad and the overall
Victorian infatuation with restrictive clothing. A late nineteenth century British
group called the Rational Dress Society— whose membership included Mrs.
Oscar Wilde, wife of the satirist and writer Oscar Wilde—campaigned against
corsets and tight clothing, and advocated the adoption of a style of dress based
upon considerations of health.
When it was founded in 1881, the group issued a position statement that
could still be used today as a guideline for how to choose safe clothing: “The
Rational Dress Society protests against the introduction of any fashion in dress
that either deforms the figure, impedes the movements of the body, or in any
way tends to injure the health.”

Synthetics Displace Natural Fibers

In virtually all areas of life during the twentieth century, synthetics replaced
naturally derived consumer products. Nowhere, with the possible exception of
cosmetics and personal care products, was this trend more pronounced than in
clothing and fabrics manufacturing.
Rayon, introduced in 1924, was the first artificial textile fiber, though
variations of this wood-based compound, including cellulose acetate, had been in
use since the previous century. But the first truly synthetic fiber was nylon—its
petro-molecule source being toluene—whose introduction in 1939 made the
mass production of parachutes for use in World War II a less expensive
alternative to silk. In that same year, vinyon, a polyvinyl chloride, was created to
bind non-woven fabrics. DuPont chemist Wallace Hume Carothers, generally
credited as the inventor of nylon, also probably deserves the title of father of the
synthetic textile industry.
Following the creation of nylon, which found its most popular consumer
use in women’s stockings (panty hose), a series of new synthetics were
developed and introduced into mainstream fashion:
• Acrylic and modacrylic in 1950. These “wash-and-wear” fabrics, which
often replace wool in sweaters, were considered to be a revolutionary timesaving
leap for homemakers, especially those who washed clothes by hand .
• Polyester in 1953. These “wrinkle-free” fabrics, developed from xylene
and ethylene, further reduced the amount of clothing made from cotton,
particularly men’s suits.
• Spandex and olefin in 1959. Sports clothes and bathing suits were the
prime uses for stretchable spandex. Sportswear and thermal underwear were
made from olefin, which is produced by “cracking” petroleum molecules into
propylene and ethylene gases.
The vast majority of clothing items produced in the world today—
constituting a $7 trillion a year industry—are either manufactured, or the fabric
fibers are grown, using synthetic chemicals, many of which are toxic to human
health. As a further challenge to health and safety, most of the cleaning agents
used to wash or dry clean clothes contain chemicals that can trigger adverse
physical symptoms. These effects on health should be particularly worrisome for
parents with babies and young children—who often place clothing in their
mouths and then chew and suck on the fabric—because the natural
detoxification systems of children’s bodies aren’t fully developed enough to
quickly or completely eliminate fabric chemicals.
According to The Ecologist magazine, an estimated eight thousand
chemicals are employed to transform raw materials into clothes, a process that
involves bleaching, dyeing, scouring, sizing, and finishing the fabrics. Synthetic
clothing now commonly contains such toxins as formaldehyde, brominated
flame retardants, and perfluorinated chemicals like Teflon fibers to give trousers,
skirts, and other apparel “noniron” and “nonwrinkle” durability. (Perfluorinated
compounds are classified as cancer-causing agents by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency guidelines.) Insecticides are even being applied to fibers in
the name of protecting health.
The latest clothing craze, which we will detail in chapter 7, takes
nanoparticles and adds them to garments, though scientific evidence that these
microscopic particles can harm human, animal, and plant life is accumulating .

Health Impacts Are Accumulating

 The entire history of synthetic fibers and synthetic clothing amounts to only
about six decades of production and use. The era of synthetic clothing really
began affecting mainstream wardrobe choices in the 1960s, which means the
chemicals used in their production have been in contact with human skin for just
a half-century.
Consider what has happened to human health in the industrialized world
during that half-century, when synthetic clothing began touching the skin of
mainstream consumers. Can it be merely coincidence that, according to the
World Health Organization, the industrialized parts of the world have
experienced the following:
• Up to one-third of married couples today experience fertility problems.
• Respiratory diseases have increased by 160 percent among preschoolers in
Europe and North America.
• Contact dermatitis and other skin ailments have become widespread.
• Our risks of contracting cancer have escalated until one in two males and
one in three females will develop this disease in an average lifetime.
• If you’re a woman, you now have a one-in-eight chance of developing
breast cancer in an average lifetime. For postmenopausal women, the rate of
breast cancer has escalated by 22 percent over just the past three decades.
Our own experience with the three hundred thousand guests who have
visited The Hippocrates Health Institute over the years bears out these statistics.
Once natural-fiber clothing began to be replaced by synthetics in the 1970s, we
started seeing increasing numbers of guests showing up with breast cancer,
prostate cancer, and a range of allergic conditions. That trend has accelerated
with each passing decade as natural-fiber clothing disappeared from store
shelves. It became apparent to us at Hippocrates that the addition of chemical
clothing to underlying chemical problems already existing in the body creates
even more chronic and serious health problems.
Human-made petrochemical fibers restrict and suffocate the skin, our
largest and most sensitive body organ, making it unable to breathe properly so it
can release toxins. Most people don’t realize that our skin is our body’s most
important eliminative organ. By some estimates, we release a pound of toxins
every day through our skin, assuming that it’s allowed to vent as nature intended.
If we hold back any percentage of these toxins from being released, they
accumulate in body fat and body organs to become like a time bomb, primed to
detonate as some future health malady.
Many of the impacts on health from chemicals used in synthetic clothing
are being documented in medical journal studies, but these reports rarely receive
mainstream media attention. To give just one illustration, contact dermatitis and
other allergenic effects caused by skin exposure to synthetic clothing “is not only
more frequent than previously thought,” according to a 2003 study in the
medical journal Dermatology Online , “but is also increasing.” This probably
comes as news to you because that study, like so many others dealing with the
health consequences of synthetic clothing, failed to receive the public attention it
deserved due to the “Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome,” that wall of silence and
denial surrounding the fashion manufacturing industry.
In Killer Clothes , that wall of silence will be breached as we reveal the
many ways that synthetic clothing, chemicals added to garments, and tight
clothing and tight shoes create acute problems for human health. Here are just a
few examples of our findings:
• Medical evidence has emerged that the longer a woman wears a bra,
especially a tight one, the greater her chance of developing breast problems,
including breast cancer.
• Synthetic fibers pose such a fire and burn hazard that the U.S. Marine
Corps prohibits its troops in Iraq from wearing synthetic clothing while off base .
• Medical studies have found that synthetic fibers help to induce muscle
fatigue and muscle motor disorders, which for competitive athletes can mean the
difference between winning and losing.
• Studies have determined that synthetic fibers produce electrostatic
discharges and, as a result, the wearing of tight synthetic clothing and
undergarments contributes to infertility in men.
• Permethrin is being added to civilian outdoor wear and military uniforms
even though no tests have been conducted of this insecticide’s long-term impact
on human health.
• Silver particles called nanosilver are being applied to name-brand clothing
lines as antiodor, antiwrinkle, and antistain agents, though medical studies raise
serious doubts about their safety.
Clothing manufacturers and even many toxicologists choose to believe that
absorbing tiny amounts of toxic chemicals from individual items of clothing
cannot be harmful to you. That often-repeated argument will be addressed in this
book in several different ways.
First, we don’t just absorb synthetic chemicals one at a time during the
average day. We are exposed to hundreds of chemicals as a result of using a wide
array of consumer products on our skin that contain synthetic ingredients,
particularly cosmetics and personal care products. Many of these same
chemicals are used in synthetic clothing. That means we absorb tiny amounts of
chemicals repeatedly from multiple sources until they add up and reach a tipping
point within us that could be harmful.
 Second, the rationalization that “the toxin levels are too small to inflict
harm,” as repeated by representatives of the synthetic clothing industry, fails to
take into account the role of chemical synergies and their impact on health.
While some individual chemicals alone may not endanger your health, when
chemicals from multiple sources combine and interact inside of your body, they
can have unpredictable and potentially powerful effects with health
consequences. These synergistic processes constitute the “black hole” of
ignorance within the fields of toxicology and preventive medicine .

A Return to Safe Clothing

Is it too much to expect that the clothing we allow to touch our skin should
be as natural and safe as it can possibly be? Shouldn’t we be as concerned about
wearing toxic chemicals as we are about ingesting or inhaling toxins?
Our freedom to choose and wear natural versus synthetic clothing has
narrowed over the past few decades because the lower costs of synthetics have
crowded natural fibers out of the marketplace. That’s why the United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organization declared 2009 to be the International Year of
Natural Fibres. The need to revive and promote the sustainability of natural
clothing industries worldwide came about because, as the U.N. group declared
on its website, the natural fibers industry “has lost a lot of its market share due to
the increased use of synthetic fibers.”
But as we will explain in this book, all of us retain the power to minimize
risks to our health by taking simple precautions and practicing mindfulness
about our clothing choices and the buying options that we still have. Killer
Clothes will help to guide you in making those important decisions by presenting
lists of safe products and safety-conscious manufacturers that still value
consumer health over easy profits.
Killer Clothes also documents how synthetic clothing impacts much more
than just our personal health and well-being. Chemical clothing affects the health
of the entire planet, from the toxic production methods used, to the chemicals
employed in the cleaning of these items, to clothing disposal practices that allow
these non-biodegradable products to continue to harm the environment long after
their users have ceased to exist.
German chemist Michael Braungart and American architect William
McDonough, authors of the 2002 book on ecologically intelligent design, Cradle
to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things , described how “textiles are
quite literally woven into the fabric of life,” but our reliance on dangerous
synthetics has steered us into a toxic blind alley. “The industry that launched the
Industrial Revolution has long illustrated some of its most notorious design
failures,” they wrote. “About one half of the world’s wastewater problems are
linked to the production of textile goods, and many of the chemicals used to dye
and finish fabrics are known to harm human health.”
“Often, the clippings from fabric mills are so loaded with dangerous
chemicals they are handled like toxic waste,” Braungart and McDonough point
out, “while the products made from these materials are considered safe for use in
the home.” The same troubling double standard holds true for all synthetic
clothing—the dangerous chemicals used to produce them are considered toxic by
manufacturers and public health institutions, but the clothing produced with
these chemicals is treated as safe for use on human skin.
The choices we face as consumers and stewards of the Earth should be stark
and clear. Organically grown natural fibers pose few threats to human health,
whereas chemical fibers and synthetic clothing contribute to a long list of
documented human ailments and degenerative conditions for the planet. Energy
for the production of natural fibers comes from the sun, a renewable resource,
whereas energy used to produce synthetic fibers comes mostly from fossil fuels,
which generate multiple types of environmental pollutants that help to accelerate
global warming.
You’ve heard it said that we become what we eat. If so, then we also
become what we choose to wear! With synthetic clothing, we literally absorb
some of the chemicals used in their manufacture. Safe clothes made from natural
organic fibers, by contrast, help to produce healthy bodies and healthy minds.
It is our hope that you will find this book to be a useful resource that will
help you to navigate this toxic minefield. Together we can build a healthier
future for all.
 CHAPTER 1:
Tight Clothing’s Link to Health Problems

Bras May Be a Breast Cancer Trigger

What if everything you thought you knew about bras and breast cancer
turned out to be wrong? Can you question your long-held assumptions and
personal habits, but more importantly, make necessary lifestyle corrections that
will protect and improve your health? Is putting your “chest eggs in a tight nest,”
as breasts in bras are sometimes equated, really necessary or even healthy?
These are the kinds of questions that Dr. Elizabeth R. Vaughan began
asking herself and her patients over a decade ago. Her background and
upbringing isn’t that of someone who might ordinarily be expected to become a
maverick health-care provider, much less one who challenges conventional
health wisdom with passionate conviction. She’s the daughter of two physicians,
a descendant of four generations of physicians, and her great-grandfather was
president of the American Medical Association. But her provocative outside-the-
mainstream ideas about bras, toxins, and breast cancer prompted USA Today to
call her “the Erin Brockovich of medicine.” You might recall Erin Brockovich as
the legal crusader who defied conventional wisdom and exposed the toxic
contamination of an entire town, and whose story was later told in a movie
starring Julia Roberts.
What Dr. Vaughan, CEO of Vaughan Medical Center in Greensboro, North
Carolina, began to notice was a relationship between the development of breast
lumps and cysts and the wearing of bras. She personally treated more than one
hundred women who, in her words, “chose to go bra free after yet another biopsy
of a lump in their breasts or aspiration of a cyst. Over three to six months, their
breast cysts and lumps got smaller and less tender, and they developed no new
lumps that we could detect.” Dr. Vaughan’s observation has since been
demonstrated in practice by other health-care providers.
Breast cysts may be one of the flashing red warning signs for the onset of
breast cancer. A 1999 study in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet
examined 1,374 women with breast cysts and tracked them based on their
incidence of breast cancer. It was found that premenopausal women with breast
cysts had a nearly six-fold increased risk of breast cancer compared to women
who didn’t have breast cysts. Here is how the authors of this study succinctly
summarized their findings: “Women with breast cysts are at an increased risk of
breast cancer.”
 That shouldn’t come as a surprise given that most women wear bras that are
much too tight for them and have worn them this way since they received their
first training bra as a young girl. According to the Johns Hopkins Breast Center,
“as many as 80 percent of women are actually wearing a bra that is the wrong
size for them,” a chronic condition that can produce health problems,
particularly in the backs of women with large breasts.
With a connection possibly established between breast cysts and breast
cancer, along with Dr. Vaughan’s findings that bras cause or exacerbate the
development of breast cysts, you don’t need to be the Sherlock Holmes of
common sense to grasp that bras, lymphatic drainage impairment, breast cysts,
and breast cancer may be linked, much like a chain reaction automobile wreck.
A key circumstantial piece of evidence showing a link between bras and breast
cancer emerged in 1991 from a study of breast size and breast cancer risk by
researchers in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public
Health. Published in the European Journal of Cancer , this survey of thousands
of women found that “Premenopausal women who do not wear bras had half the
risk of breast cancer compared to bra users.”
The study authors speculated that this could be because these
premenopausal women are “thinner and likely to have smaller breasts.” But that
observation received little or no support from subsequent medical studies. As the
director of the Johns Hopkins Breast Center declared in 2007: “Simply having
breasts and being female places all women at risk. Women with size 32AA bras
get breast cancer just like someone with 46DDs.”
This Harvard study finding about bra usage and a higher risk for breast
cancer should have set off alarm bells within the health field and the clothing
industry. At the very least, it should have spawned a spate of new studies
exploring this connection between bra use and breast cancer. But it caused barely
a ripple in public health awareness. Once again, as in the “Emperor’s New Suit,”
reflexive rejection and obstinate denial triumphed over reality and common
sense.

More Evidence Accumulates

Medical Anthropologist Sydney Ross Singer began to notice that when his
wife removed her bra, both of her breasts were “outlined by dark red lines,
marking the areas around her breasts and over her shoulders. The lines had been
left by her bra.” This observation came in the wake of his wife’s discovery in
1991 that she had a suspicious lump on her breast. Their search for medical
answers gave rise to a series of questions that in turn spawned a theory—could
the constrictive nature of the brassiere have suppressed her lymphatic system,
the internal network of blood vessels that flushes toxins from the breasts and
other parts of the body? Can toxins accumulate in breast tissue as a result of this
constriction, and can that accumulation in turn trigger the growth of breast lumps
and even the onset of breast cancer?
To test their theory, Singer and his wife designed and carried out a Bra and
Breast Cancer Study of 4,700 women, ages thirty to seventy-nine, who were
interviewed in five U.S. cities—New York, Dallas, Phoenix, Denver, and San
Francisco. About half had been diagnosed with breast cancer, the other half had
no breast cancer diagnosis. The questions asked of each woman included: Does
your bra ever leave red marks on your skin or cause irritation? How long do you
wear your bra each day on the average? During what stages in your teenage and
adult life did you not wear a bra?
Striking differences emerged in the answers given by the breast cancer and
noncancer groups regarding bra usage and bra comfort. Only 1 percent of the
cancer group wore their bras for fewer than twelve hours a day, compared to 20
percent of the noncancer group, who wore bras fewer than twelve hours a day.
Eighteen percent of the cancer group wore their bras to bed, compared to just 3
percent of the noncancer group. There were other statistically significant
differences between the two groups. Only 4 percent of the cancer group had
breast-fed their children, for instance, compared to 14 percent of the noncancer
group. Almost zero percent of breast cancer victims regularly went braless
before their diagnosis, versus 5 percent of women in the noncancer group who
regularly went without bras.
Here is how Singer calculated the cancer risks from bras based on the study
results:
• There is a six-fold greater incidence of breast cancer among women who
wear a bra all day and to bed than among the general population.
• Going braless results in twenty-one-fold reduction in breast cancer.
• Breast-feeding affords three and one-half times the protection against
breast cancer. One reason may be that breast-feeding stimulates greater drainage
within the lymphatic system of the breasts, helping to prevent the accumulation
of toxins. This observation is in line with other study findings that women who
have never given birth have a higher incidence of breast cancer.
Though not proving a link between bra usage and breast cancer, this study
nonetheless produced evidence suggesting that Singer’s theory could have merit.
“Breast cancer may be caused by the combined effects of toxins and bras on
breasts,” Singer concluded in the book Dressed to Kill : The Link Between Breast
Cancer and Bras . “Bras are not the cause of breast cancer, but they may be a
trigger for it.”
Other circumstantial support for Singer’s theory comes from cultural
observations made in the book Cancer on Five Continents , published by the
International Association of Cancer Registries in France. Women with the lowest
incidence of breast cancer live in cultures where bras are not part of traditional
wardrobes. These cultures include populations in parts of India, Israel, and
Singapore, as well as some American Indian tribal groups.
As a follow-up to their U.S. study, Singer and his wife did a survey of bra
use and breast cancer in Fiji, where an estimated half of all women adhere to
cultural tradition and refuse to wear Western-style bras. A Fijian health ministry
official told the couple that their bra and breast cancer theory made sense
because “our working women are now getting breast cancer. They are the ones
who wear bras.” The Singers examined several dozen case histories of breast
cancer among Fijian women, and every woman turned out to have broken from
cultural norms to become a bra wearer. “We found that, given women from the
same village (genetically related), with the same diet, the ones who developed
breast cancer were the ones who wore bras,” reported Singer and Grismaijer in
2007.
Mainstream practitioners of Western medicine continue to reject the idea of
any possible connection between bras and the occurrence of breast cancer. They
do so, for the most part, reflexively, without ever having examined the evidence.
Dr. Marissa Weiss, writing in Prevention magazine, made this bold claim
without citing any medical studies: “It’s not true that wearing a bra, especially
underwire bras, traps toxins by limiting lymph and blood flow in your breasts,
increasing risk.” A similar claim, once again without supporting medical
documentation, was made by Lillie Shockney, Administrative Director of the
Johns Hopkins Breast Center (funded by the Avon Foundation), who wrote in
her December 16, 2008, health column for Yahoo.com: “This is a myth that
needs to finally be put to rest. Having a bra that is too tight, too small,
underwired, or filled with air pockets or water doesn’t contribute to someone
developing breast cancer.” Shockney’s column drew numerous responses from
readers on Yahoo who challenged her with the same question: How do you
know?

Other Medical Research

Linking Bras and Disease
The heavier her bra material, the hotter a woman’s breasts become, and this
elevated breast temperature may contribute to the onset of breast cancer. This
was the conclusion of a 1978 study in The Lancet by Dr. John M. Douglass of
Los Angeles. He based his conclusions on examining several hundred women in
his medical practice.
Bras increase breast pain and discomfort, but when women discontinue
wearing bras, the pain decreases or disappears. Two British breast surgeons, Dr.
Simon Cawthorne of Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, England, and Dr. Robert
Mansel of the University of Wales Medical School, studied one hundred women
for three months to see if going bra free lessened breast pain. The findings were
conclusive—a majority of premenopausal women did improve their breast health
and comfort as a result of going bra free .
Pressure on the breasts from bras can elevate the core temperature of the
body and suppress the production of melatonin, an important antioxidant for
immune system health. Melatonin also has anticancer properties that are useful
in preventing breast cancer. In 2000 that was the finding of two researchers at
Japan’s Nara Women’s University who studied and measured the sleep-wake
cycles of ten women, aged eighteen to twenty-three, to document the effect of
bras on body temperature and melatonin levels.
In 2002 six other Japanese researchers did a study that documented how
skin pressure as a result of wearing bras affects the autonomic nervous system in
a harmful way. “Our data indicate,” wrote the researchers in the Journal of
Physiological Anthropology and Applied Human Science , “that the higher
clothing pressures exerted by a conventional brassiere have a significant
negative impact on the autonomic nervous system activity, which is
predominantly attributable to the significant decrease in the parasympathetic as
well as the thermoregulatory sympathetic nerve activities. Since the autonomic
nervous system activity plays an important role in modulating the internal
environment in the human body, excess clothing pressures caused by
constricting types of foundation garments on the body would consequently
undermine women’s health.”
Beginning in 1967 a series of studies in the Journal of the American
Medical Association and elsewhere documented how bras that are manufactured
with spandex fibers can cause skin problems in some bra wearers due to contact
with the chemicals used in the production process that remain in the garments .

Meet The Breast Toxins

Breast cancer specialists are in general agreement that about 85 percent of
the two-hundred thousand women in the United States who are diagnosed with
the disease each year have no inherited genetic predisposition, which means that
unhealthful lifestyle choices and the absorption of environmental pollutants
account for the vast majority of breast cancer cases.
Many health-care professionals fail to take into account that human skin,
the body’s largest organ, acts as a highly absorbent carrier for chemicals that
come into direct contact with our body’s “miracle garment,” as skin is often
called. Common chemicals that can regularly come into contact with your skin
and be absorbed by body tissues include the ingredients in cosmetics and
personal care products, as well as chemicals used in the manufacture of synthetic
clothing.
When toxins enter the body through the mouth and end up in the intestines,
they are channeled by the blood into the liver, where detoxification naturally
occurs. When toxins are absorbed through the skin, however, they bypass the
liver. In fact, as toxicology specialist Dr. Samuel Epstein states in his 2009 book,
Toxic Beauty , about toxins in cosmetics and personal care products, medical
evidence exists that human skin is even more permeable than the nutrient-
absorbing intestines, which makes skin the primary way that toxins invade the
body. “As difficult as it might be to believe,” wrote Dr. Epstein, a professor
emeritus at the University of Illinois and founder of the Cancer Prevention
Coalition, “mainstream manufacturers and regulatory authorities appear unaware
of the high permeability of skin, or else simply choose to ignore this as a critical
concern.”
The list of possible chemicals that could be accumulating in women’s
breasts as a result of their skin exposure to everyday products and clothing is a
lengthy one. Let’s start with preservatives called parabens that are found in
deodorants and antiperspirants and have been incriminated as a probable cause
of breast cancer .
A 2004 study in the Journal of Applied Toxicology examined concentrations
of parabens in human breast tumors and found a high correlation. As Dr. Epstein
commented, “Parabens’ presence in breast tissue on its own incriminates them as
a possible cause of breast cancer, but they have also been shown to stimulate the
growth of estrogen-sensitive breast cancer cells in laboratory tests.”
Triclosan is a second type of personal care product preservative that has
been shown in laboratory tests to induce hormone disruptive effects that could
trigger breast cancer. Triclosan is often found in antibacterial soaps, deodorants,
and other consumer goods, but most alarming, it’s also increasingly being added
to synthetic clothing to prevent bacterial growth. Surveys conducted by
Greenpeace International and other environmental and consumer groups have
detected triclosan in a high percentage of umbilical cord blood samples and in
the breast milk of half of all women that the groups tested, so we know this
chemical bioaccumulates in the body easily and persists in the body over time.
Detergents, called surfactants, appear in consumer products as cleansers but
also are used in the production of textiles and clothing. One of these detergents,
a nonoxynol known as 4-NP, has been lab tested in animals and found to trigger
the development of breast cancer. A 1994 study published in the medical journal
Endocrinology concluded: “Long-term exposure to 4-NP could leave individuals
at a significantly increased risk of developing breast cancer.” This chemical and
some other related surfactants have been banned or severely limited from use in
the production of clothing by the government of Norway out of concern for the
impact on human health, yet these chemicals are still commonly used in the
United States and most of the rest of the world.
Or consider the role played by the ingredients in most brand-name
shampoos. A carcinogen called 1,4-dioxane, which is readily absorbed through
the skin, contaminates an entire category of ethoxylate detergents—any with
“eth” in their names, such as myreth and oleth—and this contaminant was listed
in the medical journal Cancer ’s 2007 review of carcinogens as a producer of
breast cancer in rodent testing. In February 2007 a Los Angeles Times article
reported that eighteen personal care products tested by an independent laboratory
found high levels of dioxane.
Still another concern for women should be the ingredients in brand-name
antiperspirants. A 2006 study published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology
found evidence that aluminum chloride, used in high concentrations in most
antiperspirants, is a hormone disruptive chemical that could trigger the onset of
breast cancer. Study author Philippa Darbre, PhD, expressed concern that
aluminum chloride in antiperspirants is absorbed through the underarms and can
accumulate in the adjoining breast tissue. Professor Darbre also brought up the
issue of chemical synergies from multiple chemicals in personal care products
acting together inside the body. “Each of these agents on their own may not have
a powerful effect,” she wrote, “but we need to see what happens when a number
of them act together. It could be that this would have a significant effect on
diseases like breast cancer.”

Lymph System Is Key in Toxin Removal

As women absorb the chemicals mentioned above from skin contact with
consumer products and synthetic clothing, the toxins accumulate in breast tissue,
so the theory goes, and remain there because constrictive bra use prevents the
breast’s lymphatic system from draining properly. That could be one of the
triggers for the development of breast cancer. Consider how there are three
primary steps or stages to this theory.
Step one, toxins that can cause cancer, such as those in consumer products,
are absorbed by the body. They then accumulate in fat tissue because fat tissue
attracts toxins like a magnet. A woman’s breast tissue is mostly composed of fat
cells, so toxins tend to be stored there .
Step two, the body’s lymph system plays a role, along with the liver, in
removing toxins. If the lymph system fails to play its designated role effectively,
toxins get stored in fat cells for too long, and that triggers the development of
cancer cells.
Step three, because your body’s lymph system is reliant on passive forms of
fluid propulsion like movement and exercise (unlike your heart, which drives
blood through your vessels), the lymph system is sensitive to outside physical
pressure. Since there are lymph pathways and lymph nodes in your armpits,
under your breasts, and between your breasts, a tight-fitting bra can squeeze
those areas and prevent proper drainage of lymph fluid that might ordinarily
carry away toxins stored in fat cells.
If you’re a woman, the next time you remove your bra after a day of use, try
standing in front of a mirror and note the position of the strap marks. (If you’re a
man, take note of these marks on your wife or significant other.) The more your
bra was designed to mold your breasts into a particular shape, the more apparent
these strap marks will be. This is visual evidence of how breast constriction
interrupts drainage from the lymphatic system of your breast tissue. Add to this
constriction and immobilization an elevation in breast temperature, especially on
hot days, combined with extended bra use, and guess what may happen? Your
stored stew of toxins gets cooked inside of you.
On the website www.breastnotes.com , the relationship between the
constrictions of breasts inside bras and the impairment of lymphatic drainage is
addressed this way: “Unsupported breasts (of any size) will most likely move
when the woman is walking or moving about. This is a natural movement, and
there seems to be a reason for it. We have breast massage articles from several
experts that address the question of breast movement and its relationship to the
natural flow of lymphatic fluids in the breasts. Since there is no ‘heart’ to move
the lymphatic fluid, we must rely on body movement and muscular contractions
to move the fluid.”

More Skin Problems Caused by Bras

 Hundreds, if not thousands, of women began complaining in 2008 that their
bras were creating serious rashes and even scarring of the skin on and around
their breasts.
“My bra kept me burning and itching and gave me a horrible rash,” reported
sixty-six-year-old Jerilyn Amaya of West Palm Beach, Florida. “I finally stopped
wearing the bra and the symptoms disappeared.”
Ms. Amaya and more than six hundred other women across the United
States joined in federal lawsuits filed in Florida, New Jersey, and New York
against Victoria’s Secret and its parent company, Limited Brands Inc., accusing
the manufacturer of “negligently designing undergarments and misrepresenting
the safety” of their products. Specifically, the lawsuits alleged that Victoria’s
Secret bras contained formaldehyde resins at levels harmful to human health.
When the bras are heated in a clothes dryer, according to the lawsuits,
formaldehyde embedded in the fabric of the bras is released. Toxicologist
Patricia Williams told the Associated Press in April 2009 that “this is not a little
clothing rash” caused by the bras. She said, “The extent and severity of it is just
unbelievable. Many of (the plaintiffs) have scars that seem to be permanent.”
A spokesperson for Limited Brands replied that testing of their bras showed
“only small traces” of formaldehyde that “wouldn’t cause any health problems.”
Furthermore, said the spokesperson, the company doesn’t intentionally add
formaldehyde to its bras .

At least two medical studies can be cited as offering some support for the
crucial role that your lymphatic system plays in preventing, lessening, or
triggering breast cancer. In a December 2002 issue of the medical journal
Lymphology , researchers presented study findings showing how normal breast
lymph drainage is an important predictor of whether a woman with breast cancer
will survive. If a breast cancer patient’s lymph vessels are obstructed, her
chances of survival were rated as poor, whereas women with normal breast
lymph drainage had a 30 percent higher survival rate.
The second study was conducted in Britain and was summarized this way in
an October 31, 2000, edition of the Sunday Telegraph (London): “Wearing a bra
exposes women to a ‘statistically significant’ risk of increased breast pain, cysts
in the breast and might even be linked to the development of cancer.” One
hundred women who regularly suffered from breast pain or breast cysts were
asked to go bra free for three months. A significant number reported a reduction
in their symptoms during this period. The newspaper further reported that the
scientists in this study “suspect problems are caused by bras suppressing the
lymphatic system—the network of vessels that flushes toxic waste from the
body. Professor Robert Mansel, a professor of surgery at the University Hospital
of Wales, said the garments appear to be compressing the body at the outer upper
part of the breast—the area where 80 percent of the lymph flows.” This study
was considered particularly important in Britain because an estimated 40 percent
of women in that country complain of breast pain and breast cysts.
Breast-feeding provides a form of insurance against breast cancer by
helping to stimulate lymphatic system circulation within breast tissue. A breast-
feeding advocacy group, La Leche League International, compiled a list of
medical studies on its website, www.llli.org , that supports this point of view.
Here are a few representative examples of those study findings:
• About 1,432 new cases of breast cancer each year in the state of California
are attributable to women having never breast-fed their babies, and a simple
lifestyle change of breast-feeding, or lengthening the duration of breast-feeding,
could prevent many cases of breast cancer, according to a June 27, 2006, study
article in the journal BMC Cancer .
• Longer duration of breast-feeding could “reduce breast cancer risk
significantly,” according to a German study of 706 breast cancer cases, published
in February 2003 in the International Journal of Epidemiology .
• The incidence of breast cancer among women in developed countries
could be reduced by half, from 6.3 to 2.7 cases per hundred women, if breast-
feeding today were as common as a century ago, and the longer a woman breast-
feeds, the more protection against breast cancer she is afforded, concluded a July
20, 2002, study published in The Lancet .
• Finally, a 2001 article in the American Journal of Epidemiology , titled
“Long-term Breastfeeding Lowers Mother’s Breast Cancer Risk,” determined
that women who breast-fed a child for more than two years had a 54 percent
reduced risk of developing breast cancer compared with women who breast-fed
for fewer than six months. This protective effect was found to exist both before
and after the onset of menopause.

What Have You Sacrificed for Fashion?

Most women who we come into contact with on a daily basis share this
experience and opinion of bras—they are uncomfortable, they unnecessarily
restrict movement and blood flow, they impede our skin’s ability to breathe and
release toxins, and instinctively we know that bras and the bra industry are doing
harm to women’s bodies. So why do women wear them?
Brassieres are a relatively recent development in the history of women’s
clothing, having been patented in 1914 by Mary Phelps Jacobs to be an
alternative to the corsets that had contorted and restricted women from the waist
to chest ever since they first became popular during the 1500s in Europe.

Breast Massage Helps

Remove Toxins
Lymphatic drainage massage (LDM) is a manual technique that you can
perform on your own to help keep your breasts free of cysts, lumps, and cancer.
While any form of massage to the breasts may assist lymphatic flow, LDM
differs from regular therapeutic massage in several respects. The strokes of your
hand on your breast should be light and superficial in LDM, should be
performed slowly, and should manipulate the breasts in alternating clockwise
and counter-clockwise directions for the maximum and most beneficial fluid
release.

Because bras lift and shape the breasts upward in sometimes provocative
ways, our culture came to view them as a kind of sexual garment. Hollywood in
the 1940s and ’50s used movie icon Jayne Mansfield and other starlets to further
market bras as sex appeal enhancers. That public perception of sexuality
contributed to bras becoming the wearer’s statement of style and fashion,
irrespective of whether the undergarments served any real practical function.
So what do bras actually do that is useful? Answers provided by habitual
bra wearers and the bra manufacturing industry range from “keeping breasts
from sagging” to “making breasts appear more modest when in public.” Let’s
address these reasons and concerns one by one with counterarguments provided
by independent-minded women and medical authorities who have taken the time
to study the subject of bras and breasts.
Do bras really keep breasts from sagging? Three medical researchers at the
Otsuma Women’s University in Tokyo, Japan, conducted a 1990 experiment in
which eleven women, aged twenty-two to thirty-nine, wore bras for three months
and then, for another three months, they went without bras. Measurements and
photographs were taken once a week throughout the six-month experiment.
Here are the key findings of this experiment, as described in a medical
journal (Ashizawa 1990): “In all subjects, after three months of brassiere
constraint, the underbust circumference was smaller but the chest circumference
became enlarged, the distance between the right and left nipples became wider,
and the breasts tended to hang down. This change was more marked in obese
subjects with pendent breasts. And when this type of subject wore a ‘well-fitted’
brassiere for a long time, her breast form became developed, that is, her breasts
hung down more.”
Ligaments in a woman’s breasts hold the breasts up and in place. The more
a woman wears a bra, the more those ligaments atrophy, getting weaker and
smaller. The longer a woman goes braless, the more those ligaments strengthen
over time. That is why some women experience soreness in their breasts when
they go braless—the ligaments have weakened from lack of use. These are just
basic facts of human physiology.
Dr. Susan M. Love, in Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book , called the belief that
the breasts need to be supported a prevalent and persistent myth. “Wearing a bra
has no medical necessity whatsoever,” she declared. “The decision to wear or not
wear one is purely aesthetic, or emotional.”
In their book, The Complete Book of Breast Care , Dr. Niels H. Lauersen
and Eileen Stukane made a similar point: “Is a bra good or bad for your breasts?
Neither! There is no medical reason to wear a bra, so the decision is yours, based
on your own personal comfort and aesthetics. Whether you have always worn a
bra or always gone braless, age and breast-feeding will naturally cause your
breasts to sag.”
Dr. Christiane Northrup of the University of Vermont College of Medicine,
and author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom , cautions bra wearers: “Stop
wearing an underwire bra. Too often this kind of bra cuts off circulation of both
blood and lymph fluid around the breast, chest wall, and surrounding tissue.”
To err on the side of caution concerning your breast health, it’s best that you
don’t wear a bra at all. But if you do wear one, limit your bra usage to only those
absolutely necessary occasions. That might include when you exercise, jog in
public, or go to the gym. Find a sports bra that gives you the breast support that
you think you want and need without being overly restrictive. And if you do
wear a bra to work or during the day, never ever wear it to bed. The more time
you spend wearing a bra, the higher your risk of developing serious problems
with your breasts.

Breast Cancer Risk Is Increased by Acrylic and Nylon

If you repeatedly absorb chemicals from certain fibers at an early age, you
run a risk of contracting a variety of diseases and ailments. The latest evidence
to emerge about the lifelong consequences of chemical contact is in relation to
exposure to acrylic and nylon fibers and how they multiply the risk of breast
cancer later in life.
As part of ongoing research to understand the role of synthetic chemicals in
the development of breast cancer, a team of Canadian scientists and chemists
from Montreal examined the exposure of 1,169 postmenopausal women to about
three hundred chemical substances. What they found and reported in 2010
should alarm any woman who has had sustained contact, especially in an
occupational setting, with nylon or acrylic fabrics.
Of the three hundred substances that were analyzed in this epidemiological
study, exposure to acrylics and nylon demonstrated the greatest association with
breast cancer in women fifty to seventy-five years of age. These risks peaked for
exposures before the age of thirty-six and increased with each additional decade
of exposure.
The actual increase in breast cancer risk from exposure to the chemicals in
each fabric is quite substantial. Women exposed to acrylic fibers early in life
multiplied their breast cancer risk by sevenfold, while nylon fiber exposure
almost doubled their risk, according to 2010 study results reported in the British
medical journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine . Acrylic synthetic
fibers are derived from acrylic acid. It is used in clothing as a less expensive
alternative to cashmere. Acrylic doesn’t dye well, so its polymers are dyed
before it becomes fiber or fabric. Static buildup is a common problem with this
fabric, and it is known to irritate people with sensitive skin.
Nylon is formed from a reaction of diamine and dicarboxylic acid Acetic
acid and other chemicals are added during the production process. Originally
invented as a silk replacement, nylon became popular in the 1940s for use in
women’s stockings. It is also found in a wide variety of other fabrics, from bridal
veils to vests.
While the scientists involved in this study conceded their results might be
due to chance, at least until other studies replicate and expand on their findings,
they pointed out that the association they found was consistent with many other
studies showing the sensitivity of breast tissue to chemicals. If the breast tissue
exposure to chemicals occurs when breast cells remain active, which is into the
forties for most women, chemical contact can be particularly powerful in
creating toxic consequences later in life.

Tight Shoes Are Not a Fashion Requirement

No matter what materials your shoes happen to be made from, they count as
a form of clothing apparel. Like other articles of clothing, shoes come
manufactured with many of the chemicals that make clothing so problematic to
health.
Shoes made in part or whole from petrochemicals generate many of the
same health and environmental hazards as synthetic clothing. One clear impact
on ecosystems is that shoes don’t easily (if at all) biodegrade once discarded in
landfills.

Seven Bra-Free Options

for Breast Health
You can appear in public bra free without having to feel self-conscious that
you’re being stared at or that you’re in violation of a workplace dress code. Here
are seven simple and inexpensive options for bra-free breast health.
1. Wear a sleeveless undershirt. Most often sold as men’s wear, these
undershirts are comfortable and come in a variety of thicknesses.
2. Wear a camisole. Whether silk or cotton, these garments have adjustable
clasps and give the appearance of a bra to observers.
3. Wear a vest. Either a men’s or women’s dress or casual vest can be worn
over your blouse to hide the outline of your breasts.
4. Wear a loosely fitted top. Depending on your breast size, loose tops can
camouflage your breasts effectively.
5. Wear a shirt with pockets. Pockets camouflage the outline of your
breasts and nipples.
6. Wear a bust-free bra. These are two cups that cling inside your outer
garment’s fabric.
7. Wear NuBra cups. Check out www.nubra.com for examples of adhesive
cups that can cover your breasts to keep your nipples from showing through
outer clothing.

Consider the effects of just one chemical used in the production of one type
of shoe—those made of leather. Up until the mid- to late twentieth century,
vegetable chemicals were used to tan leather to prepare it to be made into shoes.
Chromium tanning replaced vegetable tanning because manufacturers found it to
be a cheaper and faster process.
Chromium can be a carcinogen, and because most shoes today are made in
developing countries with almost nonexistent safety and environmental rules,
chromium contamination of people and ecosystems is disturbingly common. As
William McDonough and Michael Braungart observe in their book, Cradle to
Cradle , another problem with the use of chromium in shoe production comes
“when manufacturing wastes are dumped into nearby bodies of water or
incinerated, either of which distributes toxins.”
 These two authors also point out how rubber-soled shoes usually contain
lead and plastics, and that as the shoes are worn, “particles degrade into the
atmosphere and soil. It cannot be safely consumed, either by you or by the
environment.”

Foot Health Is Often Overlooked

Many people unnecessarily sacrifice comfort and their foot health in pursuit
of some trendy designer’s idea of which shoes should be fashionable to wear in
public. A vast majority of foot problems are the result of incorrect or poorly
chosen footwear, according to Britain’s Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists,
which did a survey of two thousand people in 2009 that found four in ten women
purchase and then wear uncomfortable shoes because they are considered
fashionable. By contrast, about 17 percent of the men surveyed admitted to
intentionally buying shoes in an incorrect size because of how they look when
worn.
Four common foot problems caused by poor shoe choices—conditions
experienced by 80 percent of the women surveyed—include:
• blisters created by the friction from ill-fitting shoes
• corns caused by rubbing and pressure
• bunions in which foot compression creates painful swelling on the sides of
the big toes

A Tight-Fitting Clothes Infection

Warning for Women
You may think those tight-fitting jeans and short skirts make you look and
feel sexy, but would you still wear them if the unexpected price you had to pay
was a serious vaginal infection?
A 1983 study in the American Journal of Public Health examined 160
women and divided them into two equal groups—one that primarily wore tight-
fitting garments 80 percent or more of the time, and one that primarily wore
loose clothes 80 percent or more of the time. The results were clear.
“Our present study confirms our previous observation,” wrote the study
authors, “that wearing of tight fitting clothing, coupled with nylon underwear
and/or panty hose, creates more warmth and moisture in the vaginal and cervical
areas, thus producing an environment favorable for colonization of Candida
albicans and other yeasts.”
 • ingrown toenails produced by tight footwear, especially when exacerbated
by tight socks
A second survey by the same foot organization, this time questioning one
thousand pregnant women in June 2010, found even more health problems
associated with wearing the wrong size shoes in the name of fashion. Many of
these women wore ballet pumps (53 percent), or flip-flops (66 percent), and even
high heels (32 percent) during the nine months of their pregnancies .
Seven out of every ten pregnant women reported problems with their feet
from these poor shoe choices. Swollen ankles turned out to be a complaint
confessed by 37 percent of those questioned, 45 percent had swollen feet, and 16
percent described acute arch and heel pain.
One might think it would be a matter of common sense that pregnancy
confers the need to take special precautions concerning all aspects of health. But
suffering in order to be seen as remaining fashionable is an old habit that too few
women consider while pregnant. The effects of weight gain and hormonal
changes are exacerbated by wearing shoes that offer little or no body support.
High heels are particularly unsafe, not only shortening calf muscles, but also
increasing pressure on the back and knees, which are all conditions that increase
the wearer’s prospect of experiencing dangerous falls.

Don’t Forget Those Flip-Flops

They are usually loose on your feet, and they’ve been worn by humans for
thousands of years—the Egyptian King Tutankhamen and Queen Cleopatra used
them—but that doesn’t mean flip-flop sandals are good for your feet, especially
if you wear them frequently.
“If you wear them all the time, they aren’t good for you,” claims Dr. Kathya
Zinszer, associate professor of podiatric medicine at Temple’s School of
Podiatric Medicine. “They give you no support and they don’t protect your feet.”
Research studies support her point of view. A 2008 Auburn University
study documented that people who wear flip-flops take shorter steps, and the
heels of their feet hit the ground with less vertical force than when they wear
other shoes. The cumulative impact of this repeated motion is pain in the
wearer’s ankles, feet, and legs.
Flip-flop wearers seem willing to sacrifice foot health for temporary
comfort, at least until the pain gets too severe and they begin to realize its
source. If you experience foot problems, start wearing a more structured shoe
that protects the feet and ankles .
Always keep in mind that if your feet hurt, no matter what kind of shoe you
are wearing, something is wrong and needs to be corrected. You may need to
make some overdue changes in your footwear and perhaps even in your ideas
about what is stylish.
 CHAPTER 2:
Chemical Clothes Surround Us
Take an inventory of your wardrobe. Start with the labels to determine what
percentage of your clothing is synthetic. This will become your risk-to-reward
ratio. The more synthetic clothing you have, the greater your risk of absorbing
enough toxic chemicals to affect your health.
In this section you will learn what fabrics and chemicals to watch for when
you shop and select clothing, and how to identify deceptive synthetic fabrics.
Labels don’t always tell the true story, so you may need to use the series of tests
described later, including a safe burn test, to determine whether a fabric is a
particular type of synthetic that contains chemicals that you want to avoid.

The Four Stages of Fabric Production

Both synthetic and natural textiles, as they go from fiber to fabric, pass
through four distinct production stages. In stage one, fiber preparation, the fibers
are cleaned and undergo spinning and weaving. Silk and cotton are usually clean
fibers and just require dry processing to remove dirt particles. Raw wool,
however, can contain up to 40 percent its weight in impurities that include
pesticides, lanolin (wool grease), and dirt and perspiration residues. All require
removal and disposal before the next stage of production.
The most common solvent used by manufacturers to clean wool is a
chemical called trichloroethylene. This substance has been classified by the
International Agency for Research on Cancer as a probable human carcinogen
because it induces lung and liver tumors in laboratory test animals. What makes
the use of this chemical more distressing is that no safe exposure levels exist,
according to the European Union’s Existing Chemicals Bureau risk assessment.
As the European Union agency reported in 2004: “For carcinogenicity and
mutagenicity endpoints there is no identifiable threshold exposure level below
which the effects would not be expressed, so there are health concerns at all
exposure levels.”
In stage two of production, fibers are singed and sized, scoured to further
remove impurities, and finally put through a bleaching process that may include
optical brightening. During oxidative bleaching, a chemical called EDTA is used,
which should be a source of concern for both human health and the environment.
This detergent is a proven hormone disrupter, which means it mimics the effects
of natural hormones produced by the body’s endocrine system. The chemical
also persists in effluent released from manufacturing plants, and slow
decomposition poses unknown hazards for aquatic and other wildlife.
Concerned by rising EDTA levels measured in its rivers and lakes,
Germany forced its textile manufacturers to reduce EDTA releases during the
late 1990s and to find safer alternatives that biodegrade rapidly. (In response,
German chemists created EDDS and IDA to replace EDTA.)
As for optical brightening, which occurs after bleaching to conceal any
discoloration, the chemical agents come from many detergent formulations.
Some studies have found that these chemicals also persist in the environment
once released in textile effluent. In 2005 the Greenpeace Research Laboratories
in Britain did a survey of the scientific literature and found that “there is a
general lack of information on toxicity and a need for studies into dermal
absorption and the release of these substances from clothes.”
Stage three of the production process involves the dyeing or printing of
fabrics. Dyes derived from nature pose few health or environmental concerns
because natural dyes “tend to be inherently biodegradable and a lower chemical
loading to waste streams is associated with their use,” according to the
Greenpeace report. We are not so fortunate in the case of most synthetic dyes
applied to textiles, or in the case of printing pigment processes.
There are a dozen different dye processes and all carry some risks, but the
ones with the most problematic health and environmental effects are direct dyes,
vat and sulphur dyes, chrome dyes, and most troublesome of all, disperse dyes.
Let’s look at the problems that Greenpeace identified with each:
• Direct dyes: Saltlike compounds known as quaternary ammonium form
with the dye molecules, and the result can be toxic to aquatic organisms. This
type of dye is also treated with formaldehyde, whose release with dye waste in
effluent creates both ecological and toxicological concerns.
• Vat dyes: These expensive dyes generally involve indigo or anthraquinone
colors and may release heavy metals from the production process.
• Sulphur dyes: Sulphide and sodium hydrosulphide are used to make these
dyes water soluble, and these can create environmental problems when released
into ecosystems.
• Chrome dyes: In this process chrome ions “attach” the fibers to dyestuffs
and bonds them to achieve excellent wash fastness. But the use of chromium
(VI) can cause allergic skin reactions and even skin ulceration. It can also
damage the human kidneys and liver and be toxic to aquatic life. Studies have
found that both chromium (III) and chromium (VI) accumulate in many aquatic
species, especially in bottom-feeding fish.
 • Disperse dyes: These dyes are used to dye polyester. The molecules of this
dye are smaller than those of other dyes and “the lack of a strong chemical bond
permits a degree of migration out of the fiber (which) accounts for the high
incidence of contact dermatitis associated with disperse dye stuffs,” concluded
the Greenpeace report. When polyester fabrics treated with these dyes are
subjected to high temperatures, antimony oxides are released. These substances
are rated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a possible
carcinogen for humans. At least twenty-one of these dyes have been identified as
allergens and the trigger for contact dermatitis.
Dye printing allows textile manufacturers to apply a range of different
colors, compared to conventional dyeing that gives fabric a uniform color. But
the pigments in printing must be bound to the fabric with a polymer, and the
most commonly used plasticizers are a family of phthalates—DEHP, BBP, DINP,
and DHP. Phthalates have been well studied and are known to be toxic to both
human health and environmental health. DEHP is a reproductive toxin that
causes changes in the testes (including atrophy) and damages sperm cells.
Finally, in stage four of textile production, a wide range of finishes are
applied depending on the fabric and the claims made by manufacturers to
consumers. Some of the claims are ridiculous. For example, there is a “wellness”
finish applied by one clothing manufacturer to release the antioxidant vitamin E
into the skin of wearers.
Other finishes have received widespread consumer support in the name of
convenience—easy care fabrics to bestow wrinkle-resistance and reduce
shrinkage from laundering; a variety of water-repellent finishes; flame retardants
in children’s clothes and adult’s; and antibacterial and fungicidal agents for those
concerned with germs. All of these finishes carry some risk to health.
Who knows what else will soon be on the clothing “convenience” horizon
(see chapter 7 for some alarming examples.) Today, these are the finishes to
watch out for:
• Easy care: Wrinkle-free and shrinkage-free garments release
formaldehyde, which is a risk to both human and animal health. Substitutes now
exist, if industry will only embrace them, which would eliminate formaldehyde
as a by-product of these finishes.
• Waterrepellent: Fluoropolymers are used to repel oil and water from fabric
surfaces, but these compounds have proliferated throughout the environment and
persist in ecosystems with unknown effects on aquatic and other wildlife .
• Flame retardant: As discussed elsewhere in this book, halogenated flame
retardants pose many risks to human and environmental health. Safer
alternatives exist, if the textile industry, especially in the United States, just
decides to adopt them.
• Bacterial and fungicidal: Triclosan is the most common application in this
category of finishes. The Danish EPA has measured triclosan levels in clothes at
up to 195 parts per million. It poses health risks for humans and bioaccumulates
in ecosystems, with toxic levels detected in rainbow trout and other aquatic
species.
Most recently added to the toxic release load from all of the above is the
insecticide called permethrin, which is applied to clothing as an insect killer and
has its own documented environmental and health impacts. We will detail those
dangers in a later chapter.

You Are Probably Wearing Formaldehyde

Your first and only conscious awareness of contact with formaldehyde may
have come in high school biology class when you worked with lab specimens
that floated in the preservative, so it may come as a surprise that formaldehyde is
also commonly added to clothing to help preserve the fabric from the wear and
tear of daily use. You’re probably wearing formaldehyde as you read these
words.
It was discovered in 1867 by a German scientist who extracted methanol
from the charcoaling of wood. A highly toxic chemical, it’s effective as a
permanent press wrinkle-proofing agent because it’s a simple molecule that can
connect individual fibers and enable them to hold their shape after repeated
cleanings. Other widespread uses of formaldehyde in fabrics, which make it a
difficult chemical to avoid, include the following:
• anticling, antistatic, and antishrink finishes to clothing
• waterproof finishes
• perspiration-proof finishes
• moth-proof and mildew-resistant finishes
• stiffening for lightweight nylon knit s
• chlorine-resistant finishes
• dyes and printing inks (formaldehyde helps to prevent colors from running
by binding the dyes to fabric fibers).
Laboratory testing of animals has documented how formaldehyde acts as a
“frank” carcinogen capable of causing cancer in humans. It also can cause a
range of other health problems, such as skin and lung irritation, and contact
dermatitis. In 2004, the International Agency for Research on Cancer announced
that formaldehyde was a probable cause of nasopharyngeal cancer in humans,
other evidence linked exposure to nasal cavity and paranasal cavity cancer, while
still other studies provided evidence that it might cause leukemia.
When it comes to the presence of formaldehyde in clothing, no country in
the world bans its use in textiles, but most governments regulate its levels and
some are in disagreement over what levels of this chemical are considered safe
for human contact. Here are a few of the limits, based on data compiled in 2008
by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission:
• In China, the formaldehyde limit is 20 ppm (parts per million) in textiles
for infants and 75 ppm in textiles that will be in direct skin contact with children
and adults.
• In Japan, formaldehyde must not be detectable in textiles for infants. For
textiles that will be in direct skin contact with children and adults, the limit is 75
ppm.
• In the Netherlands, clothing must not contain more than 120 ppm after
washing.
• In the United States, manufacturers are subject only to “voluntary”
standards; no laws or regulations mandate formaldehyde levels.
The attitude of government health and regulatory authorities in the United
States toward the presence of formaldehyde in people’s lives has provoked
considerable concern from independent health and industry experts. David
Brookstein, director of the Institute for Textile and Apparel Product Safety,
testified in April 2009 before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Consumer
Protection and made the following declaration about formaldehyde in textiles:
“While many industrialized countries limit exposure to formaldehyde in textiles,
the United States has only voluntary industry standards. This is a matter of great
concern to the American people. The possible health effects from formaldehyde
exposure are not fully studied or understood.”

What Formaldehyde Levels Are Health Hazards?

Formaldehyde in clothing and its health implications became the focus of a
spirited public debate in 2007 when a New Zealand television show broadcast
the results of laboratory tests of Chinese clothing imports that apparently found
dangerously high levels of the chemical. Concentrations of formaldehyde up to
nine hindred times the “safe” level were detected in woolen and cotton clothes
manufactured in China, according to TV3’s “Target” consumer watchdog
program, which had hired an independent laboratory to test children’s school
clothes, pajamas, trousers, and other garments. The broadcast detailed its
findings this way: “The girls’ top had a total reading of 230 parts per million, the
women’s corduroys a total of 290. School shorts total 630. ‘Spiderman’ T-shirt
total 1,400. Pajamas total 3,400, children’s pants total 16,000. One hundred
percent woolen pants total 17,000, 100 percent cotton trousers total 17,000, and
stain-resistant pants total 18,000.”
After this controversial program aired, the New Zealand Ministry of
Consumer Affairs, under public pressure from clothing importers, did its own
testing of formaldehyde in imported fabric and found that “ninety-seven out of
the ninety-nine garments it tested had no detectable or very low levels of
formaldehyde.” This striking discrepancy between the New Zealand TV findings
and the government agency results might be explained by a difference in testing
procedures and by different points of view about what level of formaldehyde in
clothing is really safe .
When the TV show’s consulting lab tested the Chinese clothing imports, it
measured the combined presence of two types of formaldehyde that appear in
fabrics—free and bound. By contrast, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs only
measured the clothing for its “free” formaldehyde (molecules unattached to
fibers), ignoring the level of bound formaldehyde embedded in the fabric fibers.
This is the crux of the reason why some independent health experts dispute the
formaldehyde level standards of safety adopted by most governments and the
international clothing manufacturing industry, because measuring only the free
formaldehyde doesn’t tell the complete story of that chemical’s presence or
effect.
This international standard of measuring clothes only for the free
formaldehyde levels present is based on the assumption that bound
formaldehyde doesn’t off-gas from fabric fibers fast enough, or in great enough
quantities, to be absorbed by human skin and pose any hazard to health. So it’s
never even measured or considered when manufacturers adhere to standards set
by the various governments of the world. But is this assumption valid beyond a
reasonable doubt, and is it based on solid scientific evidence? The short answer
is no!
Consider the implications of how the following study challenges
mainstream scientific beliefs. In 1999 a team of Japanese scientists took twenty-
seven noniron shirts and measured the quantity of free formaldehyde in each,
before and after washing and drying, every week for six months. About one-third
of these shirts contained between 75 parts per million and 202 ppm of free
formaldehyde before washing. After six months, the quantity of free
formaldehyde in twelve of the shirts still exceeded 75 ppm, which meant that
bound formaldehyde in the fabric had continued leaching out over time. A
person wearing one of those shirts would have been absorbing a constant stream
of formaldehyde molecules for six months. Had the experiment gone on longer,
researchers might have found that the exposure extended to a year and beyond.
The research team, describing their study results in the Journal of Health
Science , concluded that “free formaldehyde sometimes increases once again
with time by decomposition of (formaldehyde) resin.”
There are factors other than just the passage of time involved in the
degradation of bound formaldehyde and its release from fabric fibers. Humidity
and high temperatures can also cause an increased release of the chemical. Of
course, it’s precisely the exposure to high heat and humidity that opens up our
pores and enables chemicals like formaldehyde to be more readily absorbed.
Even the act of sweating, according to the New Zealand Dermatological Society,
“appears to leach free formaldehyde from formaldehyde resins” in fabric fibers.
Do regulatory agencies take into account all of these factors when deciding what
formaldehyde exposure levels in clothing are safe for human health? The short
and long answer is no!
The U.S. National Cancer Institute points out that since 1987 the
occupational exposure standard for formaldehyde in U.S. workers had been just
1 ppm averaged over an eight-hour workday. In 1993, the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration changed the law and lowered that standard to only
0.75 ppm of exposure. These regulatory changes occurred in the wake of
National Cancer Institute findings that a 30 percent increase in lung cancer had
developed among workers who were exposed to formaldehyde on the job. Why
aren’t these same or similar standards of safety being applied to the clothing that
people wear eight hours and more a day, every day?
Here is some of what health experts know about the effects of low levels of
formaldehyde, especially on children. In the book Formaldehyde on Trial , by
Lloyd Tataryn, the author observed that “the first adverse health symptoms
associated with formaldehyde exposure—burning and tearing of the eyes,
general irritation of the upper respiratory tract—usually appear at concentrations
beginning at 0.01 parts per million. Concentrations of 0.8 to 1.0 ppm can
produce bronchitis and asthma. Exposures of 10 to 20 ppm can produce severe
coughing, a feeling of pressure in the head, headaches, and heart palpitations;
exposures of 50 to 100 ppm can cause serious lung damage and death. ”
Dr. Ruth A. Etzel, speaking on behalf of the American Academy of
Pediatrics, appeared before the same U.S. Senate Subcommittee in April 2009
that Professor David Brookstein spoke before, and she made these points about
formaldehyde in clothing: “Children may be more susceptible than adults to the
respiratory effects of formaldehyde. Even at fairly low concentrations,
formaldehyde can produce rapid onset of nose and throat irritation, causing
cough, chest pain, shortness of breath, and wheezing. At higher levels of
exposure, it can cause significant inflammation of the lower respiratory tract,
which may result in swelling of the throat, inflammation of the windpipe and
bronchi, narrowing of the bronchi, inflammation of the lungs, and accumulation
of fluid in the lungs. Children may be more vulnerable than adults to the effects
of chemicals like formaldehyde because of the relatively smaller diameter of
their airways.”
Dr. Etzel strongly urged the U.S. senators, and the Consumer Product
Safety Commission, to take action that would “limit formaldehyde in children’s
clothing.” She noted that “at least a dozen other nations already restrict
formaldehyde residues in children’s clothing,” and similar limits should be
imposed in the United States. At the very least, she said, the government “should
require labels on children’s clothing and products that indicate the presence of
formaldehyde residues.”
Since three-fourths of the clothing sold in the Uunited States each year
comes from China and other exporting countries, much of our focus needs to be
on whether the formaldehyde standards in those nations are adequate to ensure
that manufacturing practices don’t endanger health. Professor Andy Pratt with
the Department of Chemistry at the University of Canterbury (New Zealand)
examined this question and came to some troubling conclusions. “There is a
concern that manufacturing processes are not done carefully enough to keep
levels of formaldehyde low,” he said in an interview. “Formaldehyde levels are
much higher than we’ve seen in the past. We’ve seen this through the increasing
production of fabrics in Eastern Europe and in China. The traditional safety
levels in many of those clothing manufacturing plants have not been at the level
we’ve expected in western countries, and as you drop those standards of tract
chemical contamination, you end up with this problem.”
The following points summarize the case against the use of formaldehyde
in clothing and why you should avoid any garments containing this chemical:
• Both free and bound levels of formaldehyde in garments should be
measured together and taken into account to establish standards of health and
safety, because the bound levels migrate out of fabric fibers and into skin contact
much more easily and frequently than clothing manufacturers or regulatory
agencies seem aware or will publicly acknowledge.
• Clothing imported from China and other newly industrialized countries
contains higher levels of formaldehyde than previously allowed, and this
clothing now accounts for most of the wearing apparel sold in the United States
and many other western countries. (An investigation by the Australian Wool
Testing Authority that was reported by The Sydney Morning Herald in 2007, for
example, found that a brand of blanket imported from China contained 2,790
parts per million of formaldehyde, more than ten times the amount permissible
under any international standard.)
• It’s not just the levels of formaldehyde that our skin is exposed to in
clothing that we should be concerned about. We also absorb formaldehyde from
multiple sources every day, such as cosmetics and other personal care products
that we also put on our skin. We must think in terms of reducing our exposure
levels from all of these many sources of contamination.
• Finally, though clothing manufacturers contend that low levels of
formaldehyde exposure from their garments will have no health effects, these
reassurances fail to take into account the cumulative long-term effect in the
human body from absorbing formaldehyde molecules as clothing degrades with
washing .

Even Cotton Conceals Chemical Dangers

Most consumers assume that if an item of clothing is labeled as “cotton” or
even “natural,” it must automatically be a safe product. But it’s important to
keep in mind that not all cotton is created equal. Non-organic cotton contains
residues of herbicides and pesticides that are used in the growing process. These
can be detrimental to human health, especially infant and child health.
There are many reasons for choosing organic cotton over nonorganic cotton
varieties, and not just for human health reasons. We lessen our impact on the
environment by choosing organic brands of clothing.
What does organic really mean when applied to cotton garments? As
defined by the National Organic Standards board, “Organic agriculture is an
ecological production management system that promotes and enhances
biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity. It is based on the
minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore,
maintain, and enhance ecological harmony.” In other words, organic means the
use of few if any synthetic chemicals in the cultivation of cotton, or in the
manufacturing process.
Because cotton isn’t a food crop, the herbicides and pesticides and other
chemicals used in the production of nonorganic varieties aren’t regulated by the
government. Cotton is the most pesticide-dependent crop grown anywhere in the
world, accounting for 25 percent of all pesticide use. So for every single pair of
jeans and every T-shirt produced using cotton, about one pound of pesticides and
chemical fertilizers are used.
During the conversion of conventional cotton into clothing, still more toxic
chemicals are added at each stage of its production, from harsh petroleum
scours, softeners, brighteners, and heavy metals to flame and soil retardants,
ammonia, and formaldehyde, and finally, synthetic chemical dyes. Many of these
toxins have been linked to a range of health problems, including allergies,
insomnia, immune disorders, cancer, and neurological disorders.
A virtual witch’s brew of toxins are absorbed by the cotton fibers by the
time it reaches consumers. Because a baby’s skin is more porous, thinner, and
more absorbent than an adult’s, we must be particularly vigilant about their skin
contact with nonorganic cotton. The manufacturer Johnson & Johnson makes the
following point on the company website: “A baby’s skin is thinner, more fragile,
and less oily than an adult’s. A baby’s skin also produces less melanin, the
substance that helps protect against sunburn. It’s less resistant to bacteria and
harmful substances in the environment, especially if it’s irritated. Babies also
sweat less efficiently than the rest of us, so it’s harder for them to maintain their
inner body temperature.”
Organic clothing uses cotton that is farmed without pesticides and involves
safer methods, such as crop rotation, physical removal of weeds instead of use of
herbicides, hand hoeing, and the introduction of beneficial insects such as
ladybugs to counteract the presence of pests. The result is a cotton fabric that is
toxin free and kid friendly.
Producers of organic cotton claim a variety of other benefits from its use—
it’s safer, sturdier, cheaper, and feels better on the skin. Conventionally produced
cotton material may only last for ten to twenty washes before it starts to break
down, whereas organic cotton fabric can last for one hundred washes or more
before it begins to show wear. The reason for this difference is that
conventionally produced cotton fibers take so much abuse—going through
scouring, bleaching, dying, softeners, formaldehyde spray, and flame and soil
retardants—before even being shipped to be cut for patterns that result in the
clothing you see in stores.
Choosing organic fibers is another step toward more natural and more
healthful living. To summarize, here are our top seven reasons to tell yourself
and others that organic cotton is superior to nonorganic blends:
1. It helps to protect your and your children’s health.
2. It reduces pesticide and other chemical use .
3. It protects farm workers from chemical exposure.
4. It helps to protect water and overall environmental quality.
5. It is a sturdier and longer-lasting fabric.
6. It feels more comfortable to wear.
7. It supports a more sustainable future for agriculture.
How Much Flame Retardant Have You Absorbed?
It seemed like a good idea at the time—make children’s sleepwear self-
extinguishing if the clothing caught on fire. What could possibly be
wrongheaded about such a worthy goal of protecting our children?
After the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) ruled in 1971
that children’s sleepwear must be self-extinguishing when exposed to heat or
flames, clothing manufacturers began adding a fire retardant chemical called
brominated Tris to children’s clothing fabrics. Amounts equal to about 5 percent
of the fabric weight were added to each piece of sleepwear to make it flame
resistant.
Odds are that if you or your child were born or grew up during the 1970s,
you were exposed to Tris. Fibers used in children’s sleepwear that were treated
with it included acetate, triacetate, and polyester. The CPSC estimated that 120
million sleepwear garments contained this flame retardant, and we can assume,
based on cultural practices of that time, that many of those garments were passed
down within families to each newborn child until the clothing wore out, which
means human skin was in contact with the retardant chemical well into the
1980s.
Chemists Arlene Blum and Bruce Ames at the University of California,
Berkeley, tested the brominated Tris flame retardant and discovered that it was a
human carcinogen (cancer causing) and published their findings in a 1977 issue
of the journal Science . Subsequently, Blum and Ames did a second study, also
published in Science , which revealed an equally alarming discovery—children
were absorbing the flame retardant .
Morning urine samples were taken from ten children who wore either
pajamas newly treated with Tris or older pajamas treated with Tris but washed
numerous times. Most of the pajamas were made of polyester. Tris residue was
found in the urine of every child, and it had to have come from absorbing the
chemical by contact with the pajamas because Tris isn’t normally found in nature
or in human bodies.
The idea that repeated washings of the clothes would remove the Tris and
pose less of a health hazard to wearers was directly contradicted by this study. A
separate experiment was cited in which the total Tris in a fabric only decreased
from 5.8 percent to 5.1 percent of weight after more than fifty washings of the
fabric. “Tris is likely to continue diffusing from the inside of the fiber to the
outside as the garment is being worn, leading to continuing availability of the
chemical for absorption through the skin or by mouth,” concluded Blum and
Ames. “Repeatedly washed Tris sleepwear still contains large amounts of the
chemical and is likely to pose a continuing hazard.”
Here is how the two chemists described the “grave threat to human health”
that Tris posed to children: brominated Tris is a mutagen and causes cancer and
sterility in animals. Mutagen means that it can cause inheritable mutations in
humans, damaging the DNA. They wrote: “Potential adverse reproductive
effects from brominated Tris are also a concern. This chemical causes testicular
atrophy and sterility.” Of particular concern for male children, Tris can be
absorbed through the scrotum because it’s “about twenty times more permeable
to chemicals than is other skin.”
Based on the Blum and Ames findings, along with separate National Cancer
Institute research that shows Tris to cause cancer in laboratory test animals, an
organization called the Environmental Defense Fund filed a petition with the
CPSC seeking the chemical’s removal from children’s clothing. The CPSC acted
by issuing a ban on the sale of any more children’s sleepwear containing this
chemical, but the agency did not recall from public circulation the already-sold
garments containing this toxic chemical .
This toxin came into contact with the skin of an estimated fifty million
children in the United States and even after its dangers were exposed, the federal
regulatory agency allowed these contaminated garments to stay in public use,
being absorbed by still more children, for many more years to come. But believe
it or not, this isn’t the only Tris-related affront to human health that occurred!
Once the clothing industry abandoned the brominated Tris retardant,
companies replaced it with dichlorinated Tris, which proved to be nearly as
toxic. Another study published in Science by Blum and Ames, this time in 1978,
showed that the new type of Tris retardant was a hazard to human health in many
of the same ways that its cousin had been documented to be. This science paper
also resulted in the CPSC taking action, but this time it was with a polite rebuke
that merely requested that clothing manufacturers not use this second type of
Tris in clothing any more.

Trade Secrecy Law Conceals Health Threats

Today, most synthetic fabrics for children’s sleepwear contain a new
generation of flame retardants that are bonded into the fabric. These retardants
must survive at least fifty washings of the clothing. But as for the identity of the
chemicals being used to meet flammability standards, nonindustry chemists can
only make educated guesses.
After the twin Tris debacles, chemical companies began hiding the identity
of the flame retardant chemicals being used in clothing by taking advantage of
U.S. laws that are designed to protect patents from infringement by competitors.
Chemical mixtures that met CPSC flammability standards for fabrics became
“proprietary” information in the United States, with many clothing
manufacturers even being denied access to the identities of chemicals in flame
retardants they were purchasing from chemical companies. As Professor Blum
told us: “Today, you can’t find out what’s in most formulations. They’re not
required to reveal chemical identities or health data about their use. ”
Science magazine Editor-in-Chief Donald Kennedy editorialized about this
problem for consumers in a November 2007 issue: “The laws and rules
regarding the introduction of toxic chemicals into consumer products and the
environment are still ineffectual. The U.S. regulatory system for toxic industrial
chemicals is not effective and is a threat to public health.” Kennedy called for
the U.S. Congress to enact “a real proof-of-safety provision” for fire retardants
and other chemicals to “stop the chemical industry from continuing to make
consumer protection look like a game of whack-a-mole.”
Independent chemists in the United States and Europe who we consulted
for this book did speculate about which flame-retardant chemicals are now being
used in U.S.-sold clothing in order to meet CPSC flammability regulations.
Usually these are retardants banned by the European Union as potential health
hazards under the Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals
(REACH) standards that Europe began implementing at the turn of this century.
A chemist in Sweden informed us that “a fair guess is that halogenated
triaryl phosphonates are used for children’s clothing and sleepwear, due to their
low negative influence on the good comfort and durability properties of the
fabric. Some of these flame retardants are reproductive toxic.” In other words,
any parent concerned about his or her child’s health over the course of a lifetime
should never purchase clothing containing those chemicals. Halogenated
chemicals can bioaccumulate (collect in body tissues) and have been
documented as being capable of causing cancer and endocrine system disorders
in lab animals.
A family of fire-retardant chemicals called PBDEs are also a major cause of
health concern. There are three types: penta, used in furniture foam; octa, used in
hard electrical plastic; and deca, found in some textiles. These chemicals delay
ignition of products exposed to flames but don’t stop fires, and at low
temperature combustion, they release high levels of brominated dioxins, which
are toxic substances. In 2004, manufacturers of penta voluntarily ceased
production because of serious health and environmental repercussions that could
have subjected the companies to costly lawsuits. Whereas octa has been shown
in lab tests on animals to induce fetal toxicity, and some studies show deca to be
a carcinogen at high levels of exposure and a toxin to thyroid, liver, and kidney
function, yet both of these types of PBDE’s remain in wide use.
A review of all published scientific studies on the toxic effects of PBDEs on
humans and wildlife, conducted in 2003 by a scientist with the Swedish National
Food Administration, found three categories of health concerns from PBDE
exposure: neurobehavioral development; thyroid hormone levels; and at higher
levels of exposure, PBDEs can be carcinogenic. Studies done by the
Environmental Working Group in the United States tested the blood of entire
families and detected these fire retardants in toddlers and preschoolers at levels
three times higher than in their mother’s bodies. Previous testing had found
PBDEs appearing in the breast milk of most nursing mothers who have been
tested. These retardant chemicals are bioaccumulating in both humans and
wildlife because they persist in the environment, and once absorbed by living
flesh, persist in body tissues.
You might also be interested (and alarmed) to know that the same type of
Tris (chlorinated) that was removed from children’s pajamas as a health hazard
in 1977 is now being used in your upholstered furniture foam, as well as in baby
carriers and bassinets. “The same chlorinated Tris is currently the second most
used fire retardant in foam in furniture in the United States,” points out Dr.
Arlene Blum, “used in levels up to 5 percent of the weight of the foam. Tris is a
mutagen and a carcinogen.” She appeared before the CPSC in November 2007
and urged the agency to take these three steps to protect public health:
1. All flame-retardant chemicals should be required to be shown safe for
human health and the environment before the chemicals are allowed to be
used in products.
2. More research and development resources should be devoted to developing
nontoxic, “green” flame retardants .
3. A moratorium should be imposed on new flammability regulations until
new “green” flame retardants are developed, or existing flame retardants are
demonstrated to be safe.
“We continue to move from one toxic fire retardant chemical to another,”
declared Dr. Blum. “Toxic PBDEs were used to treat furniture foam from the
early 1980s until they were banned by the California legislature and the
manufacturer ceased production in 2004. They were replaced by chlorinated
Tris, a known toxicant, and also unknown proprietary mixtures containing
chemical cousins.”
How much of a problem do fire hazards really pose to children’s clothing?
Can flame retardants in sleepwear even be justified any more?
The answer, as provided by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety
Commission’s National Burn Center Reporting System, may surprise you. Each
year, on average, only about thirty-six cases of serious injury from children’s
sleepwear catching fire are reported throughout the United States. Since these
thirty-six cases usually involve sleepwear treated with fire retardants, the
question becomes one of public health: is the risk of contaminating millions of
children with toxic fire retardants and endangering their health worth protecting
the thirty-six children each year who benefit from wearing the chemical?
Ultimately, only parents acting on their own can answer those questions and
make that decision by voting with their pocketbooks. Only they can accept or
reject clothing that is questionable for their children’s health.

Most Common Chemicals in Clothes

You are shopping for a new dress or a new suit, and you want a stain-
resistant and wrinkle-resistant fabric. What are you really putting on your skin
when you buy such a product? What health considerations are you sacrificing in
the name of convenience? Formaldehyde, a frank carcinogen shown in lab
testing of animals to cause cancer, is but one of the toxic chemicals used in these
fabrics. As stated earlier, most clothing is now manufactured in China, where
permissible levels of formaldehyde are higher than EPA standards for U.S
manufacturers.
Children are particularly vulnerable to chemical sensitivities triggered by
the clothing they wear, especially if they are required to wear uniforms during
the school year. Many school uniforms are coated with a family of chemicals
called PFCs that give fabrics stain resistance and the “noniron” wrinkle
resistance often found in school trousers and skirts. These perfluorinated
compounds have been classified as probable cancer-causative agents by the EPA.
As clothes containing these chemicals become worn with repeated
washings and wear, the chemicals migrate from the fabric and become particles
that can be absorbed or inhaled by children. “Without knowing it, parents are
exposing their children to toxic chemicals in clothing that could have serious
future consequences for their health and the environment,” declared Dr. Richard
Dixon, head of the environmental group WWF Scotland, in a 2004 media alert.
“Children are usually more vulnerable to the effects of chemicals than adults, so
the presence of these substances in school clothing is particularly alarming.”
Studies done by the Environmental Working Group in the United States
have detected PFOA, one of the common Teflon-like chemicals, in the blood of
96 percent of all Americans tested. In 2004 another study by the same
organization examined umbilical cord blood donated by U.S. hospitals, and
found eight types of perfluorochemicals in nearly all of the samples,
demonstrating that mothers absorb the chemicals during everyday activities and
then transfer the toxins directly to the fetuses they carry.

Buy Nontoxic Children’s Sleepwear

You don’t need to subject your child to playing the role of guinea pig in any
flame retardant sleepwear experiments in which the child’s long-term health is
placed in jeopardy by chemicals without proven records of safety.
In 1996 the Consumer Product Safety Commission created an exemption to
its flammability standards for children’s sleepwear. Any garments for infants
nine months of age or younger, and tight-fitting sleepwear for children older than
nine months, were excluded from the requirement of being manufactured with
flame-retardant chemicals bonded into the fabric. The requirement for flame
retardants remains in effect for all other types of clothing sleepwear.
Labels that say “wear snug fitting” must be attached to any sleepwear that
doesn’t contain flame retardants, which is a requirement that went into effect on
June 28, 2000, for all cotton or cotton blend snug-fitting clothing used by
children. Loose-fitting T-shirts and other loose-fitting clothing made of cotton or
cotton blends, according to the CPSC, shouldn’t be used for sleeping because
“these garments can catch fire easily, burn rapidly, and are associated with nearly
three hundred emergency-room-treated burn injuries to children each year.”
What exactly is considered children’s sleepwear by the CPSC? The agency
identifies the garments as any article of clothing, such as pajamas, a nightgown,
a robe, or loungewear, that is sized for kids above nine months of age and up to
size 14; the garment must be worn primarily for sleeping. Diapers and
underwear aren’t considered sleep-wear according to this definition.
Numerous clothing companies now sell CPSC-approved pajamas and other
sleepwear without flame retardants. Two of the more prominent manufacturers
are L.L.Bean (www.llbean.com ) and Lands’ End (www.landsend.com ) .

The long-term health consequences of this contamination in the unborn

remain in the realm of speculation for two reasons: (1) these contaminants are
now so prevalent in humans and wildlife that they can’t be separated from the
presence of other toxic chemicals that are being absorbed simultaneously; and
(2) these chemicals were only introduced into clothing and other consumer
products within the past few decades, so we don’t have evidence generated by a
lifetime of use. But we feel assured that PFCs that are absorbed from clothing
and other sources can’t be safe for children or the rest of us.
 CHAPTER 3:
Health Effects of Synthetics

Our Toxic Chemical “Body Burden”

Each and every one of us carries around a “body burden” of synthetic
chemicals that we have absorbed from our foods, medicines, and consumer
products. These chemicals, once taken in through our skin or lungs or by
digestion, take up residence in our body fat and our body organs. Over time, as
the toxins from multiple sources accumulate, we begin to experience the health
consequences in the form of a weakened immune system and resultant illness
and disease.
Since 2001 blood studies done by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), involving more than ten thousand people of all ages and
backgrounds, found that every American carries a body burden of at least seven
hundred or more synthetic chemicals. These are conservative estimates because
the CDC has tested humans for only a few thousand of the more than 85,000
chemicals now in commercial use in the United States.
What all of us, not just prospective mothers, should find even more
disturbing is the extent to which this body burden of chemicals is being passed
on to future generations while they are still in the womb. In a 2004 study by the
Environmental Working Group (EWG), two testing laboratories measured the
chemical toxins in umbilical cord blood taken from U.S. hospitals. On average
about two hundred synthetic chemicals were detected in the umbilical cord
samples. Both flame retardants and pesticides were among the chemical residues
found, as well as the Teflon chemical called PFOA, all of which may appear on,
or in, new clothing. Most of the toxins that were discovered have been shown in
medical studies to be possible or probable causes of birth defects, developmental
disorders, nervous system disorders, and cancer.
Chemical contamination from clothing alone, of course, doesn’t account for
this body burden of toxins. Much of the burden comes from the chemical
ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products simply because those
chemicals are applied directly to the skin on a daily basis. But chemicals from
synthetic clothing do contribute to the body burden and may even be one of the
“tipping points” for triggering immune system collapse and the onset of illness
and disease.
Manufacturers of consumer products try to reassure us that the tiny levels of
chemicals in their products don’t do any harm to our health in either the short
term or the long term. Even if that were true, it’s a rationale that ignores several
discomfiting facts that mainstream toxicologists are finally beginning to
acknowledge and take into account. One is the health impact of bioaccumulation
within the human body. We know that many toxins persist in our bodies and in
the environment. Many of these chemicals were designed to be virtually
immortal and don’t break down easily. Once in human body fat, these chemicals
accumulate over a lifetime with a variety of potential effects on health.
A second and even more unpredictable reality is that many of these
synthetic chemicals combine with each other to create synergies. These are
processes in which the health effect of two or more chemicals acting together is
much more powerful than any one of the chemicals can have on its own. This is
mostly uncharted research territory for medical science, toxicologists, and
product manufacturers simply because the costs are too prohibitive to create the
technology necessary to do the wide range of testing that takes into account the
billions of different chemical synergy combinations .
It’s a mind-boggling task to try and predict which synergies are occurring
within us. We can only fall back on two proven ways to protect ourselves: first,
limit our exposure to synthetic chemicals in whatever ways we can, which
means buying and wearing only natural organic clothing, along with using
organic foods and personal care products; and second, periodically undertake
detoxification regimens to leach accumulated chemicals out of our body fat and
organs.

Chemical Sensitivity Is Spreading

Back in the 1950s an allergist practicing in the United States, Dr. Theron
Randolph, began to notice that some of his patients seemed to have physical
reactions to many of the new conveniences of modern life. They were becoming
ill from contact with chemicals in consumer products that manufacturers and
mainstream toxicologists considered safe in their exposure levels.
Upon further investigation, Dr. Randolph concluded that his patients simply
couldn’t adapt to these newly formulated chemicals. The analogy he thought of
to account for this inability to adapt likened the human immune system to a
barrel. As the body continually absorbs chemicals, eventually the “barrel”
overflows, and physical symptoms appear as a reaction to the chemical overload.
The toxins have accumulated until they overwhelmed the body’s mechanisms for
eliminating them.
Multiple Chemical Sensitivities became the medical term to describe the
syndrome of symptoms that began to afflict some people. Reported symptoms
include headaches, loss of concentration, itching, tingling sensations, hives,
dizziness, nausea, irritability, insomnia, nervousness, and depression.
In clothing, the chemicals and fabrics that can trigger this syndrome range
from formaldehyde to polyester, and from pesticide residues to the polyethylene
plastics that constitute fake leather. Some people can detoxify these chemicals
faster and easier than other people. But ultimately, we are all at risk, no matter
how healthy our body’s detoxification system may be, because we are constantly
being bombarded by new chemicals and intensifying levels of chemicals.
Over the past decade, considerable medical research has demonstrated how
the barrel analogy works in principle in humans and other forms of life. For
instance, a 2001 study in the journal Brain Research showed how repeated low-
level exposures to formaldehyde made test animals much more reactive to future
exposure to formaldehyde.
“People concerned about chemical overloads,” says Michael Lackman of
Lotus Organics, “should be ‘anti’ any garment that is advertised as being
antishrink, antibacterial, antimicrobial, antistatic, antiodor, antiflame,
antiwrinkle, antistain, or any of the other ‘anti’ easy care garment finishes.”
Every product sold on the market that touches our skin is a test of our
sensitivity because the chemical ingredients in the product are usually untested
for their impact on human health before marketing occurs, which makes us all
guinea pigs in an uncontrolled experiment. When these experiments go awry, it
is sometimes the most vulnerable among us—infants—who become the first
health statistics.
A textbook example of our guinea pig status occurred in 2008, when
graphic reports surfaced about a particular product line of baby clothes. John
Kunze of San Francisco told a reporter for NBC Los Angeles that a rash had
appeared on his daughter’s back while she was wearing Carter’s tagless baby
clothes: “It (the rash) was bright red. It was oozing, weeping. It was just bad.”
His daughter, Ava, suffered for months, was admitted on two occasions to
emergency rooms, and accumulated $10,000 in medical bills.
“I can’t tell you how frustrated I was,” said her mother, Janet Kunze. “This
could have all been avoided had they (Carter’s) disclosed at least a warning that
these were hazardous clothes. ”
Other parents who had purchased the same clothing described how their
infants developed serious rashes that resembled burns, and in some cases,
patches of the children’s skin came off when their pajamas were removed.
Pediatricians who examined the children said the injuries looked like chemical
burns. Hundreds more parents came forward with their own horror stories in
postings on the Internet. Here are just a few of the heartrending and angry
comments that parents posted on a media website in November 2008:
• Jeni wrote, “Our pediatrician said the rash on my daughter would go
away, but it doesn’t. It just gets bigger, oozes, and then flakes off like a burn or a
welt. I cannot imagine the scar it will leave on her!”
• Greg wrote, “My son has been having this same issue. He has suffered for
almost two years now. He has mild to severe rashes, weeping, itching, and
unbelievably disturbing to look at. He has seen his pediatrician and three
specialists numerous times, and the doctors had no diagnoses.”
• Christina wrote, “For months my daughter has been scratching her neck,
the back of her head, and behind her ears, until she bleeds! I’ve changed the
soap, shampoo, lotion, and her diet, thinking one of these things might be the
cause. I can’t believe it’s the clothing I’ve been putting her in. Makes total sense
and makes me feel awful!”
In response to this upsurge of complaints, the U.S. Consumer Product
Safety Commission eventually issued an advisory that warned parents that the
Carter’s fall 2007 product line of clothing for infants and children could cause
allergic reactions—contact dermatitis—possibly due to chemicals in labels on
the inside back of the garments. The clothing had been made in China and
several other countries, but the labels were manufactured in the United States.
Despite this advisory, Carter’s Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia, didn’t seek a recall of the
hazardous garments. Though most of the medical conditions were caused by the
Carter’s products, several other brands of infant clothing, among them Baby Gap
and Circo, were also singled out by parents as causing allergic reactions.
Contact dermatitis is a group of skin conditions, including eczema, that
affects both children and adults. In the 1960s, only about 3 percent of children
had the condition according to public health agencies, but by the year 2000, an
estimated 20 percent of all children suffered from it at some point in their
development. Why the sharp increase in just a generation? It probably wasn’t a
coincidence that the skin problems multiplied and intensified during the same
period of time that synthetic clothing dominated sales in the industrialized
countries of the world. Nor should it be a surprise that most manufacturers refuse
to accept any real responsibility for the effect their chemical clothing is having
on human health.
In the case of Carter’s sleepwear, the company did send refunds to any
parents who requested them (an estimated one thousand consumers made contact
with the company over this issue) but otherwise, company officials refused to
pay medical bills for injured children, or even to acknowledge that any chemical
in their clothing could be to blame for the allergic reactions. The company’s
position was explained on its website this way: “We have conducted an internal
review of the product and test results, required of our label manufacturers to do
the same, and coordinated with several independent experts, including
physicians, to provide their analyses. Our review and testing provide no
indication that the labels contain any known skin irritants or abrasive chemicals,
or that such a rash is anything beyond a rare allergic reaction to an otherwise
safe product.”
Though the labels Carter’s used reportedly contained the same standard ink
formulations employed by many companies, some observers detected evidence
that the allergic reactions may have resulted from the company making a switch
from natural fabric labels to synthetic labels. “The exact chemical formulations
and ingredients of such products are carefully guarded trade secrets,” wrote a
commentator on the Z Recommends website, which is devoted to safer
children’s products, “and may not even be available to the companies that make
use of them.”
Carter’s Inc. CEO Michael Casey did an interview with Z Recommends and
in it claimed that “there was nothing in that label we could identify that could
cause that kind of reaction which led us to conclude that this is a rare allergic
reaction in some babies with highly sensitive skin.” Numerous readers of the
website responded to this claim by echoing an observation made by a mother
named Jenna: “A niggling little thing about what I keep reading that irks me is
that they keep referring to this as being a problem for babies with ‘very sensitive
skin.’ My daughter has never had sensitive skin. She never had any other skin
rash. She doesn’t even get diaper rash. So it bugs me a little that they seem to
want to fob off this problem as a fault of my child’s skin rather than a fault of
their product.”

Why Contact Dermatitis Is More Common

As synthetic clothing dyes and garment finishes became more common and
widespread on store shelves, so did the variety of reported health problems and
chemical sensitivities experienced by ever-greater numbers of people of all ages.
Skin rashes, nausea, fatigue, burning, itching, headaches, difficulty breathing—
these are just a few of the symptoms associated with chemical clothing
sensitivity. Children have their own additional list of symptoms that includes
flushed cheeks, hyperactivity, and even learning and behavioral problems.
Garment finishes that are applied to new clothing constitute a long list and
can usually be identified by their function. If your clothing is described as flame
retardant or resistant, stain resistant, wrinkle free, antistatic, odor resistant,
permanent press, nonshrink, anti- fungal, or antibacterial, you can be pretty sure
that synthetic chemicals were either directly applied to the fabric or bonded into
the fabric, and the residue can induce allergic reactions in some people.

Avoid These Textile Dye Allergens and Carcinogens

Synthetic dyes used in clothing are the primary culprits in the spread of
allergic dermatitis among a large percentage of the industrialized world’s
population. Some dyes are also carcinogens (cancer-causing agents.) Here are
the worst allergen and carcinogen offenders that have been identified in dye
dermatitis studies over the past two decades. Results were published in the
Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology , the American Journal of
Contact Dermatology , and other peer-reviewed medical science journals. In
addition, here is a list of dye carcinogens compiled by the Norwegian Textile
Panel and chemists in Sweden.

Allergens
Disperse Blue 3 Disperse Yellow 9
Disperse Blue 7 Disperse Yellow 39
Disperse Blue 24 Disperse Yellow 49
Disperse Blue 26 Disperse Orange 1
Disperse Blue 35 Disperse Orange 3
Disperse Blue 85 Disperse Orange 13
Disperse Blue 102 Basic Black 1
Disperse Blue 106 Basic Brown 1
Disperse Blue 124 Disperse Brown 1
Disperse Blue 153 Basic Red 46
Disperse Red 1 Supramine Yellow
Disperse Red 11 Supramine Red
Disperse Red 17 Diazol Orange
Disperse Yellow 1 Neutrichrome Red
Disperse Yellow 3

Carcinoges
Acid Red 26 Direct Brown 95
Basic Red 9 Direct Red 28
Basic Violet 14 Disperse Blue 1
Direct Black 38 Disperse Orrange 1
 Direct Blue 6 Disperse Orange 149

Clothing dyes present an even more complex challenge to human health.

It’s not just the vast array of chemical dye colors that can trigger reactions, it’s
the chemicals used in the dyeing process that sometimes linger, hidden in
clothing fabrics and absorbed by the skin. Some of the toxins used to bond dye
colors to fabric include formaldehyde (a known carcinogen), dioxin (a
carcinogen and hormone disrupter), and metals like chrome and copper.
Consider for a moment formaldehyde’s role in causing contact dermatitis,
which has been the subject of numerous medical science studies and journal
articles. Uniforms of all types have been identified as primary culprits in
releasing formaldehyde into human skin and the surrounding environment.
A 2007 article in the medical journal Dermatitis described how a 49-year-
old pediatrician developed “a severe widespread dermatitis caused by contact
with formaldehyde textile resins from her hospital ‘greens’ (scrubs) and mask.”
The two authors of this study commented that “despite a trend for reduction in
the concentration of free formaldehyde in textiles, formaldehyde textile resin
allergic contact dermatitis remains an important clinical issue and is likely
underdiagnosed.” Not only that, but diagnosis is made more problematic because
“patch testing with the suspected offending fabric often leads to false-negative
results.”
Other studies have found excessive formaldehyde in uniforms worn by
military personnel and airline employees. Formaldehyde’s appearance in
permanent press clothing, in both uniforms and everyday wear, and the resulting
cases of contact dermatitis “is more common than has been previously
recognized,” reported a 1992 study published in the Journal of the American
Academy of Dermatology . That shouldn’t be surprising since formaldehyde
resins have been used to impart wrinkle resistance to fabrics since the late 1920s.
What should surprise and concern anyone, however, is that formaldehyde
continues to be used even though it has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory
testing of animals.

Many Consumers Are Sensitive to Disperse Blue Dyes

Synthetic garments colored in shades of Disperse Blue may look gorgeous
and even regal, yet with this family of dyes, looks really can be dangerously
deceiving. Of all the synthetic dyes that cause allergic dermatitis—and there are
dozens—the Disperse Blue family ranks as the ruler over them all.
Proof of their status came in 2004 at the end of an exhaustive four-year
study of 644 people in Israel who were suspected to have contact dermatitis
stemming from textiles they wore. Headed by Dr. Aneta Lazarov, who is
affiliated with the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, the study
patch tested 441 women and 203 men multiple times. She presented the results at
the 12th Congress of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.
The clothing most likely to trigger contact dermatitis contained synthetic
dyes that were dark blue, brown, and black, which are also the ones most likely
to contain Disperse Blue dyes. The problem clothes were all synthetic. Silk and
pure cotton garments seldom caused a reaction .
Nearly 31 percent of the positive dye reactions occurred with Disperse Blue
124, about 27 percent with Disperse Blue 106, and nearly 10 percent with
Disperse Blue 85. Numerous patients were allergic to multiple types of Disperse
Blue dyes. Some patients developed serious lesions in locations on their body
where synthetic clothing rubbed or was snug, such as the waist and inner thighs.
Forty of the test subjects also had a reaction to formaldehyde and textile finish
resins that remained in fabrics.
“Once patients have become sensitized to a dye and/or resin in synthetic
clothing, usually the problem won’t disappear with laundering,” Dr. Lazarov
observed. This is important for consumers to keep in mind when purchasing
clothes. Even miniscule levels of a chemical toxin in a fabric—no matter how
many times it’s washed—can continue to trigger health problems for someone
with a chemical sensitivity.
At least one Disperse Blue dye can cause health problems that are much
more serious than contact dermatitis. In the Report on Carcinogens, Eleventh
Edition , published by the National Institutes of Health, animal studies done on
Disperse Blue 1 were evaluated and the conclusion was reached that the dye “is
reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen based on evidence of malignant
tumor formation in experimental animals to an unusual degree.”
This report identified Disperse Blue 1 as “a fabric dye for nylon, cellulose
acetate and triacetate, polyester, and acrylate fibers…and also used to dye fur,
sheepskin, acetate, nylon, and other synthetic fibers.” Like so many other
chemicals used in synthetic clothing, this dye appears in cosmetics and personal
care products, particularly in semipermanent formulations of hair dyes.
Despite the evidence for this dye’s cancer-causing potential, the dye’s use
and sale continues without meaningful restrictions or warnings. In fact, for all of
the 1990s “the total production volume of all Disperse Blue dyes was
unreported,” meaning that no one knows how many people might have been
exposed to it. As the Report on Carcinogens commented, “No specific
regulations or guidelines relevant to reduction of exposure to Disperse Blue 1
were identified.”

Cancer-Causing Dyes in Chinese-Made Clothing

An alarming sixty-five separate clothing brands in China were found to
contain toxic dyes that are known cancer-causing agents, or they failed to meet
other basic quality standards, according to a 2010 investigation by Beijing’s
Bureau of Industry and Commerce. Many clothes produced by these brands were
exported to the United States and other Western countries.
Some of the clothing brands contained excessive levels of formaldehyde, a
well-known carcinogen that can be absorbed by human skin. Others contained
decomposable aromatic amines, a cancer-causing textile dye that is also easily
absorbed by human skin.
It may sound absurd to believe that a T-shirt or a pair of pants could cause
cancer, but the threat certainly exists when repeated use places the wearer’s skin
in constant contact with known toxic chemicals. Though the garments were
withdrawn from the marketplace in China after these revelations, those already
shipped overseas are still being worn by unsuspecting consumers.

Synthetic Fibers Fatigue Your Muscles

Medical studies have shown that there is a huge difference in the ways that
natural fibers and synthetic fibers affect muscle performance. This will come as
news to high-performance athletes, for whom it could make the difference
between winning and losing, and it will surprise ordinary consumers who wear
synthetics and wonder why they feel fatigued every day.
In an eye-opening study from 2001 that got little or no attention in the
United States, five physiologists from Poland compared muscle function in the
forearms of test subjects who wore either natural or synthetic fiber clothing.
They published their findings in the journal Fibres & Textiles in Eastern Europe
. This may not seem like a significant issue to study at first blush. After all, you
may wonder what possible difference lightweight fabrics can make in your
muscle strength and endurance. It turns out that the difference in the effects
between natural and synthetic fibers can influence performance for a wide
variety of professionals—from people who sit at computers for long hours to
manual laborers to professional athletes.
Twelve male volunteers, aged twenty-four to twenty-seven, all of whom
were in good health, wore long-sleeve shirts made of linen for about five hours,
and then wore similar shirts made of polyester for another five hours. Their
forearm muscles were monitored with electrodes that measured skin temperature
and the conduction velocity of motor fibers in the muscle. This was done as they
worked at computers, read books, or just conversed with each other.
No negative changes in muscle functioning were observed when the test
subjects wore the natural linen fabric shirts. However, a range of muscle
disruptions occurred when the men wore the polyester shirts. The first major
difference was that the synthetic fabric created an electrostatic field emission
over the surface of the muscle, which the natural fabric didn’t create. A second
major effect was that “covering the surface of the forearm caused the
temperature to increase significantly in the subjects dressed in the synthetic
clothing.” Conduction velocities in the motor fibers within the nerve branches of
the muscle underwent a lower amplitude when the test subjects wore the
synthetic shirts.
Here is how the study authors summarized their findings: “Temporarily
covering the tested forearm muscles with synthetic clothing changes the pattern
of motor unit activity. This is expressed by the low-frequency spontaneous
activity of the muscle fibers during the state of rest, or by diminished high-
frequency activity of the muscle units during the voluntary movements…
fluctuations are the reason for the desynchronization in muscle motor units that
may lead to a greater tendency to fatigue while wearing the synthetic garments…
the electric charges gathered on the polyester cloth surface which cause an
electrostatic field on the skin-cloth zone, together with an increase in the skin
temperature in the polyester cloth, may be the cause for the observed changes.”
Still another finding and observation from this study may prove useful for
those of you who must choose between natural or synthetic fabrics during cold
weather: “The higher level of heat resistance of linen cloth demonstrates its
better thermal protection against cold than in the case with polyester cloth.”

Synthetics Can Warp Male Sexuality

Though he had never been known as a “high-energy” kind of guy, fifty-
eight-year-old office cleaner Frank Clewer certainly made the sparks fly one day
in September 2005 when he was job hunting in Warrnambool, a town in western
Australia. Wearing several items of synthetic clothing, including a zip-up nylon
jacket, he walked into the lobby of a local business, and a loud explosive sound,
like a large firecracker, erupted when he walked on the carpet. Burn marks began
to appear on the carpet where his footsteps had singed it.
Firemen were called. They evacuated the building and, as a precaution,
impounded Clewer’s nylon jacket. Fire brigade official Henry Barton told
Reuters news agency that Clewer’s clothes carried an electrical charge of up to
30,000 volts, a level he called, only half in jest, quite shocking.
In an unrelated incident, a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald
newspaper reported in 1992 that he was literally thrown from his chair when he
switched on his office computer. He had walked across synthetic carpet fibers
while wearing synthetic clothing. The accumulated charge that had built up in
his body and clothes got transferred into the electrical machinery, causing an
explosive reaction and a painful zapping .
You probably have never generated explosive charges like these, but you
may have experienced minor effects from electrostatic discharges. Naturally
occurring static electricity builds up during the course of the day when wear
synthetic fiber clothing, so when you touch a car door, a metal grocery cart, or
even another person, you get a jolting electric shock. While these may seem like
rare and relatively benign effects, a larger and more ominous health issue
emerges from the scientific literature about electrostatic discharges caused by
synthetic fiber clothing.
It’s no secret that male fertility, as measured by sperm counts, has been in
decline every decade since World War II, perhaps not coincidentally, since
synthetic clothing has become a fixture in mainstream American wardrobes.
Average sperm counts worldwide dropped 50 percent in the last half of the
twentieth century, and according to the World Health Organization, up to 12
percent of all couples with women of childbearing age are now infertile.
Environmental effects, such as endocrine disrupting synthetic chemicals, are
certainly one cause of the infertility epidemic, but there is evidence that we also
have synthetic clothing to blame.
It took putting polyester underpants on by a group of male dogs to establish
the first scientific link between synthetic undergarments and infertility in human
males. This 1993 study published in the medical journal Urological Research
described how researchers put loose-fitting polyester underpants on twelve dogs
over a period of twenty-four months, during which time their semen quality,
testicular temperature, hormones, and testicular biopsies were examined. A
second group of twelve dogs wore loose-fitting cotton underpants over the same
period. Wearing polyester produced a degeneration of the testes and “significant
decreases” in the sperm counts for all dogs in the first group. The dogs outfitted
with cotton undergarments, by contrast, experienced no such reproductive side
effects .
What could account for the effect of polyester undergarments and pants on
fertility? The medical researchers in this study concluded: “It may be assumed
that the electrostatic potentials generated by the polyester fabric play a role.” In
other words, polyester creates an electrostatic field around the crotch area of
polyester wearers, and that can affect their sperm quality over time.
A year earlier another medical study, this one published in the journal
Archives of Andrology , had tested the electrostatic potentials generated by
various textile fabrics, including polyester. Twenty-one volunteers had been
divided into three equal groups. The first group wore 100 percent polyester
underpants, the second group wore a 50/50 polyester-cotton mix, and the third
group wore 100 percent cotton. Over four days of wearing the various fabrics, an
electrostatic kilovoltmeter measured each group’s electrostatic field across the
scrotal area. The cotton underpants created no electrostatic field but the polyester
pants showed a high electrostatic charge, and the mixed polyester-cotton
garments also generated a charge, but less so.
Four years later, in 1996, the same medical journal, Archives of Andrology ,
published a study that made the link between polyester and aberrations in male
sexuality even more compelling. Fifty men were recruited and divided into four
test groups to measure the effect of different types of textile underpants on
sexual desire and the frequency of sexual activity. The underpants made of 100
percent polyester, a 50-50 polyester/cotton mix, 100 percent cotton, and 100
percent wool.
“Sexual behavior was assessed before and after six and twelve months of
wearing the pants, and six months after their removal,” wrote the study authors.
“Behavioral response was rated as potent if the subject’s penis became erect,
entered the vagina, and ejaculated. The electrostatic potentials generated on the
penis and scrotum were measured by an electrostatic kilovoltmeter.”
At the end of the study period, it was found that the men who wore 100
percent polyester and the polyester-cotton mix underpants experienced
“significantly reduced” sexual desire and sexual activity. Here is how the
medical research team explained their findings: “The polyester-containing pants
generated electrostatic potentials, which may induce electrostatic fields in the
intrapenile structures and could explain the diminished sexual activity. The
cotton and wool textiles did not generate electrostatic potentials. Thus, polyester
underpants could have an injurious effect on human sexual activity.”
There may be other factors at work as well. Natural cotton, even when
tightly fitted, still enables the skin “to breathe,” whereas synthetic clothing that
fits tightly tends to trap body heat and encourages the skin to more readily
absorb chemicals that are off gassed by the synthetic fibers.
A pioneering study of tight-fitting underwear and sperm quality in 1996,
published in The Lancet , concluded that men who are trying to father a child
shouldn’t wear tight-fitting underwear of any sort because it can raise testes
temperature to levels that interfere with sperm production.
Your common sense would be on target if it tells you that the genital area is
the most sensitive part of the human body for chemical absorption. For men, the
specific area of concern is the scrotum. Here’s how a December 1989 article
written by a New York University Medical School professor in Cutis , the
dermatology medical journal, described the scrotal area’s sensitivity: “The
scrotum must be recognized as a skin area with remarkable permeability. It
provides a unique percutaneous doorway for the entrance of drugs into the
circulation and is thus uniquely susceptible to toxic and irritant agents.”
Other medical authorities have estimated that the human scrotum may be
twenty times more permeable than any other section of skin on the human body,
yet little consideration seems to have been given by clothing manufacturers to
this Achilles’ heel for toxin absorption. Chemicals are routinely added to male
infant and children’s underpants, and to athletic supporters and tight-fitting
synthetic underwear worn by boys and men. All of these garments rub against
the scrotum. Add to that the presence of heat and the constrictive nature of these
clothing items, and factors are in place to create a synergistic interaction that
may further contribute to male infertility.

Stain-Resistant Clothing Can Disrupt Your Hormones

Clothes that are made to prevent stains by repelling grease and liquids carry
an understandable appeal for many consumers. After all, you don’t have to
worry as much about being careful when you’re a sloppy eater, and you don’t
have to worry about washing the clothes as often as normal. What you may need
to worry about, however, is the toxicity of the perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)
that helps clothing and other fabrics resist the stains of everyday living.
Thyroid disease was linked to PFOA exposure in a 2010 study published in
the journal Environmental Health Perspectives . People with higher
concentrations of PFOA in their blood were twice as likely to develop thyroid
disease than people with lower concentrations. That finding was based on
studying blood samples from 3,966 adults and comparing them to the incidence
of thyroid disease.
This finding duplicated the results of previous animal studies that
documented how the chemical compound can alter the mammalian thyroid
hormone system. This system plays an essential role in maintaining your body’s
heart rate and regulating metabolism, body temperature, digestion, and other
functions.
“There have long been suspicions that PFOA concentrations might be
linked to changes in thyroid hormone levels,” commented study author David
Melzer, a professor of epidemiology and public health in Britain. “Our analysis
shows that in the ‘ordinary’ adult population there is a solid statistical link
between higher concentrations of PFOA in blood and thyroid disease.”
Still another disturbing health study, this one published in a 2009 issue of
Human Reproduction by a team of researchers from the UCLA School of Public
Health, linked PFOA to infertility in women. By measuring PFOA levels in
1,240 women from the Danish National Birth Cohort at intervals between four
and fourteen weeks of their pregnancies, the researchers discovered that the
likelihood of infertility increased by 60 to 154 percent for women with the
highest levels of PFOA in their blood, compared to women with the lowest
levels. The menstrual cycles of the woman with the most PFOA also became
irregular. Higher PFOA levels also delay pregnancy, in those women who were
eventually able to have a child.
An earlier human study had shown that PFOA may impair the growth of
babies in the womb. Two epidemiological studies also uncovered evidence that
PFOA can disrupt fetal growth. Researchers suspect that these stain-resistance
chemicals can similarly affect men’s sperm quality, which presents another layer
of obstacles to highly industrialized nations that are trying to maintain their
fertility and birth rates.
 CHAPTER 4:
We Are All Guinea Pigs
Men and women who join the ranks of our armed forces are aware that their
lives might periodically be placed in jeopardy because they wear the uniform of
their country. It’s an occupational hazard. Wearing a uniform can turn them into
a target. But what if the actual uniforms they wear each day as part of their
military service hide potential threats to their long-term health? What if the
safety of chemicals that are invisibly embedded in the uniform fabric is in
doubt? Don’t military men and women and those who care about them deserve
to know the facts about any potential dangers?
Chemicals that wait silently to ambush human health can be just as elusive
and deceptive as any foreign adversary. These chemicals were created to be
protectors of our military personnel. They were incorporated into uniforms to
make their lives easier and more comfortable. The problem is that these
chemicals may inflict more damage than the military leadership that authorized
them ever imagined possible. Their true nature and their actual effects on human
health have never been fully investigated.
In a very real sense, our military personnel have been unknowing guinea
pigs in tests that help to determine whether chemicals in clothing can have wider
consumer applications for the civilian population. It’s not a conspiracy. They’re
not being treated this way with malicious intent. It’s simply a reflection of how
institutions—be they government, military, or corporate business—make far-
reaching assumptions about synthetic chemical safety, often based on shallow
and incomplete research .
Beginning in 2010 the U.S. Department of Defense decreed that two types
of chemicals—antifire and antiinsect—be added to military uniforms. Here is
how the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine
described the additives: “All deploying soldiers will be issued Flame-Resistant
Army Combat Uniforms that have been factory treated with permethrin…the
factory treatment process uses special binders to ensure that enough permethrin
is retained in (the uniforms) to protect against insect bites for the lifetime of the
uniform.”
Even after being laundered at least fifty times—the estimated combat life of
a uniform—the fabric containing permethrin will retain its insect killing power.
Even beyond the life of a uniform, permethrin will remain in the fabric because
“only a very small amount of repellant will leave the uniform when laundered,”
according to the military health agency. As for disposal, the health agency
informed military personnel that the uniforms treated with insecticide and flame
retardants “can simply be deposited in the trash and require no special disposal
process when the uniform is no longer serviceable.” This advice was given
without proper study and consideration of the impact of careless disposal on
landfills, where the chemicals can seep into underlying groundwater resources.
Many disturbing questions are raised by these official instructions that were
given to members of the armed forces and their families. Let’s more closely
examine the two types of chemicals—flame retardants and the insecticide
permethrin—that have been added to clothing in a misguided though well-
intentioned effort to keep our military personnel healthy and safe.
Let’s begin with the flammability question and why the military started
adding flame retardants to uniforms. That decision was partly in response to the
fire dangers posed by most synthetic clothing sold in the civilian sector of the
marketplace .

A “Burning Question” for the Troops

It took the burning disfigurement of numerous unfortunate U.S. Marines
who were serving in Iraq to finally underscore just how dangerous the wearing
of synthetic fabrics can be. Synthetic clothing made of polyester, acrylic, and
nylon melts in the presence of high heat and fuses the materials to human skin.
Here is how the Marine Corps publication, Leatherneck , described this horrible
process in 2006: “Imagine a molten glob of melted plastic running down charred
skin, oozing into your pores like a lava tattoo. That’s your synthetic, designer T-
shirt. Designed to keep people supercool in sweltering heat, man-made fabrics
generally do just the opposite when the temperatures really soar. Expose them to
fire and they often melt like birthday candles, seeping into the burnt flesh and
making a bad injury even worse.”
As an illustration of the dangers of synthetics, military medical officials
pointed to a patient admitted to a medical facility at Camp Ramadi in Iraq. “We
had a Marine with significant burn injuries covering around 70 percent of his
body,” reported Navy Commander Joseph Rappold, the chief medical officer.
“His polyester shirt melted to his skin when the armored vehicle he was riding in
struck an improvised explosive device. His injuries would not have been as
severe had he not been wearing a polyester shirt.”
In 2006, in response to the increasing number of severe burns associated
with synthetic clothing, the commanding general of the Marines in Iraq ordered
his troops to stop wearing synthetic fabrics any time they went off base. This ban
extended to product lines made by Under Armour, Coolmax, and Nike, and
included synthetic T-shirts, pants, boxer shorts, panties, and socks, which are all
commonly sold in military clothing stores. A year earlier, a similar ban on
synthetic clothing had gone into effect for military personnel working in
aviation, fuel tank transport, and other hazardous duties that flash fires in which
they would be vulnerable to that could melt chemical-laden fabrics .
To replace these “wicking fabrics,” as synthetics came to be known in the
military, officers recommended that 100 percent cotton clothing be worn when
personnel were off base or on missions. But even Marines who never ventured
off base were being warned by superiors that the use of synthetic clothing could
be a dangerous risk to safety. Examples included incidents in which Marines had
experienced electrical shocks while still on base. The shocks caused their
synthetic clothing to begin smoking and discharging sparks.
A range of civilian professionals who commonly use synthetic clothing
when in contact with high heat—from restaurant chefs to welders—need to be
aware that they face many of the same dangers as military personnel. High
flammability in synthetic clothing used by civilians may become an ever-greater
health menace in the future as manufacturers compete to add more “functional”
elements based on new chemical formulations.

Garment Flame Retardants Make Their Appearance

For decades firemen, race car drivers, astronauts, military pilots and others
in hazardous professions have worn flame-retardant fibers with varying levels of
thickness based on the risks they faced. Attempts to make clothing fire resistant
began at least as far back as 1735, when a patent was filed in Britain for a
chemical mixture of alum, ferrous sulfate, and borax that could be applied to
fabrics. More chemical combinations were tried throughout the nineteenth
century but failed to work properly because washing usually removed most or all
of the fire-resistant chemicals. Not until 1912, when a chemist created a “non-
flam” process with stannic oxide, did a practical application emerge that could
withstand washing.
Additional research over subsequent decades, funded especially by the U.S.
Army Quartermaster Corps, produced more durable and flame-resistant fabrics
by chemically modifying cotton. For example, a chemical coating called Proban,
which retains its effectiveness in fabric after up to thirty-five washings, was
introduced by Westex, a U.S. firm.
Some of these blends were adopted by fire departments and by NASA for
use in space suits during the early 1960s. By the early twenty-first century, with
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan generating many burn injuries from improvised
explosives, the U.S. military became the biggest buyer and user of flame-
retardant fabrics.
Starting in 2007, flame-resistant uniforms became standard issue for U.S.
troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The uniforms are made from a fabric called
Nomex. This fiber product, first marketed by DuPont in 1967, resists high-
temperature burning for about nine seconds, which was thought to be enough
time for troops to either exit a burning vehicle or remove the fire-affected
clothing. Military pilots had already been wearing flight suits composed of 92
percent Nomex blended with Kevlar threads as protection from cockpit fires.
With demand high for fire-retardant uniforms and civilian clothing, there
was a virtual explosion of retardant clothing innovations, most of which used
chemicals and chemical combinations that lacked any long-term safety testing.
At least twenty-one different fire-retardant types of fabric are now being sold for
use in both civilian and military clothing. To illustrate the attendant dangers of
this trend, we describe an event that happened in Australia.
At the Ergon Energy plant in Queensland, Australia, the 3,400-strong
workforce was outfitted with flame-retardant, Chinese-made uniforms during
late August of 2008. Within a couple of weeks of wearing these new retardant
uniforms, which cost $3.5 million, nearly two hundred employees began to
suffer severe allergic reactions. Some workers were stricken with chronic
vomiting, others broke out in blisters and complained of nausea, headaches, and
other symptoms. When the uniforms were ironed, they released a yellow,
bubbling substance that triggered other allergic reactions. Testing by chemists at
an independent lab showed that the uniforms contained high levels of toxic
chemicals, which was no big surprise given the severity of medical symptoms
the workers had experienced .

Retardants Migrate to Affect Health

The effect of flame retardants on consumer health would disturb anyone
who examines the evidence. When added to consumer products, such as sofa and
chair fabric, retardant chemicals tend to migrate into the environment, especially
into homes where the chemicals can easily be absorbed from dust by humans
and animals and bioaccumulate in their body tissues and organs.
To measure the levels of brominated fire retardants accumulating in
household dust, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) sampled dust in nine
homes in eight states, from Florida to Oregon, in 2004. Here is how the EWG
describes this category of retardants: “Like PCBs, their long-banned chemical
relatives, the brominated fire retardants known as PBDEs (polybrominated
diphenyl ethers) are persistent in the environment and bioaccumulate, building
up in people’s bodies over a lifetime. In minute doses they and other brominated
fire retardants impair attention, learning, memory, and behavior in laboratory
animals.”
While two of three PBDE products, octa and penta, were removed from the
market as health dangers in 2004, a third product called deca, which is used
mostly in electronics, remained in use. The predominant type of retardant that
EWG found in household dust was, in fact, deca, which over time breaks down
into other toxic chemicals.
Previously, in 2003, EWG had measured the levels of retardants in the
breast milk of U.S. mothers and found alarmingly high concentrations. Deca was
detected in sixteen of twenty breast milk samples, which should be of concern to
every parent since deca has proven to be toxic to lab animals that have been
exposed to it during experiments.
We know next to nothing about the long-term health effects of newly
created fire-retardant chemicals that are being added to clothing, which doesn’t
bode well for us since we are constantly finding out about new dangers
associated with other consumer product retardants, many of which have been
widely available in the marketplace for several decades.
A perceptive article in the Globe and Mail (Toronto) in August 2008,
pointed out “no matter what flame retardant is used, it shows up in the
environment.” First up came the polychlorinated biphenyls, banned in the 1970s
as a toxin to human and animal life, which were then replaced by PBDEs
(polybrominated diphenyl ethers), which were even used in baby clothing. Those
PBDEs also migrated and were bioaccumulating rapidly in distant wildlife such
as whales living in the Arctic. (PBDEs attach to dust particles and blow in the
wind for thousands of miles.)
Laboratory studies determined that PBDEs can cause a wide range of health
problems—thyroid hormone disruption, brain damage, ADHD-like symptoms,
and reproductive defects and other fertility problems. The forms of retardants
that have been suspended from sale and distribution still show up in the
environment and in human body tissues. They are quite resilient. A replacement
for these suspended chemicals, called brominated phthalates, began appearing in
household dust in 2009, demonstrating that each new generation of retardants
migrates like the previous generations.
As the EWG noted in relation to retardants in consumer goods, a host of
safety questions remain to be answered: Do some people absorb more retardants
than others? Do they metabolize the chemicals differently once they are
absorbed? Why do some people excrete the chemicals slowly, enabling the
bioaccumulation to reach dangerous levels of toxicity? What happens when
these chemicals synergize with other potentially toxic chemicals in the body? A
lot of research on these cxhemicals remains to be done before we can even begin
to pronounce them safe for human exposure.

Health Problems and Flame Retardants

• The category of retardants called PBDEs appears in the bodies of almost
100 percent of the U.S. population, based on findings from blood tests conducted
by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Environmental Health
Perspectives , May 1, 2010).
• Two new chemical retardant replacements for toxic flame retardants in
household products also leach into the environment, and have been detected in
peregrine falcon eggs in California. This finding adds to mounting evidence that
newly introduced retardants escape into the environment and persist there like all
previous retardants have been seen to do (Science News , March 27, 2010).
• When breast milk samples were taken from more than three hundred
North Carolina women, flame retardant contamination was found in three-
quarters of them. The highest levels measured were in women twenty-five to
twenty-nine years of age (Environmental Health News , Jan. 25, 2010).
• Retardants in household products contribute to fertility problems by
lengthening the time it takes for women to get pregnant. Animal studies also
show that PBDEs can influence ovulation and menstrual cycles (Environmental
Health News , June 3, 2010).
• Children with higher concentrations of PBDEs in their umbilical cord
blood at birth experience developmental effects, both physical and mental,
within a few years. These include lower IQ scores (Columbia University study
released via EurekAlert , Jan. 19, 2010) .

Flame Resistant versus Flame Retardant

Though the terms are often used interchangeably by consumers, there is a
slight difference between “flame resistant” and “flame retardant.” Any fabric
that resists being ignited, but tends to extinguish itself once on fire, qualifies as a
flame-resistant garment. Wool is a good example.
By contrast, a flame retardant is any chemical substance applied to make a
fabric resistant to fire and burning. Flame-retardant chemicals are either bonded
into clothing fibers during the manufacturing process or applied as coatings to
the finished fabrics.
The actual chemical composition for most of these fire retardants isn’t
known to the public because the chemical formulas are “proprietary” corporate
trade secrets. This kind of secrecy is surprisingly common for chemical mixtures
sold in the United States thanks to a legal loophole, as pointed out in a previous
chapter. Under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, chemical manufacturers
are exempt from disclosing any product details that might harm their profits by
giving competitors inside information.
As a result of this maddening secrecy, researchers who attempt to identify
toxins that might be a threat to human health end up being thwarted in their
disclosure efforts. A January 4, 2010, article in the Washington Post , revealed
what happened to Duke University chemist Heather Stapleton, who had been
trying for months to identify a mystery chemical that she had uncovered in
household dust samples from Boston-area homes.
As the newspaper reported: “While attending a conference, she (Stapleton)
happened to see the structure of a chemical she recognized as her mystery
compound. The substance is a chemical in ‘Firemaster 550,’ a product made by
Chemtura Corporation for use in furniture and other products as a substitute for a
flame retardant the company quit making in 2004 because of health concerns.
Stapleton found that Firemaster 550 contains an ingredient similar in structure to
a chemical—di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, or DEHP—that Congress banned last
year from children’s products because it has been linked to reproductive
problems and other health effects.
Chemtura keeps the ingredients of Firemaster 550 confidential, and
contends that concerns about profits and competitiveness should outweigh
concerns about safety and health. But as environmental scientist Susan
Klosterhaus told the Post : “My concern is we’re using chemicals and we have
no idea what the long-term effects might be or whether or not they’re harmful.”

21 Fire-Retardant Materials
Known to Be in Clothing
• Arselon (a Swedish company product)
• Carbon Foam
• Carbon X
• Dale Antiflame
• Indura (a Westex U.S. product)
 • Kanox
• Kermel
• Kevlar
• Lenzing FR (a Rayon fire retardant)
• M5 fiber (a Magellan chemical company product)
• Mazic
• Modacrylic (a Solutia Inc. U.S. product and Kaneka Corp. Japan product)
• Nomex (a DuPont product)
• Nylon (coated)
• PBI
• Proban (a Westex U.S. product)
• Pyromex (a Toho Tenax Japanese product)
• Pyrovatex
• Technora (a Teijin company product of Japan)
• Teijinconex
• Twaron (a Dutch product )

A Killer Hides in Outdoor Clothing

What began in the 1980s as an attempt to protect military personnel from
malaria and other insectborne diseases has created a widely pervasive problem in
outdoor clothing. The practice of intentionally adding toxins to fabrics as an
insect repellant is now commonplace throughout both the military and civilian
clothing industries worldwide.
Permethrin became the insecticide of choice for use in clothing fabric to kill
ticks, mosquitos, and black flies, and by all accounts, this carcinogen performs
its killing duties with great efficiency and tenacity. Even after one hundred
washings, according to clothing manufacturers, permethrin retains the ability to
repel insects.
That might seem, at first, to be a wholly good thing. After all, any technique
that effectively protects our soldiers from illness and disease would seem
desirable. But what are the hidden costs to their health over time?
These questions are made all the more urgent by the increasing use of
permethrin in outdoor clothing that is now being sold to people of all ages, the
most vulnerable being children and pregnant women. Tommy Hilfiger markets a
line of golf shorts and cotton polo shirts that are treated with permethrin, for
example, while L.L.Bean sells shirts, hats, and hiking pants that are treated with
it.
One of the first civilian clothing lines to feature permethrin was Buzz Off
Insect Shield, which also introduced a line of kid’s clothes that contains
insecticide. As the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides in
Washington, D.C., later reported, “The outdoor stores selling the clothing,
including REI, EMS, and Hudson Trail Outfitters, appear to know very little
about the pesticide contained in the clothing. Although permethrin is being
described by Buzz Off’s manufacturers as ‘a man-made version of a repellant
that occurs naturally in chrysanthemums,’ in reality, permethrin is engineered to
be much more toxic and persistent than natural pyrethrins. ”
“The new line of kid’s clothing,” continued an August 2, 2004, Action Alert
from the pesticides watchdog group, “is particularly offensive as children are
known to be more susceptible to the adverse effects of low-dose pesticide
exposure. Animal studies have shown permethrin, in particular, to be more toxic
to young children than adults and to potentially inhibit neonatal brain
development.”
Furthermore, Buzz Off’s and similar insecticide-impregnated clothing was
marketed without any warnings on the labels about the presence of a potentially
toxic chemical. There was no indication of the effects on human health or the
environment, and not even a caution that certain uses of the garments could
result in greater health risks.
A portion of all permethrin on clothing comes off on the skin and is
absorbed by the skin. If you sweat or swim while wearing the clothing, even
more of the chemical will come off, and a portion will be absorbed. The longer
you wear the clothing, the more insecticide you will absorb. But the labels issue
no cautions or, indeed, any worthwhile information whatsoever about these
conditions of use.
There is even the possibility that being exposed to sunlight while wearing
permethrin clothing will corrupt the wearer’s immune system, according to
research by Virginia Tech Professor Steven D. Holladay and his toxicology co-
researchers. “Nobody really knows at this point the risk that the clothes pose,”
Professor Holladay has been quoted as saying.
People of every age who have worn these garments are guinea pigs in a
long-term, uncontrolled experiment. They never gave their consent to being
guinea pigs, nor were they made aware of the risks they are subjecting
themselves and their children to in the name of comfort .

Five Health Concerns About Outdoor Clothing

We have detected at least five potential problems with permethrin being
attached to fibers in clothing, whether it’s used in military uniforms or civilian
outdoor wear:
1. No long-term safety testing has been done to determine the health effects of
repeatedly wearing permethrin garments.
2. Skin absorption estimates for permethrin clothing made by manufacturers
have probably been much too low.
3. Permethrin exposure from other common everyday sources hasn’t been
factored into the safety estimates for permethrin clothing.
4. The additive or synergistic effects of permethrin mixing with flame
retardants in the fabric or on the skin, or mixing with other chemicals
associated with clothing manufacturing, are potential hazards in need of
further study.
5. The impact on ecosystems from the disposal of used permethrin clothing
hasn’t been properly evaluated.
Let’s examine each of these concerns, one by one, in more detail.

Concerns 1 and 2: Long-term safety and skin absorption.

To illustrate how little, if any, long-term safety testing or continual
monitoring has been done on permethrin garments to assess potential threats to
health, we describe the skin absorption study estimates that have been made over
the years. Manufacturers and military health officials have always contended that
the levels of permethrin that are absorbed from clothing through the skin are so
low (or nonexistent) as to render any health considerations moot. Let’s look at
their claim that permethrin isn’t easily absorbed by human skin.
Using low absorption level estimates as a baseline, a panel of toxicologists,
called the Subcommittee to Review Permethrin Toxicity from Military
Uniforms, concluded in 2003 that “exposure to permethrin from wearing treated
uniforms is unlikely to cause harmful effects to fetuses or newborns.” The U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency adopted these findings as a rationale for
approving the commercial sale of permethrin-treated outdoor clothing for use by
children and pregnant women.
Should we now feel safer about insecticide in our clothing because of these
determinations? A study from Germany, done in 2010, provides us with part of
the answer. A team of toxicology researchers from the University Medical
Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University decided to examine the exposure
and health risks that can arise from wearing permethrin-impregnated clothing,
since the German military was also equipping its personnel with permethrin-
impregnated battle dress uniforms (Rossbach 2010).
A controlled trial was conducted with a study group of 187 volunteers, of
which a subgroup of eighty-six people wore the permethrin uniforms for twenty-
eight days. The other people in the control group wore untreated clothing.
Internal exposure to permethrin was assessed by measuring all of the subject’s
urinary permethrin metabolites on days 0, 14, and 28, and after the termination
of the study.
As expected, those who wore the untreated clothing showed permethrin
exposure levels similar to that of the general German population. However, in
the participants who wore the permethrin-treated-uniforms, the study authors
measured “considerably higher metabolite concentrations…due to these results,
a substantial uptake of permethrin from impregnated battle dress uniforms has to
be assumed.” In other words, not only was permethrin readily absorbed by the
skin, the levels of permethrin being absorbed from fabric exposure were much
higher than anyone ever suspected.
Even in the face of this finding, the study authors didn’t believe health
impairments were likely because the levels failed to exceed a maximum
permethrin daily uptake standard that had been established by other
toxicologists. Assuming this daily exposure level of safety is accurate, this and
other studies ignore the long-term impact of absorbing permethrin every day for
months and even years on end. This German study only lasted one month. How
much permethrin builds up in fat tissue and body organs over longer periods of
time? Mainstream toxicologists don’t seem to know.
Duke University toxicology researchers have published a series of studies
over the past decade that examine permethrin and its additive or synergistic
effects when it is used in combination with other chemicals. Study team leader
Dr. Mohammed Abou-Donia has identified three big health problems with
wearing permethrin-impregnated clothing: (1) prolonged exposure risks from
wearing such clothing; (2) the combined exposure risks when permethrin is used
with DEET and other chemical agents; (3) certain segments of the population,
such as pregnant women, young children, and the elderly, have increased
sensitivity to permethrin, which makes them more at risk for health impairments.
“There is an urgent need for studies to document the safety of (permethrin)
and related chemicals,” Dr. Abou-Donia was quoted as saying after publication
of his team’s studies. “Right now we just don’t have enough.”

Concern 3: Permethrin exposure from other everyday sources hasn’t

been factored into the safety estimates for permethrin clothing.
Permethrin-soaked clothes are not the only source of large exposures to the
insecticide. The chemical is found in many personal-size mosquito sprays and
commonly shows up in residential bug sprays that are used by exterminators. It
appears in lice shampoos for pets and people, along with flea dips and household
foggers. It kills insects by disrupting their nervous systems.
The daily maximum exposure level for safety with permethrin can be
exceeded from the combined effects of absorbing it from clothing and a person’s
proximity to mosquito repellants being used, especially if the repellants are
released within confined spaces, as would be the case with the lice and flea
products .
For persons whose jobs involve handling permethrin, there is already a
well-documented three-fold increase in the risk for developing Parkinson’s
disease. A September 2009 study published in the Archives of Neurology
compared 519 people with Parkinson’s to 511 people without, and determined
that those whose jobs involved exposure to the insecticide tripled their risk for
developing the disease compared to those reporting no exposure to the chemical
agent.
Other studies have linked permethrin exposure to cancer, endocrine system
disruption, kidney and liver damage, and a range of developmental and
reproductive disorders. The EPA identifies it as moderately toxic and labels it a
restricted use category of pesticide.

Concern 4: The additive and synergistic effects of permethrin that is

combined with other chemicals are a potential health hazard.
In daily life we absorb minute quantities of dozens—perhaps hundreds—of
chemicals that leach from our clothes, personal care products, foods, and the
surrounding environment. When people wear permethrin-coated clothing, for
instance, they often seek additional protection from irritating insects by applying
other bug killers to their skin and clothes.
No long-term studies have been done to test what happens when permethrin
and flame retardants from fabric mix on skin, so we don’t know yet whether the
resulting synergistic effects will produce serious health problems. But studies on
the additive and synergistic effects of permethrin have been conducted with
other pesticides, such as DEET, and the results should be a bright red warning
flag for manufacturers, government regulators, and all consumers.
Beginning in 2001, a series of experiments performed by a Duke University
team of pharmacology researchers uncovered evidence that permethrin interacts
with DEET and other chemical agents to produce severe health problems in lab
animals. There was even evidence that linked DEET and permethrin to the range
of health symptoms known as Gulf War Syndrome. Chronic headaches, memory
loss, fatigue, and joint pain were experienced by thousands of veterans from the
first Persian Gulf War. This happened to be the first conflict in which military
personnel used permethrin and DEET on their clothing and skin in combination
—based on military health service advice—to ward off sand flies and other
desert pests.
Using the same doses of permethrin and DEET used by military personnel
and the same routes of body exposure, Dr. Mohammed Abou-Donia and his
Duke University research team documented neurological damage in their lab
animals that produced learning and memory dysfunction and a host of motor
disorders. The researchers noted that when DEET is applied to skin that is
already exposed to permethrin-clothing, absorption of permethrin into the
bloodstream is accelerated. This is a phenomenon that the EPA apparently never
took into consideration in approving its use, nor had the agency considered the
synergistic effects of these and other chemicals acting together when approval
was made.
These considerations gain ever-greater importance when we consider how
often the permethrin in outdoor clothing comes into contact with DEET and
other bug sprays and ointments. Clothing labels for some of the insecticide
clothing brands even specifically advise wearers to use the clothes “in
conjunction with an insect repellent registered for direct application to skin.”
The idea seems to be that slathering on more insecticide is always better than not
using enough.
“Children in particular are at risk,” cautions Professor Abou-Dania. “Their
skin more readily absorbs it, and it more potently affects their developing
nervous systems.” At first, the symptoms of exposure might be subtle—slight
muscle weakness, attention disruption, fatigue—but over time full-blown health
problems could develop.
To provide a glimpse at the potential dangers of using permethrin by itself,
or mixing it with other substances on your skin, we summarize findings from
just a few alarming studies:
• Permethrin in combination with one or more other pesticides
“significantly decreased” sperm quality, affecting reproduction in lab animals
that were exposed to their additive effects (Perobelli 2010) .
• Longer-term effects of permethrin on lab animal health was tested over
sixty days. Daily treatment on the skin for that period resulted in hormone
disruption, reproductive abnormalities, and other problems (Issam 2010).
• When permethrin was applied to the skin of lab rats, both by itself and
combined with DEET or another pesticide, malathion, “all behavioral measures
were impaired” and exposure induced “neuronal degeneration in the brain”
(Abdel-Rahman 2004).
• To assess permethrin and other insecticide exposure levels, 5,046 urine
samples were taken from U.S. residents. Permethrin showed up in more than 70
percent of the samples, with children having higher levels of absorption than
adults, prompting the nine study authors from the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention to warn that permethrin is “an acute neurotoxicant” (Barr
2010).

Concern 5: The impact of permethrin on ecosystems.

Many studies have documented that permethrin is toxic to fish and other
aquatic life. This occurs even at low exposure levels.
A June 2006 advisory posted by the EPA states: “Permethrin is highly toxic
to both freshwater and estuarine aquatic organisms,” and “poses chronic risks.”
Also, “Toxicity data show that the compound is highly toxic to honeybees, as
well as other beneficial insects.”
Once released, the insecticide also persists in the environment, building up
in creek and river sediments and bioaccumulating in bottom-dwelling fish and
shellfish, some of which pass their toxic burden on to the humans who catch and
then consume them.
When people swim in or wash permethrin-treated clothing, they release the
chemical into the waterways. When municipal water treatment plants recycle the
same water, the permethrin and many other chemicals cannot all be removed—
the treatment plants aren’t technologically advanced enough—so consumers end
up drinking, bathing in, and cooking with this tainted water. As that old saying
informs us, “What goes around comes around. ”
In a May 2009 website posting, the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion
and Preventive Medicine advises all members of the armed forces that
“permethrin factory-treated flame-retardant clothing can simply be deposited in
the trash and requires no special disposal process when the uniform is no longer
serviceable.” Clearly, the military is acting with reckless disregard for the health
and environmental consequences of permethrin use.
 CHAPTER 5:
Fabric Care That Creates Toxins

Which Toxins Are You Washing Your Clothes In?

Most people never seem to give a passing thought to how their clothes are
maintained, nor do they question whether the products they use each week create
problems for their own health, much less for planetary health. How we choose to
care for our clothes mirrors the broader issues of how we care our bodies and for
the environment.
How often do you reflexively pick up a box or bottle of laundry detergent
and make your buying decision based solely on its price, its reputation for
effectiveness, or your own shopping habits? Most people never stop to consider
that the seemingly simple choice about which detergent to buy can have broader
implications. Since the average American family launders about three hundred
loads of clothes each year, according to surveys done by Procter & Gamble, the
laundry products we choose have a huge potential impact on our personal and
collective well-being.
Finding out what chemicals are really in your laundry detergent and what
effect they may be having requires some detective work. Detergent
manufacturers aren’t mandated by law to list ingredients on labels, which is an
exemption granted to them under trade secrecy laws to protect their formulations
from competitors. The information you will find on product labels is put there to
give consumers a false sense of security about safety and commonly uses generic
language such as “Ingredients include surfactants.” “Surfactant” is just another
term for detergent, and there are a wide variety of these cleansers in use.
Most major manufacturers of detergents have phased out phosphates, which
remove hard water minerals to increase product effectiveness and prevent dirt
from settling back onto clothes during the washing cycle. This action by
manufacturers came in response to phosphate bans that were enacted by some
state governments. The bans came about because the phosphates, once released
back into the environment, stimulated explosive growth of undesirable plants
that endanger sensitive ecosystems.
As an alternative to phosphates, detergent companies created numerous
synthetic compounds that may exact an even greater toll. Research conducted by
various environmental groups and by Dr. Samuel Epstein, an eminent
toxicologist and founder of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, identified some of
the new surfactants in laundry soap and uncovered the health consequences of
exposure to these chemicals:
• Diethanolamine and triethanolamine are synthetic surfactants that were
designed to neutralize acids, but they are carcinogens or can react with other
chemicals to form nitrosamines, a family of carcinogens. They are slow to
biodegrade and thus persist in the environment. They can also be found in many
shampoos and conditioners.
• EDTA (ethylenediaminetraacetic acid) is used to reduce water hardness,
and this compound can disrupt the hormones of humans and wildlife. Once
released into the environment, it doesn’t biodegrade easily and can dissolve toxic
heavy metals that are trapped in underwater sediments so these toxins can re-
enter the food chain. EDTA also appears in shampoos and other products as a
“penetration enhancer” that is designed to allow others chemicals to penetrate
more deeply.
• PEG (polyethylene glycol) is made from ethylene oxide, a potent
carcinogen. Once in the environment, PEG is slow to biodegrade and has
unknown consequences for wildlife. PEG is also commonly found in shampoos
and conditioners .
• Quaternium-15 is a surfactant and disinfectant that releases formaldehyde,
a potent carcinogen, and it’s also an allergen that is often contaminated with
DEA, still another carcinogen. This compound can also be found as a
preservative in skin lotions, shampoos, and other products.
As if this wasn’t enough to be concerned about, conventional detergents
increasingly contain chemicals known as “optical brighteners.” These are
designed to make laundered clothes appear brighter and whiter, but they can
cause allergic reactions in humans and can be toxic to fish once they are released
into the environment with laundry wastewater. You probably won’t find these
chemicals identified on any product labels, though you should be alerted to their
presence when you see a product claiming to “brighten” your clothing.
An analysis of laundry wastewater, both the industrial variety and that from
public laundromats, was performed a few years ago by the Environmental
Working Group (EWG). They detected that a range of hormone-disrupting
contaminants was being released. Phthalates, used to stabilize fragrances, are
human hormone disruptive chemicals that are commonly added to detergents and
other cleaning products. Phthalates were detected in wastewater from four of the
four laundries tested. This family of chemicals accumulates swiftly in the body
tissues and blood of human beings, a finding that so alarmed the European
Union that in 2005 it banned the use of most phthalates in products sold
throughout Europe.
Another chemical found in the laundry wastewater by the EWG was
triclosan, which is added as an antibacterial agent in detergents and is a chemical
known to be toxic to liver functioning. Triclosan persists in both human bodies
and the environment, bioaccumulating up the food chain. It has also been
documented to play a role in reducing human resistance to antibiotics, which has
helped stimulate the development of “superbug” bacteria .

Scented Laundry Products Release Toxins

Six top-selling laundry products were tested by University of Washington
researchers, and each one was found to release “at least one chemical regulated
as toxic or hazardous under federal laws, but none of those chemicals were listed
on the product labels,” reported Science Daily in a July 24, 2008, issue.
After hearing people complain that the scent from laundry products made
them feel sick, Professor of Environmental Engineering Anne Steinemann
decided to analyze the products to determine which chemicals were causing the
health effects. “I was surprised by both the number and the potential toxicity of
the chemicals that were found,” Steinemann admitted to the magazine. Among
the noxious chemicals she found were acetone, limonene, acetaldehyde,
chloromethane, and 1,4-dioxane.
“Nearly one hundred volatile organic compounds were emitted from these
six products, and none were listed on any product label. Plus, five of the six
products emitted one or more carcinogenic ‘hazardous air pollutants,’ which are
considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to have no safe exposure
level,” Steinemann revealed.
The products she analyzed included a dryer sheet, a fabric softener, and a
detergent. “Be careful if you buy products with fragrance, because you really
don’t know what’s in them,” she warned. She urged consumers to buy only
fragrance-free versions of laundry products. Her study, which was published in
the journal Environmental Impact Assessment Review , didn’t reveal the brand-
names of the six products that her lab tested.
Previous to these study results, the European Union had enacted legislation
requiring products to list the presence of twenty-six fragrance chemicals when
they exceed designated levels in cosmetic products and detergents. No similar
regulations exist in the United States and many other countries .

Beware of Chemical Fabric Softeners

Softeners may seem like a miracle product for keeping clothing comfortable
for daily wear, but the downside of using these products is that you’re allowing
your skin and lungs to come into contact with some nasty toxins that “just keep
on giving.”
Still another survey of U.S. households done by Procter & Gamble in 2006
(whose results were shared with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission)
found that 71 percent of those surveyed use some form of fabric softener, with
the most common forms for home laundering being liquid softeners (purchased
by 42 percent of U.S. households) and dryer sheet softeners (used by 49 percent
of households.) As you probably know, dryer sheet softeners have antistatic
properties. Many households were found to be using both forms of softeners,
with a rinse cycle softener followed by a dryer sheet for the same laundry load.
This means that most Americans come into weekly contact with the chemicals
that make up softener ingredients.
These chemicals include toxins like chloroform, benzyl acetate, pentane,
and compounds that release formaldehyde. Whether used in liquid form or dryer
sheets, the softeners leave chemical residues in your clothing by design, so they
continually give off molecules. You breathe in the chemical fumes, especially
after the treated clothes are heated in the dryer, and you absorb some of the
residue through your skin when wearing the treated clothes.
Alison Petten, a Canadian registered nurse who works with the
Environmental Health Association of Nova Scotia, has studied the health
impacts of fabric softeners and their ingredients. She said “The ingredients in
fabric softeners can irritate skin and cause asthma-like symptoms. I have seen
marked improvements in clients with psoriasis, eczema, asthma, and migraines
when they stopped using chemical fabric softeners. Others have told me that
their irritable bowel syndrome and arthritis improved when they cut chemical
fabric softeners out of their laundry routine. A lot of people don’t make the
connection that the chemicals that we breathe, and those we absorb through the
skin, get into the bloodstream and can affect every organ and system in the
body.”
The role of chemical synergies in triggering health problems isn’t
understood by most ordinary consumers, or by many toxicologists and
physicians, for that matter. As we indicated earlier, when two or more chemicals
are combined in a product, or in the human body, they can sometimes produce
toxic effects that are much more powerful than any one chemical can generate on
its own.

24 Fragrance Allergens
in Detergents to Avoid
 Product ingredient labels usually don’t identify the fragrance chemicals
used to scent detergents (and through washing, your clothes) because no law in
the United States requires them to be revealed. Fragrances in mainstream
conventional detergents are made from petroleum, which means they don’t
biodegrade easily in the environment, can be toxic to fish and mammals, and can
cause allergies and irritation in humans. Toluene, a common chemical in
fragrances, is known to cause reproductive abnormalities and cancer in lab
animals.
European Union standards for fragrance allergens in detergents and other
products require clear product labeling so that fragrance-sensitive consumers can
make informed choices about the products they purchase. No such labeling
requirements exist in the United States Here are twenty-four common fragrances
that are added to detergents, based on a list published in a July 2006 article in the
journal Contact Dermatitis . (Conservative estimates are that 10 percent of the
fragrance allergen on washed fabrics will be transferred to human skin when the
fabrics are worn.)
• Amyl cinnamic aldehyde
• Cinnamic alcohol
• Cinnamic aldehyde (also commonly appears as an allergen in perfumes)
• Eugenol (also commonly appears as an allergen in perfumes)
• Geraniol (also commonly appears as an allergen in perfumes)
• Hydroxycitronella
• Isoeugenol (also commonly appears as an allergen in perfumes)
• Amyl cinnamic alcohol
• Anisyl alcohol
• Benzyl alcohol (also appears as an allergen in cosmetics)
• Benzyl benzoate (also commonly appears as an allergen in perfumes)
• Benzyl cinnamate (also commonly appears as an allergen in perfumes)
• Benzyl salicylate (also commonly appears as an allergen in perfumes)
• Citral (also commonly appears as an allergen in perfumes)
• Citronellol (also commonly appears as an allergen in perfumes)
• Coumarin (also commonly appears as an allergen in perfumes)
• Farnesol (also commonly appears as an allergen in perfumes)
• Gamma methyl ionone
• Hexyl cinnamic aldehyde
• Lilial
• d-Limonene (also listed as a carcinogen by the National Toxicology
Program)
• Linalool (also commonly appears as an allergen in perfumes)
 • Lyral (HMPCC)
• Methyl heptine carbonat e

A pioneering study done in 1998, which examined the synergies produced

by fragrance chemicals that are allergens, illustrates the dimensions of the
synergy problem facing chemical manufacturers, the health-care industry, and all
consumers who buy and use synthetics. Authored by five researchers and
published in the British Journal of Dermatology , this University of Copenhagen
(Denmark) study tested two groups of eczema patients. One group of eighteen
patients had a contact allergy to two fragrance substances, the other control
group was allergic to only one of the fragrances. Three separate allergy tests
were conducted on both groups.
The researchers reported these results: “It was found that the combination
of two allergens in individuals allergic to both substances had a synergistic
effect…the two allergens elicited responses as if the doses were three to four
times higher than those actually used…the synergistic effect demonstrated is
likely to apply to other contact allergens as well…”
That study and its conclusions support a key theme in this book, Killer
Clothes . It’s not just the single doses of chemicals we absorb from synthetic
clothing and clothing care products that should concern us—it’s the cumulative
doses that are interacting with each other and additional chemicals that are
absorbed from cosmetics and personal care products that, taken together, might
trigger synergies that produce serious health consequences. This means your
body burden of synthetic chemicals, which is stored in your body fat and organs,
needs to be reduced whenever possible, or at least not added to. Therefore, you
must pay close attention to the total volume of chemicals you place into contact
with your skin.

The Dry Cleaning Chemical That’s a Killer

If you’ve ever taken clothes home from a dry cleaner and immediately tore
open the plastic bags to extract the garments, you know how the clothes emit a
chemical odor that you can’t help but inhale. That’s the residue of
perchloroethylene, or Perc for short, the chemical solvent used by three-fourths
of dry cleaning businesses in the United States.
While Perc is considered to be an efficient cleaning agent for clothing, it’s
also highly toxic and responsible for a wide range of well-documented harmful
effects on human health. The International Association for Research on Cancer
calls Perc a probable carcinogen based on animal testing and research studies
going back three decades in Environmental Health Perspectives and other
medical science journals. The studies have outlined Perc’s many negative effects
on health. These occur when it is inhaled or comes into contact with skin.
Environmental Health Professor Helen Suh MacIntosh of Harvard
University has described how studies have found that Perc exposure increases a
person’s risk of bladder, esophageal, and cervical cancer; eye, nose, throat, and
skin irritations; and even reduced fertility. She writes, “Low levels of
perchloroethylene can be present in your indoor air, as any perchloroethylene
that was not removed in the dry cleaning process will be on your clothes that you
bring home. Once at home, the perchloroethylene will leave your clothes and go
into the air.”
Chemical manufacturers and the dry cleaning industry claim that the tiny
amounts of Perc you may absorb through your lungs or skin from contact with
dry cleaned clothes represent a negligible threat to human health and little
danger to the environment. These claims weren’t reassuring to regulators and
health authorities in California, where the use of Perc was banned in 3,400 dry
cleaning businesses by the end of 2010. The ban occurred after investigators
found that the solvent had contaminated at least one in every ten of the state’s
water wells.
This finding about Perc contamination of water wells serves to underscore
an uncomfortable fact about Perc—once released from clothing or from dry
cleaning machinery, it persists in ecosystems, and once absorbed by the human
body, it persists in body fat and organs. Perc has been tightly regulated in
European countries, where policing of toxic chemicals that pose a threat to
human health has been much more rigorous than in the United States.

Choose Nontoxic Cleaning Methods

Detergents were designed to lower the surface tension of water to make it
interact with dirt and stains on clothing, separating the grime from the fabric.
Petrochemical detergents do this effectively, but as we’ve pointed out, their use
results in a range of unintended consequences.
You have a variety of alternatives to choose from when you decide to break
free from dependence on toxic cleaning agents. You can purchase nontoxic
laundry detergents created by green technology, or you can make your own safe
cleaning mixtures.
Soap nuts are a type of dried berry that, like regular detergents, interact with
water to produce cleansing actions on fabric. Sold at health food stores, these
dried fruits come from a tree native to Asia. The website buysoapnuts.com also
sells this easy-to-use product at affordable prices. The nuts can be used two or
three times each and are 100 percent biodegradable.
Another natural cleaning agent can be found online at www.lifenatural.com
. These special magnets go into the washing machine along with your load of
laundry and help to remove grime from garments again and again, since the
magnets never need to be replaced.
Finally, you can create your own laundry detergent at home with a few
simple and inexpensive ingredients. Take two cups of grated gentle soap, such as
Dr. Bronner’s, and mix it well with one cup of washing soda and one cup of
borax. Add one-fourth cup of this mixture to each load of laundry. Splash in a
cup of white vinegar during the rinse cycle to brighten the appearance of the
clothes.
 CHAPTER 6:
Dressing Yourself and Others Safely

Why Natural Fibers Are Safer

We need to take responsibility for our personal health and safety, as well as
for the health of the people in our lives that depend on us for guidance and the
exercise of good judgment. In the following chapter you will find positive advice
about how to make buying decisions that will empower you personally, even as
you help to protect the natural environment from the residue of our potentially
toxic actions. The first priority is choosing natural fibers.

Your Most Common Natural Fiber Options:

Cotton . Of the thirty-nine species that grow worldwide, only four have
been domesticated, the most common today being G. hirsutum , which was first
grown in Central America by tribal societies. Cotton fragments from 5000 BC
have turned up in archaeological digs in Pakistan and Mexico. Today, cotton
remains the “king” of textiles. Over the past decade the popularity of organic
cotton (grown without pesticides) has increased, but still accounts for less than
one percent of worldwide cotton production.
Flax . This fiber plant grows to a height of four feet and is considered one
of nature’s strongest fibers. Archaeologists have found evidence of its use in
clothing going back to prehistoric times in the Near East. Later cultivation
occurred in ancient Egypt, classical Greece, and imperial Rome. The plant is
best known as the source of linen, which was used in its finest form to wrap the
mummies of Egyptian pharaohs.
Hemp . Processed like flax, the hemp plant is versatile and hardy. It grows
without any need for fungicides, herbicides, or pesticides because it’s naturally
insect resistant. Hemp was the original fabric for Levi’s jeans before the
company made a switch to cotton. Hemp cloth has made a comeback in T-shirts
and other apparel over the past decade, especially among young people in the
United States. Half of the world’s hemp supply is grown in China. Its fibers are
said to be four times stronger than cotton. In contrast to another variety of hemp
known as marijuana, this species of hemp has no psychoactive properties.
Silk . Known as the “queen of fabrics,” silk was first developed in ancient
China, where for generations only royalty was allowed to wear it. It’s produced
by the larvae of a moth species that feeds on the leaves of the white mulberry
tree. For about two thousand years the Chinese kept the methods used in
collecting and weaving silk a closely guarded secret, until two priests smuggled
some silkworm eggs to Constantinople in about 555 AD. Today’s common
silkworm doesn’t exist in the wild and is bred only in domesticated silk farms.
Nearly a dozen types of silk fabrics have emerged over the centuries, including
brocade, chiffon, damask, and velvet. The use of synthetic dyes should be a
concern for those who wear silk clothing.
Wool . Sheep’s wool has provided humans with warm clothing for
thousands of years, dating back to the first domestication of animals. Today,
most commercially grown wool is contaminated with chemicals, such as
pesticides used to kill parasites on the sheep. Organic wool is becoming more
common, with New Mexico providing about 80 percent of U.S.-certified organic
wool .

Less Common Natural Fiber Options

Alpaca . Found mainly in the Andes mountains of South America, this
member of the camelid family has two distinct types of hair. Huacayo alpacas
produce short, dense, soft fibers; Suri alpacas produce straight, silklike hairs.
Both fibers are used to make luxury fabrics.
Angora . China produces most of the world’s angora rabbit wool, followed
by Argentina and Chile. Angora is a soft and fine fiber that is removed from the
rabbit by shearing or combing every three months. It is used in high-quality knit
wear.
Camel . Mongolia produces the highest-quality camel hair fibers. There are
two types: a coarse outer hair and a fine inner down. White fleece is rare, the
most common color is reddish brown. Camels’s wool is used in sportswear,
overcoats, and topcoats.
Cashmere . China is the world’s largest producer of raw cashmere, which is
shorn from the Kashmir goat. The hair fibers have strong insulation qualities but
are soft to the touch. Most cashmere garments are sold in Europe, the United
States, and Japan.
Mohair . The Angora goat is indigenous to Turkey, and its white, fine, and
silky fiber is known for providing warmth in the winter. Yet it is so versatile that
it’s cool enough for the humidity of summer. The fiber is found in knitting yarn
and is often combined with wool.
Ramie . This flowering plant is native to East Asia and is considered one of
the strongest natural fibers. Its bark has been used for thousands of years in
thread and twine and is spun into a grass cloth that is sometimes called “chinese
linen.” It’s often blended with wool or cotton.
Saluyot . This is a relatively new entrant on the world’s natural textile
stage. Saluyot and water hyacinth plants grow everywhere in the Philippines,
where their fibers are made into yarn for apparel. Saluyot is valued for the
fineness of its fibers and its tensile strength. The Philippines grow about thirty
useful natural fiber crops, including abaca, ramie, coconut coir, banana, and
other leaf and plant fibers .

What Makes Organic Cotton Superior

Until the twentieth century the world’s cotton production was entirely
natural and organic, but by the end of that century, as synthetic chemicals came
to dominate the marketplace, cotton crops accounted for about 10 percent of all
the planet’s pesticide usage and around 25 percent of all insecticides used. To put
that toxic burden into human terms, the Organic Trade Association estimates that
a single nonorganic cotton T-shirt is the product of one-third pound of pesticides
and chemical fertilizers.
Over the past decade organic cotton made a comeback among producers
and consumers owing to widening concerns about the impact of pesticides and
insecticides on human health and the environment. You can now readily find
organic cotton in all types of clothing, from casual to high fashion; in absorbent
diapers, towels, bedding, and cushions; and even in personal care products, such
as cotton swabs and tampons.
Patagonia is a California-based maker of casual and outdoor clothing that
began using 100 percent organic fibers in all of its products in 1996. Larger
manufacturers slowly followed suit. Nike added a blend of organic cotton to
twenty million of its T-shirts, and Levi’s purchased 330,000 pounds of organic
cotton for making its 501 jeans. Most of these companies made business
decisions that factored in the environmental costs of using toxic chemicals. “We
are trying to use our company to bring environmental responsibility to the
business dialogue,” a spokeswoman for Patagonia, Lu Setnicka, told the Knight
Ridder newspaper chain. “We know that other companies and farmers are
listening.”

6 Good Reasons to Choose Organic Natural Fibers

1. Eco-friendly and health-friendly organic fibers are grown and organic
clothing is produced without the use of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, genetic
modifications, or other substances and processes that pose a danger to human
health or the environment.
2. Nonorganic and synthetic fibers, by contrast, release chemicals and dyes
during production and manufacturing that damage fragile ecosystems and harm
wildlife.
3. Organic natural fibers are recyclable and biodegradable, whereas
nonorganics and synthetics don’t easily bio-degrade and tend to accumulate in
landfills, which poses a disposal problem for future generations.
4. Because organic fibers aren’t degraded by chemicals during growing and
processing, clothing made from these fibers is stronger than nonorganics and has
a longer lifespan.
5. Natural organic fabrics are more absorbable and breathable for your skin
than nonorganic and synthetic clothing. See for yourself by comparing how
organic cotton feels against your skin on a hot and humid day as opposed to
polyester or other synthetic blends.
6. Natural organic fibers don’t release toxic fumes from chemicals when
you wear them, whereas nonorganic synthetics off gas minute amounts of
chemicals, which you then absorb through your skin and lungs .

One of the more established organic cotton farms is owned by Claude and
Linda Sheppard of Chowchilla, California. They switched from chemical
farming to organic farming in 1992, when Linda became pregnant and expressed
concerns about her exposure to pesticides. They discovered that the organic
cotton yields at harvest time on their 550 acres were the same as in the previous
year, when they had used chemicals. “We were really amazed at how well it
worked,” Claude Sheppard told a Fresno Bee newspaper reporter. “After that, we
stopped using all commercial fertilizers and herbicides. We ended up going
completely organic.”
When you purchase and wear organic cotton clothing, you not only benefit
directly from its superior comfort and durability, you also help to minimize the
harm to your health and the planet’s ecosystems. From seed preparation to weed
control and harvesting, organic growing methods have proven to be safer
because they don’t rely on toxic chemicals. Following are some key differences
between organic and conventional growing methods:
Seed preparation . Organic cotton farmers use seeds that are untreated by
fungicides and insecticides and never use genetically modified seeds; none of
this is true with conventional cotton farming.
Soil and water impacts . Organic cotton relies on crop rotation and water
retention in the soil by adding organic matter; conventional cotton farming
requires intensive irrigation to go with the application of synthetic fertilizers to
the soil.
Weed control . Cultivation and hand-removal techniques control weeds in
organic farming; conventional growers apply herbicides to thwart weed
germination, and more herbicides are applied to kill weeds that survive.
Pest control . Beneficial insects and natural biological practices are used in
organic farming to control pests; nonorganic cotton producers commonly use
insecticides and pesticides, often by aerial spraying. Five of the more common
pesticides are known carcinogens .
Harvesting . The site aboutorganiccotton.org points out that organic cotton
harvests rely on seasonal freezes or water management for defoliation;
nonorganic farming practices use toxic chemicals to defoliate cotton plants.

Hemp Makes Another Comeback

Even a casual review of the history of hemp fabric reveals it to be one of
the most versatile and persistent fiber crops. Hemp was banned in the United
States during the twentieth century because of an unfair association with its
psychoactive cousin. However, it has made a comeback in the marketplace
thanks to the agricultural policies of more enlightened countries.
Hemp fabrics have been in use among diverse cultures throughout the
world for thousands of years. It is one of the few plants whose roots, stalks, leaf,
flower, and seeds can all be used. Products such as food, medicine, writing
paper, and lamp oil are made of hemp, which has hundreds of uses. For at least
two thousand years most of the sail-cloth and rigging lines used by seagoing
vessels came from hemp.
One of the first large-scale uses of hemp for clothing in the United States
came during the Revolutionary War of 1776, when General George
Washington’s army wore uniforms made from the plant, which happened to be a
crop that Washington grew on his plantation, as did Thomas Jefferson. The first
official flag of the thirteen states that flew over the U.S. Capitol was made of
hemp fabric, as was the paper on which Jefferson and others wrote the first and
second drafts of the Declaration of Independence.
Though the hemp that is used to make fabric contains little or no THC (the
psychoactive ingredient in its cousin, marijuana), the plant still got caught up in
the prohibition fever that gripped the United States during the 1930s. Growing
hemp or even importing hemp products became a federal crime. The hemp
industry believed the real motive behind prohibition was that hemp had become
a competitive threat to the emerging synthetic fibers industry and the already
established wood products industry. The ban on hemp cultivation was lifted
briefly during World War II. While growing hemp crops remains strictly
regulated in the United States, some relaxation on the importation of hemp
products has occurred.
Beginning in the late 1980s, hemp garments began to be imported into the
United States from China and other countries that had continued growing hemp
and creating new products from it. Canada and China have since become two of
the biggest suppliers to the U.S. market. Now hemp can be purchased in a wide
variety of apparel options, including shoes, diapers, pants, shirts, and every other
kind of garment.
What makes this plant so useful and valuable for the production of clothes?
Let’s start with the growing cycle. Hemp cultivators say the plant requires little
fertilizer, can be grown just about anywhere, and doesn’t need pesticides because
it’s naturally pest resistant. It can also be grown in the same soil for decades
without the need for crop rotation because it replenishes the soil with nutrients. It
also produces about twice as much fiber per acre as cotton and needs just a
fraction of the water to grow. These are all factors that make hemp one of the
most environmentally friendly crops grown on the planet.
Sellers say hemp is the most durable and yet softest of all the fabric crops,
and it is warmer and more absorbent than cotton. It’s naturally resistant to mold
and mildew, and it shields and absorbs ultraviolet light better than other fabrics.
Hemp fabric, which becomes softer with use, draws comparisons to linen. And
hemp fibers don’t weaken with repeated washings as synthetic fibers do.
Today, though hemp still isn’t grown commercially on U.S. soil to produce
clothing, you can find dozens of retailers that sell hemp garments that are made
elsewhere. To shop for hemp online, check out these retailers:
• dankforest.com
• ecolution.com
• emperorshemp.com
• hempest.com
• hemphouse.com
• hempsisters.com
• hemptraders.com
• rawganique.co m

How to Choose Safe Clothing

It’s necessary to learn how to read clothing labels not just for what they say,
but also for what they don’t reveal to you. The identity of many chemicals used
in synthetic clothing is considered proprietary company information. In addition,
federal government regulations don’t require that all chemicals used in
synthetics be listed on labels. This section will explore ways that you as a
consumer can make wise choices when buying clothes.

Tests You Can Use To Identify Fabrics

It’s not always easy to distinguish between purely natural fabrics and blends
of natural and synthetic fibers. If you want to determine whether a fabric is
natural, synthetic, or a blend of the two, you can perform either a simple burn
test or a household chemical test.
Depending on the temperature of the heat source, all fabric fibers will burn.
But there are differences between natural fibers and synthetics in their burn rate
and the various smells that are released. A burn test can help you to differentiate
types of fabrics.
Exercise caution when doing this burn test . You will need to place water or
soda in the bottom of a dish and have a lighter or match handy. Hold a small
piece of fabric with tweezers and light it on fire. Most synthetics, because they
are petroleum-based products, will melt and drip when burning.
The website www.fabrics.net features a series of tips on how to conduct
these fabric identification tests and use the results to differentiate natural,
synthetic, or blend fibers. Here is a summary of how the various fabrics react to
heat:
Synthetic Fibers
Acetate – made from wood with many chemical additives, it cannot easily
be extinguished when burning and leaves a hard ash similar to wood chips.
Acrylic – made from petroleum, it burns quickly with an acrid smell and
leaves a soft ash .
Nylon – another petroleum product, it melts and smells like burning plastic.
Polyester – manufactured from petroleum and coal, it burns and melts
simultaneously and leaves an ash that adheres to surfaces and produces a black
smoke.
Rayon – almost pure cellulose, it ignites quickly, leaves little ash and smells
like burning leaves.
Natural Fibers
Cotton – burns with a steady flame, emits a burning-leaf aroma, and leaves
a very soft ash.
Linen – takes longer than cotton to ignite and leaves a brittle ash. Like
cotton, it’s easily extinguished.
 Silk – this protein fiber burns easily, emits a smell like burning hair, and has
an easily crumbled ash.
Wool – harder to ignite than silk, it also leaves a burning-hair smell, but the
flame proves more difficult to keep steady.
You also can use two chemicals that are commonly found in the home or
readily purchased in stores to distinguish between fiber types. Acetone is a nail
polish remover ingredient that dissolves acetate while leaving other types of
fibers undamaged. A liquid called Fiber-Etch, which is used in cutwork
embroidery, dissolves cotton, linen, and other plant fibers. Using it to test a small
fabric swatch can help you to determine if clothing is a blend and, if so, how
much of a fabric is natural and how many of the fibers are synthetic.

Safe Cleaning and Storage of Clothes

Eco-friendly and human-health-friendly options are always available if you
take the time to search for them and then use them once they are identified. Your
choice of laundry detergents has environmental impacts that can actually be
measured. The estimated carbon dioxide emission generated by an average load
of laundry that is washed with conventional liquid laundry detergent is about 1.5
pounds; by contrast, carbon dioxide emission for laundry that is washed with
conventional powdered detergent is about 1.8 pounds per load of clothes
cleaned.
Seventh Generation is a Vermont-based company that offers eco-friendly
and safe products, including natural fabric softeners and powdered and liquid
laundry detergents. Company executives point out that if every household in the
United States replaced just one 100-ounce bottle of petroleum-based liquid
laundry detergent with Seventh Generation’s 100-ounce bottle of vegetable-
based detergent product, “we could save 460,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat
and cool 27,000 U.S. homes for a year.”

Tips for Eco- and Health-Friendly Cleaning

• If you buy a detergent, it should say “no fragrance” on the container. Even
if the product says “unscented,” it may still have a fragrance inside. A few
products, such as Granny’s Unscented Detergent, can be trusted, but you must do
your homework to decipher which products are truly fragrance free.
• If you want a safe fragrance in your wash and on your clothes, consider
adding an essential oil like rosemary. This can be a safe and effective alternative
to synthetic chemical fragrances, but make sure you aren’t allergic to essential
oils before adding them.
• Use dryer balls instead of chemical fabric softeners. Dryer balls soften
fabrics, eliminate static, and shorten drying time by up to 25 percent. Another
eco-friendly alternative to chemical fabric softeners is to add a cup of ordinary
household baking soda to the rinse cycle.
• To further diminish the environmental impact of cleaning your clothes,
dry your laundry outside on a line instead of in a clothes dryer. Taking that step
will cut your carbon footprint—the amount of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases you generate—by 4.4 pounds for every load of clothes you dry
this way.
• To bleach clothes, try adding hydrogen peroxide to the wash. Another
option is to soak the clothes overnight in eight parts of cold water to every one
part of hydrogen peroxide, and then wash the clothes .

Tips for Silk Fabric Care

On the website www.wintersilks.com , the home page for the Winter-Silks
Company based in Florida, you will find some helpful advice about how to care
for your silk fabric clothing without resorting to abrasive or toxic chemicals.
Here is a summary of their tips for silk care success:
Wash by hand. It may sound and feel old-fashioned, but washing silk by
hand is an easy and safe way to keep the fabric looking new. Use a nonalkaline
soap and lukewarm water. Any soap residue can be dissolved by adding pure
white vinegar to the rinse water. Don’t soak the silk for more than three or four
minutes. Never use harsh detergents that contain bleach. And never wash in very
hot or very cold water.
Machine wash. If you must wash your silk fabrics in a washing machine,
use a nontoxic, biodegradable cleaning product. Silk Wash is one such product,
made by WinterSilks, that works for both machine and hand washes. Use only
lukewarm water in the machine.
Removing stains. Use only a nontoxic and biodegradable cleaning product
and never use chlorine bleach. Spot Out is another WinterSilks cleaner that is
effective. Remember that alcohol and soft drinks leave stains unless the fabric is
treated quickly. Also remember that the alcohol in perfume and other personal
care products can damage silk.
Fabric drying. For best results, dry your silk fabric naturally, but not in
direct sunlight, as that fades the color and damages fibers. Gently squeeze the
silk and roll it in a towel. Then lay it flat to dry. Shake the silk periodically to
avoid stiffening. A warm iron—not a hot one—can be used to dry and press the
fabric.

You Can Make Natural Clothing Dyes

If you want to avoid exposure to toxic commercial dyes in clothing and
you’re also feeling creative, making natural plant dyes may be a good option for
you. Some of the plants that make good clothing dyes might even be found in
your own backyard, as you will see from the list below. Others might be growing
in the wild near your home. You will need to use blossoms in full bloom, and
berries and nuts when they are mature and ripe.
For a detailed description of the steps you will need to take to prepare a dye
bath for your clothing to soak in, go to
www.pioneerthinking.com/naturaldyes.html . Here are examples of colors and
some of the plants that provide the best dyes:
• orange: bloodroot, onion skin, carrot, and lilac
• brown: wild plum root, oak bark, dandelion root, and walnut hulls
• pink: strawberries, cherries, raspberries, and roses
• blue and purple: red cabbage, mulberries, blackberries, and hyacinth
• red: sumac, beets, chokecherries, and dried hibiscus flowers
• green: artichokes, spinach leaves, foxglove flowers, and black-eyed Susans
• yellow: turmeric, willow leaves, mimosa flowers, and hickory leaves

Natural Ways to Remove Pesky Stains

Rather than take risks with your health by applying or wearing toxic stain-
resistant chemicals, why not try some safe old-fashioned methods that are
proven to be effective? Some of the best advice for naturally removing stains
from clothing can be found in Betty’s Book of Laundry Secrets by Betty Faust
and Maria Rodale. They recommend something very simple—using a scrub
brush and a bar of mild soap that doesn’t contain deodorants or chemical
additives.
The key is to identify the stain before it is baked into the fabric by the
drying process. That means spotting the smudge and taking action before you
wash the clothing, or immediately afterward. Soak the spots in cold water, then
vigorously rub the soap into the stain and rinse. If the stain is still there, repeat
the process and soak the fabric for thirty minutes in cold water. This is when the
scrub brush comes in handy. Without damaging the fabric, scrub the soap into
the stain. As a last resort, gently blot the stain with a color-safe bleach. Use an
oxygen bleach, not a chlorine bleach. Dilute with water, then rinse out the
bleach.
Special stains require special attention. To remove mildew, for instance,
wash the clothing in warm or hot water using oxygen bleach and line dry,
preferably in direct sunlight. Sweat stains can also be removed by using
sunlight’s natural bleaching action. For oil or grease stains, apply baking soda or
cornstarch to the affected area; put the cloth, stain side down, on a rag atop an
ironing board; and iron the opposite side of the cloth.

Dry Your Clothes Courtesy of Nature

You can generate energy savings to support your financial health, and have
much less negative impact on the health of the environment, if you simply allow
Nature to dry and freshen your clothes for you. On the website
www.planetgreen.com , you will find useful tips on how to dispense with you
dryer and all of those fabric softeners and let the outdoor air do your work for
you.
Use white vinegar in the rinse cycle to prevent the clothing from becoming
stiff. Anywhere from one-half to three-quarters of a cup of vinegar in each wash
load should keep the garments soft while drying .
Whether you are drying outdoors or inside a basement or on a porch,
always use clothespins and clip the garments by their hemlines, though pinning
T-shirts at the underarm also works well. Keep sufficient space between clothing
items on the line to allow for faster drying. You can even create an all-natural
linen spray for additional freshening power by consulting the Planet Green
website www.planetgreen.com .
 CHAPTER 7:
The Dangerous Future of Clothing
Nanotechnology. Nanoparticles. Nanomaterials. Nanosilver. Nanotextiles.
Not too long ago, neither those terms nor the products now connected to them
would have held much meaning for most of us. We have rapidly entered a “brave
new world” in the twenty-first century, where the manipulation of matter at the
microscopic level affects even our selection of clothing.
What exactly are nanoparticles in nanotextiles produced by the new science
of nanotechnology, and why is this mostly invisible layer of functionality
appearing in so many name-brands of clothing? Is it a potential threat to the
health of humans and the environment?
Let’s start with a really simple definition of nanotechnology. It’s the ability
to manipulate molecules at a level smaller than the width of a human hair, down
even to a level tinier than the human eye can see without a microscope. This
manufacturing capability can result in a wide range of consumer products being
made stronger, made more durable, and endowed with new qualities.
Silver in its nanosized form—usually reduced to be smaller in size than
many viruses—is effective at killing microbes, which is why it now commonly
appears in clothing to make the garments odor-resistant. It’s also being marketed
as a way to give clothes an antistain ability.
We are just now getting a glimpse at the potential long-term costs to human
and environmental health of relying on silver nanoparticles in clothing to
provide us with antistain and antibacterial agents. But since clothing
manufacturers aren’t required by law to disclose the presence of nanoparticles in
the garments they produce and sell, we consumers are mostly uninformed about
what we’re putting on our skin.
Some clues about the presence of nanoparticles can be found in the
terminology used by the clothing industry to market nanofabrics. Terms like
“self-cleaning,” “antibacterial,” “antifungal,” “stain repellant,” and “static
resistant,” usually are indicators that nanoparticles have been embedded in the
fibers.

Nanoparticles Release During Wash and Wear

Depending on the type of clothing and the presence of bleaching agents,
washing nanotextiles can result in a substantial release of silver nanoparticles
into the waterways of our natural environment through washing machine
wastewater. That’s the finding of a 2009 study published in the Environmental
Science & Technology journal (Geranio 2009). A team of Swiss scientists tested
nine silver nanotextile articles of clothing by washing them and measuring the
release of nanoparticles from their fibers.
When bleaching agents such as hydrogen peroxide or peracetic acid are
used to wash the nanoclothing, the chemicals greatly accelerate the separation of
nanoparticles from the fabric. There was also a big variation in the nanoparticles
released based on the type of clothing and how the nanoparticles were embedded
during manufacturing. Some clothing items released up to 45 percent of their
total nanosilver content into wastewater.
An earlier study published in the same journal investigated the amount of
silver released from nanosocks into wastewater and attempted to predict its fate
in wastewater treatment plants. Arizona State University researchers tested six
types of socks containing nanosilver and found some pairs leached as much as
half of their nanosilver content into water, prompting the researchers to warn that
“the high silver concentration may limit the disposal of the biosolids as
agricultural fertilizer” once the nanosilver passes through waste-water treatment
(Benn 2008).
Nanoparticles from clothing are also released during everyday wear. As the
Swiss study team writes in their 2009 article, “A textile that is disposed at the
end of its use phase has lost about 10 percent of its weight through abrasion
during washing and usage, which suggests that particulate release may play a
dominant role.”
The first attempt to measure the release of silver nanoparticles from
antibacterial fabrics as a result of human perspiration was documented in an
April 2010 study in the journal, Particle Fibre Toxicology . Using a system of
incubating the fabric in artificial sweat, researchers measured the amount of
nanosilver released from clothing under conditions simulating everyday human
wear. Releases in different clothing fabrics ranged up to 322 mg/kg of fabric
weight, which is a lot. The quantity of silver released, which could have been
absorbed by human skin if the clothing had been worn, was dependent on the
fabric quality, the amount of silver coating, and the pH level of the sweat.
Based on the studies described above, we know that nanosilver in clothing
can leach from the fabric under a variety of conditions—during washing and
everyday wear—so the question now becomes, what potential risk is there to
human and environmental health from our use of textiles containing
nanoparticles?
12 Nanoclothing Examples (from among hundreds on the market)
260 Den Nanosilver Far Infrared Antiodor Healthy Socks
Manufacturer: Tsung-Hau Technology
Description: Nanosilver combined with fiber creates socks with
antibacterial, disinfection, and deodorization qualities.

3XDry Essex Shirt

Manufacturer: Simms Fishing Products
Description: A silver-based nanofabric offers all-day sun protection, has an
antiodor treatment “that lasts the lifetime of the garment,” and repels moisture
and “wicks perspiration away from the body.”

4Season OG Pants
Manufacturer: Outlier
Description: A New York City product, its nanosphere coating is self-
cleaning because the fabric’s surface is coated in nanoscopic spikes that prevent
stain molecules from bonding to fibers.

A La Mode Performance Long Sleeve Mock Neck

Manufacturer: Green Tee Apparel
Description: A fashionable long-sleeved top for golfing, it repels liquids,
resists wrinkles, and has antimicrobial properties.

Agility Halter Dress

Manufacturer: Green Tee Apparel
Description: Designed for women golfers, the dress repels liquids, resists
wrinkles, dries fast, and has antimicrobial features. A “100 percent poly pique
nanotech” fabric.

Antibacterial Silver Athletic and Lounging Socks

Manufacturer: Sharper Image
Description: Sports socks knitted with cotton material that contains
“millions of invisible silver nanoparticles” that are “naturally antibacterial and
antifungal.”

Smartcare and NANO-LEL Clothing

Manufacturer: Nordstrom Inc
Description: A “superior stain repellency” nanopants with “breathable
comfort.” It is made with a “Nano-Tex chemical process that binds the molecules
of an industry-standard water repellent to the individual cotton fibers. This
makes the fabric’s water resistance more effective, more durable, and invisible to
consumers.”

Tencil Clothing
Manufacturer: Lenzing
Description: This is trumpeted as the first cellulose fiber to use a
nanotechnology called Nanofibrils, which “optimize absorption of moisture with
excellent cooling properties.”

Steel Pants
Manufacturer: Beyond
Description: Made with something called Schoeller’s Durable Dynamic
with NanoSphere, these pants that convert to shorts have nanoparticles that make
the garment “self-cleaning.”

Nano-Tex Textiles
Manufacturer: Nano-Tex Inc.
Description: Its advertising says “a revolutionary technology” transforms
the fabric in these garments at the nanolevel and “dramatically improves your
favorite everyday clothing.”

Resists Static Fabric

Manufacturer: Nano-Tex Inc.
Description: This clothing line “lets fabric repel lint, dust, and pet hair that
normally clings to static attraction. ”

The Environmental Impact of Nanoparticle Release

As silver nanoparticles are leached from clothing and other consumer
products and transit through the natural environment, they affect plant life by
stunting its growth. That was the August 2010 finding of Duke University
researchers who applied silver nanoparticles to outdoor fields of plants. They
documented that the nanosilver reduced plant growth by 22 percent, and
microbial biomass by 20 percent, compared to plant fields cultivated without
nanosilver.
The scientists who presented these findings to the annual meeting of the
Ecological Society of America (on August 4, 2010) noted that the nanoparticles
released through wastewater end up at waste-water treatment plants, where they
remain unaltered and accumulate in sludge. This sludge usually is trucked to
crop fields where it’s applied to soil as a fertilizer.
That process of toxic sludge dispersal may put portions of our nation’s food
supply at risk because the nanoparticles persist in the environment. They can
affect plant growth, as the study determined, but also plant health because the
plants depend on fungi and soil bacteria for nutrients. Both of these are
significantly depleted by the antimicrobial nanoparticles.
“What we found was actually a little bit surprising,” study co-author Ben
Colman told Scientific American . “We added lower concentrations of silver to a
more complex system, but rather than find no measurable effect, we found that
the silver nanoparticles significantly altered the plant growth, microbial biomass,
and microbial activity.”
More studies must be done to measure the effects of these nanoparticles on
aquatic plants, insects, and fish. But the studies that have already been
completed certainly raise enough troubling questions. A cautionary principle
should be invoked in the use of nanoparticles in general, and in their use in
clothing in particular.
In the January 31, 2010, issue of Aquatic Toxicology , a team of Danish
researchers reported that silver nanoparticles “cause respiratory stress in
Eurasian perch,” apparently as a result of the particles interfering with fish gill
function. In a similar fashion, a study by University of Florida scientists,
published in a September 27, 2008, issue of Environmental Toxicology &
Chemistry , determined that nanosilver and nanocopper “caused toxicity in all
organisms tested,” which included zebra fish, a plant species, and an algal
species. Lethal concentrations were found at levels so low that the researchers
admitted they were completely surprised by the finding.

Do Clothing Nanoparticles Endanger Human Health?

Though no studies have been conducted to determine the health dangers to
humans of absorbing silver nanoparticles from clothing, at least not as of this
writing, initial research has been done to assess how nanoparticles that have
added to cosmetics, sunscreens, and personal care products might pose threats to
human health. Nanoparticles are being added to skin products to force product
ingredients to penetrate the body more rapidly and deeply, presumably making
the products longer lasting and more effective. Up to two-thirds of sunblock and
sunscreen products sold in the United States today now contain nanoparticles of
titanium dioxide or zinc oxide, though few disclose this fact on the product
labels. Out of the eight sunscreen products containing nanoparticles that were
examined by Consumer Reports magazine in 2007, for example, only one
disclosed their presence on the label.
Once nanoparticles penetrate the skin, they enter the bloodstream and gain
free access to all of the major body organs, including passage through the blood-
brain barrier. Numerous toxicology studies have warned that nanoparticles
circulating through the human body may create unpredictable risks to health. For
instance, an October 2005 study that was published in the journal Toxicology In
Vitro found that silver nanoparticles had toxic effects on the liver cells of lab
animals, subjecting the cells to oxidative stress .
As a November 22, 2007, article in The Economist noted, “Research on
animals suggests that nanoparticles can even evade some of the body’s natural
defense systems and accumulate in the brain, cells, blood, and nerves. Studies
show there is the potential for such materials to reach the lungs and cause
inflammation; to move from the lungs to other organs; to have surprising
biological toxicity; to move from within the skin to the lymphatic system; and
possibly to move across cell membranes.”
Clothing manufacturers that are now trumpeting nanoparticles technology
to consumers, like the cosmetics and personal care industries before them, make
many unfounded assumptions about health and safety based on insufficient
research data. A June 2006 commentary in Nature spotlighted this trend by
noting how “the chemicals industry has blithely assumed that if large grains are
safe, smaller ones (nanoparticles) will be too. But that assumption is coming
under increasing scrutiny and is not necessarily always valid.”
Subsequent to publication of the Nature article, three studies appeared and
cast even more doubt about the safety of silver nanoparticles:
1. “The potential side effects of these nanoparticles (silver) have not been
studied thoroughly yet,” commented the authors of a May 27, 2010, study in the
journal Immunopharmacology & Immunotoxicology . So the team of researchers
examined the toxic effects of silver nanoparticles on macrophages, one of the
body’s most important immune cells. They found that exposure of the cells to the
nanoparticles resulted in “a significant decrease in cell viability” at a dosage of 1
part per million up to 25 parts per million of nanoconcentrations, which also
produced a “considerable decline” in nitric oxide production by the
macrophages.
2. To measure the effect of silver nanoparticles on coronary cells and the
aortic heart rings of lab animals, scientists writing in a December 15, 2009, issue
of Toxicology Letters said they discovered that the particles affected cells in
several different ways, both with high and low concentrations that either
increased cell proliferation or inhibited proliferation. These biological effects
were observed based on particle size could have unpredictable effects on the
human heart.
3. “Despite the widespread use of nanosilver, there is a serious lack of
information concerning the biological activities of nanosilver on human tissue
cells,” observed a German team of researchers writing in a May 2009 issue of
Langenbecks, Archives of Surgery . They tested the effects of silver nanoparticles
on human stem cells and found that at high concentrations, these particles had
cytotoxic effects (cytotoxic refers to any agent or process that kills cells.)
Silver nanoparticles in clothing may ultimately be found to have effects on
the human body similar to the adverse health impacts documented from inhaling
ultrafine particles of a similar size, mostly produced by vehicle emissions and
absorbed from the atmosphere. No less a source than the Journal of Nanoscience
& Nanotechnology , in an August 9, 2009, article titled “Nanoparticles and the
brain: cause for concern?” pointed out that both nanoparticles and ultrafine
particles may be neurotoxins with unpredictable effects on the brain and central
nervous system.
“More studies are needed to test the hypothesis that inhaled nanoparticles
cause neurodegenerative effects,” wrote the University of Rochester scientists.
“Some but probably not the majority of nanoparticles will have a significant
toxicity (hazard) potential, and this will pose a significant risk if there is a
sufficient exposure.”

The Worst Futuristic Clothing Idea Ever!

Imagine being able to spray chemical clothing from a can directly onto your
skin in whatever style or design that you choose. This is not or science fiction.
It’s science reality, and the invention will appear in 2011 as a consumer product
called Fabrican, which is marketed out of Britain.
Scientists at Imperial College in London developed a liquid clothing spray
made of cotton fibers, polyester, plastics, and solvents that harden on contact
with the skin to form a reusable garment that is washable. All you need to do is
peel it off for re-use, or to be discarded, depending on your fashion whim.
This is how the www.fabricanltd.com website describes its product: “The
technology opens new vistas for personalized fashion, allowing individual
touches to be added to manufactured garments, or even impromptu alterations.
Garments could incorporate fragrances, active substances, or conductive
materials to interface with information technology.”
While the use of this chemical mixture of solvents, polyesters, and plastics
might make sense for use as spray-on bandages, which could be applied directly
to a wound without adding pressure, its use as a second skin for the entire body
raises many troubling health questions. There is no indication on the product
website that these combinations of chemicals—many of the solvents, for
instance, are toxic—have ever been tested for the short-term, much less long-
term, impacts on human health. To incorporate additional fragrances and other
active substances into the chemical mixture, as the manufacturer proposes, only
further complicates the health uncertainties.

Organic Fibers Create a More Planet-Friendly Future

When it comes to ensuring the future health of the environment, there is no
comparison between natural and synthetic fibers. Natural organic fibers grow as
a result of energy that is directly generated by the sun, whose rays are our
planet’s most abundant renewable resource. Once their usefulness ends, these
natural fibers biodegrade and readily integrate back into the ecosystem.
Synthetic fibers mostly come from a nonrenewable resource—fossil fuels—
and they rarely biodegrade, at least not in our lifetimes. With the introduction of
nanosilver particles, fibers can last even longer, becoming virtually
indestructible.
What we choose to put on our bodies, whether it’s clothes, or cosmetics and
personal care products, affects the health of our outer natural environment just as
severely as it does the health of our inner bodily environment. As this book has
demonstrated, conventional processes for manufacturing synthetic fibers
generate more types of chemical contaminants and environmental degradation
than you might have previously imagined.
Though the fabrics manufacturing industry hasn’t been very forthcoming
with data about its use and release of chemicals into the environment, the study
of industry practices done in 2005 by the Greenpeace Research Laboratories in
Britain, discussed in Chapter 2, uncovered enough information to create a
disturbing profile. Here is a recap of the eleven most severe pollution problems
from textile manufacturing that these scientists, and other researchers in separate
studies, have identified:
• A solvent used to clean wool, trichloroethylene, is a cancer-causing
chemical, possibly at any exposure level, and seeps into ecosystems during the
manufacturing process.
• During fabric bleaching, a hormone disruptive chemical called EDTA is
often used, and it persists in the effluent released by manufacturing plants, which
means it can bioaccumulate in the environment.
 • Optical brightener detergents also persist in ecosystems after textile plants
release wastewater effluent.
• A whole class of synthetic dyes, especially Direct dyes using
formaldehyde, has proven toxic to aquatic systems. Chrome dyes bioaccumulate
in many aquatic species and are toxic.
• Phthalates bind dyes to fabric, but some of these plasticizers are toxic to
both human and animal life. One of them, DEHP, is a proven reproductive toxin.
• Formaldehyde is released into the environment from wrinkle-free and
shrinkage-free garments, posing risks to both human and aquatic life.
• Flame retardants are now found everywhere in the environment, and
though textiles account for less than half of the toxic levels, they still contribute
unnecessarily to the problem .
• Triclosan, an antibacterial and antifungicidal finish, leaches from clothes
in the wash and from textile plants through wastewater to bioaccumulate in
ecosystems as a toxin.
• Textile mills typically release wastewater that contains toxic heavy metals,
such as zirconium and cobalt, from fabric dyes.
• Now that the insecticide permethrin is being added to clothing during the
manufacturing process, its residue is being channeled through wastewater into
the environment, where it’s toxic to plant and animal life.
• Increasing levels of nanosilver are being released and contribute to the
toxic brew accumulating in ecosystems.
“Effluents and sludge from production processes cannot be safely deposited
into ecosystems,” note the authors of the book about sustainability practices,
Cradle to Cradle , “so they are often buried or burned as hazardous waste. The
fabric itself is sold all over the world, used, then thrown ‘away’—which usually
means it is either incinerated, releasing toxins, or placed in a landfill. Even in the
rather short life span of the fabric, its particles have abraded into the air and been
taken into people’s lungs.”
Greenpeace laboratory researchers summarized their findings about the
chemicals used in manufacturing clothes using this language: “The textile
industry and its products give rise to a wide range of environmental and
toxicological impacts. However, due to the complexity and range of chemistry
involved and the lack of available data, an accurate assessment of this impact is
difficult. Efforts have been made in Europe, at least, to avoid chemicals of high
concern; unfortunately, this cannot be taken for granted worldwide.”
The report might have added that since most clothing sold in the world
originates in countries outside of Europe, “chemicals of high concern” are found
everywhere. The European tendency to limit toxic risks is a public policy that is
not yet on display in the United States, which remains one of the largest
consumer markets for foreign-manufactured synthetic, nonorganic, and nanotech
fibers .

Finding Our Way Back

Here and there we can see a few positive clothing trends afoot. One
example is the emergence of soy and bamboo fibers and a vegetable fiber called
saluyot. These new natural forms of textiles are being created without any
reliance on petrochemicals or nanotechnology. They are safe for both humans
and the environment.
But how many consumers know about these new natural clothing fibers?
Had you ever wondered what happens to your items of clothing when you
discard them? Did you think they go to a landfill and quickly degrade harmlessly
back into the environment?
If you’re like most people, you probably never gave these sorts of questions
a passing consideration. Out of sight, out of mind! Yet, future generations will be
forced to live with our environmental mistakes unless we ask the right questions
and come up with the right answers.
If this book accomplishes anything worthwhile, we hope it’s the
heightening of awareness that synthetic clothing can put not only human health
at risk, but environmental health as well. It’s an interconnected web, and every
individual decision that we make contributes to either strengthening or
weakening that web of life.
Now that you are aware that synthetic clothing doesn’t biodegrade like
natural fibers and that these synthetics will be a disposal headache for many
generations to come, you can make a personal contribution to the solution. It’s a
process that starts with holding ourselves and each other accountable for
purchasing and using only safe natural products that are designed to keep us and
our planet healthy.
Using natural fibers whenever possible is a long-term investment in our
personal health, in the health of our children, and just as importantly, in the
health of our planet. Clothes shouldn’t be ecological time bombs. They should
be expressions of our desire to live in harmony with our bodies and with the
Garden of Eden that is planet Earth, which we were blessed to be born into.
 Appendix
Companies That Produce Safe Clothing
Dozens of manufacturers now produce safe, natural, organic clothing. For
example, Near Sea Naturals makes yarns from plant-based fibers and Janice’s
makes natural clothing for people with chemical sensitivities. You will also find
companies listed here that make chemical-free cloth diapers and other products
for babies and young children.

(Note: The following information was accurate as of July 2010.)

Baby Clothes

BabyNaturopathics.com —An entire line of certified organic cotton infant

clothing can be found here, including bibs, shirts, pants, hats, and kimonos.

Babyworks.com —This Oregon family business carries organic cotton

baby clothes of all types, along with nontoxic diaper products.

Hanna Andersson Baby Clothes ( www.hannaandersson.com ) —

Children’s clothes produced by this company have been certified by the Okeo-
Tex Standard 100 as being free of more than one hndred harmful substances.
Only environmentally responsible dyes are used in organic cotton clothes for
every member of the family.

Hatley Baby Clothes (hatleystore.com) —No azo dyes are used in these
organic cotton products and only nonchlorinated bleach is used on the fabrics .

Organic Adobe Baby Clothes ( www.organicadobe.com ) —These

organic cotton clothes use nontoxic dyes and are guaranteed to be free of
formaldehyde, flame retardants, and other toxins that are commonly mainstream
baby products. The company was founded in Santa Cruz, California.

Organicgrace.com —Nontoxic options for healthy living is the motto of

this company in Garberville, California, which sells organic cotton and wool
baby products, and hemp and organic cotton “moon pads” for women’s
menstrual cycles.
 Preciousdignity.com —Quality cloth diapers made of eco-friendly fabrics
are a specialty; every item is made in Columbus, Ohio.

Speesess Baby Clothes ( www.speesees.com ) —These organic cotton

baby clothes use environmentally sound herbal dyes.

Clothes for All Ages

Ecowise.com —Opened in Austin, Texas, in 1990, this “earth-friendly

everything store” carries an organic line of clothing that includes men’s and
women’s apparel in hemp and cotton.

Fairindigo.com —This company in Madison, Wisconsin, features eco-

friendly fashions, an organic line of clothing, and a “fair trade” attitude toward
suppliers who pay their employees fair wages.

Greenfibres.com —Not only does this British company carry organic

clothing for men, women, and children, it also sells Sonett eco-clothes and
cleaning products that use organic ingredients.

Janices.com —Janice is a real person in North America who created a

natural organic clothing line for people with chemical sensitivities .

Nearseanaturals.com —Based in New Mexico, this company is a member

of the Organic Trade Association and features knit and woven fabrics, and yarns
made from organic plant-based fibers.

Organic-cotton-co.com —Founded by Jon Cloud, an organic food and

fiber activist in Toronto, Canada, the company philosophy is “organic products
heal the Earth.” The certified organic pima cotton product line consists of
underwear for women, men, and children; socks for babies to adults; bras; T-
shirts; hoodies; and long-sleeve undershirts.

OrganicWearUSA.com —This company offers baby clothes without

bleach or petroleum-based dyes or inks, and fibers grown without pesticides and
insecticides.

Patagonia.com —This company based in California uses only organic

cotton in its clothing for men and women, and specializes in outdoor wear.
 Roguenaturalliving.com —This Oregon-based company features
“nontoxic goods for the New Green Revolution” and sells organic clothing for
youth, women (lingerie is one item), men, and unisex.

Rootedtonature.com —This online store specializes in natural fiber

clothing made from organic cotton, wool, hemp, silk, and even soy and bamboo
fibers.

Wintersilks.com— Based in Jacksonville, Florida, this company sells

thirty-two different types of silk fabrics and clothing, including herringbone for
shirts, pants and blazers, silk cashmere, silk linen, and other blends with angora
and bamboo .

Organic Cotton Clothing Providers

(ask for these brands at clothing stores)

Recycleatee —Organic clothing for the eco-friendly.

Faerie’s Dance —Women’s fashions in organic cotton, hemp, tencel, and

soy.

The Oko Box —The latest styles in organic cotton, hemp, bamboo, tencel,
and soy.

Live Life Organics —Organic clothing, plantable hangtags, and water-

based inks.

Onno Textiles —Organic cotton, bamboo, and hemp T-shirts.

Kasper Organics —Organic cotton clothing, and hemp clothing.

Baby Naturopathics Inc —Embroidered organic baby clothing.

Butterfly Maidens —Unbleached and naturally dyed organic clothing for

women and children.

Cultivate Kids —Organic infant and toddler T-shirts.

VivaLocaWear —Organic T-shirts for students and activists .

 Shanghai Fashionorganic —Organic clothing and fabric from China,
made from bamboo, organic cotton, hemp, and soybeans.

Kook Wear —Environmentally friendly clothing for action sports

enthusiasts.

Nubius Organics —Apparel, toys, and accessories for babies and kids.

Go Natural Baby —Organic cotton baby and children’s clothes.

Maternity Jeans —Organic cotton maternity jeans and clothes.

Tees 4 Trees —Earth-friendly apparel that celebrates nature.

Organic by Nature —Affordable organic children’s clothing.

Byrnt Organics —All-organic vintage surf-inspired men’s and women’s

denim and knits.

Essere Organics —The finest natural, eco-friendly, and organic products.

Organic Baby Clothing —Boutique-quality organic baby clothes.

Jute and Jackfruit —Handmade, designer organic cotton women’s

dresses, tops, and jackets .

A Consumer’s Resource Guide

You will find listed here groups and organizations that promote safe
clothing options or do consumer research on clothing. These include the La
Leche League International, which offers advice and support to women who
breast-feed, and websites that provide useful suggestions to women who choose
to go bra free for health or other reasons.

About Organic Cotton (aboutorganiccotton.org)

This group keeps a list of companies that cultivate and sell organic cotton.

La Leche League International ( www.llli.org )

A breast-feeding advocacy group that is a great resource for mothers and
mothers-to-be.
 Organic Consumers Association ( www.organicconsumers.org )
Represents about 850,000 people and businesses dedicated to promoting
and protecting natural foods and organic products.

Organic Exchange ( www.organicexchange.org )

These clothing companies are committed to expanding organic agriculture
and the use of organically grown fibers.

Organic Trade Association ( www.ota.com )

This business association promotes trade in organic products and maintains
a list of 1,600 companies that sell or manufacture organic products .

Clothing Chemicals to Avoid

The European Union and independent chemists and labs in Europe have
compiled an extensive list of all chemicals that are used in clothing and pose a
potential threat to human and wildlife health. The following list gives you, the
consumer, information that will help you to identify these chemicals so you can
avoid them whenever you encounter their names in association with clothing
manufacturing practices.

Note: The Norwegian Textile Panel’s list of hazardous chemicals can be

found at http://www.greennow.net/Tekstiler/Chemicals.htm .

Pretreatment of Clothing

Alkylphenol ethoxylates: Used as surfactants in detergents during the

production process, these hormone-disruptive
chemicals persist in nature and can be toxic to
aquatic life.

Nonylphenol and Recommended that these substances never be

nonylphenol ethoxylates: applied in the production of textiles and that a
maximum limit for unintentional contamination
not exceed 30 ppm.

Octylphenol and Banned in Norway for use in clothing.

octylphenol ethoxylates:
 Alpha.-sulfo-.omega.- Recommended that these substances never be
(nonylphenoxy)-poly(oxy- used in textiles and that unintentional
1,2 ethanediyl, ammonium contamination of finished products not exceed 30
salt: ppm.

Other alkylphenol Should not be applied in the production of

ethoxylates: textiles and unintentional contamination should
not exceed 30 ppm.

Organic Solvents

1,1,1,2-Tetrachloroethane: Should never be used.

1,1,2,2-Tetrachloroethane: Should never be used.

Pentachloroethane: Should never be used.

Benzene: Used in textile dyeing, but should not be.

Carbon tetrachloride: Banned in Norway due to ozone depletion

effect.

Toluene: Should never be used.

N,N-Dimethylformamide: Should never be used.

1,1-Oxybis-2-propanol: A textile bleach that should never be used.

Textile Dyeing

Azo These 25 dyes are banned because they release the carcinogen
dyes: arylamines. (For the complete list refer to the website listed on
page 149 .)

Disperse These 22 dyes ranging from Disperse Blue 1 to Disperse Brown

dyes: 1 are used to dye synthetic fibers, may cause cancer or allergies,
and should never be used. (For the complete list refer to the
website listed on page 149 .)
 Acid These 7 dyes may cause cancer or allergies and should never be
dyes: used. (For the complete list refer to the website listed on page
149 .)

Basic Basic Red 9 and Basic Violet 14 are Cationic dyes that may
dyes: cause cancer and should never be used in any process.

Direct These 4 substantive dyes—Direct Black 38, Direct Blue 6,

dyes: Direct Red 28, and Direct Blue 1—may cause cancer or allergies
and should never be used.

Textile Finishing Treatments

Formaldehyde: Used to make textiles shrinkage resistant and wrinkle

resistant, and as a binding agent for ink, it is a carcinogen
and an allergen. Norway recommends the use of
formaldehyde-free resins.

Metals and metal Ranging from mercury to copper, they are used in a
compounds: variety of ways in the processing of synthetic fibers.
Various prohibitions and limitations apply to their use in
Norway. (For the complete list refer to the website listed
on page 149 .)

Organotin Used as catalysts in the production of synthetic fibers and

compounds: to prevent the smell of sweat in clothing, 14 of these
compounds are either banned outright in Norway or their
use is limited. They have shown hormone disruptive
properties even at low concentrations. (For the complete
list refer to the website listed on page 149 .)

Flame retardants: Not recommended for clothes sold or produced in

Norway because “it is possible to reduce flammability of
clothes and textiles in other ways than by applying
chemical flame retardants.”

Brominated Nine are listed as banned or limitations are place on their

flame retardants: use in Norway. They are persistent in the environment
 and bioaccumulative in humans and wildlife. (For the
complete list refer to the website listed on page 149 .)

Other flame Six other types of retardants are either banned or limited
retardants: in Norwegian textiles. (For the complete list refer to the
website listed on page 149 .)

Organochlorines: These solvents include triclosan, which is used to prevent

bacterial growth in clothing. Most are either banned in
Norway or their use is restricted.

Chlorinated Thirteen of these solvents are listed and warnings issued

benzenes, about their use, especially because safer alternatives
toluenes, etc.: exist. (For the complete list refer to the website listed on
page 149 .)

Chlorinated These fungicides and pesticides can cause serious health

phenols: damage to humans and environmental damage. (For the
complete list refer to the website listed on page 149 .)

Phthalates: Used as plasticizers in fabrics, eight of them are either

banned or restricted in Norway. (For the complete list
refer to the website listed on page 149 .)

Asbestos: Fibers coated in asbestos are still used in some countries.

Norway bans the use of six of the most common.

Pesticides: Mostly used in the cultivation of natural fibers, 24 are

listed by Norway as either being banned or restricted.
(For the complete list refer to the website listed on page
149 .)
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Chapter 6
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Chapter 7
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 About the Authors
For more than three decades Dr. Anna Maria Clement and her husband, Dr.
Brian Clement, have directed The Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm
Beach, Florida. It has been hailed by Spa Management magazine as “the number
one wellness spa in the world.”
More than 300,000 people from fifty countries have spent time at
Hippocrates to either strengthen their health using the clinic’s holistic model, or
to heal and recover from illnesses and diseases that mainstream medicine failed
to treat. As part of its preventive approach to health, Hippocrates educates its
guests about the role that synthetic chemicals play in triggering illness and
disease.
The many dozens of celebrity clients who have lent their names in support
of the Hippocrates program include the actor Paul Newman, comedian Dick
Gregory, musician Kenny Loggins, and Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac.
Dr. Anna Maria Clement and Dr. Brian Clement lecture on health, healing,
and longevity before tens of thousands of people around the world each year.
Together and on their own, they have authored a dozen books.
 Index
A
Abou-Donia, Mohammed, 97 , 99
absorption of chemicals, 13
acetaldehyde, 106
acetate, 54 , 121
acetone, 106 , 122
acid dyes, 151
acrylic, 9 , 33 –34, 121
ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), 89
allergens, 44 , 70 , 108 –110
allergies
allergic dermatitis, 67 –68, 70 –73
flame retardants and, 87
increase in, 11 , 12
toxins and, 53
alpaca, 115
aluminum chloride, 26
Ames, Bruce, 54 –55
angora, 115
antibacterial agents
in fabrics, 44 –45, 130 , 131 , 140
in soaps, 25 , 105
antibiotics, resistance to, 105
antifungal fabrics, 45 , 130
antiodor fabrics, 13
antiperspirants, 24 , 26
antistain agents, 129
antiwrinkle fabrics, 10 , 13 , 44 , 59 –60
arthritis, 107
artificial fibers
acrylic, 9
breast cancer and, 33 –34
as burn hazard, 12 , 85 –86
electrostatic discharges and, 76 –77
fertility and
female, 80 –81, 90
flame retardants and, 55
male, 76 –80, 81
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) and, 89 –90
Perc (perchloroethylene) and, 111
permethrin and, 100
heat reaction of, 122
history of, 9 –11
identification of, 121 –123
modacrylic, 9
muscle fatigue and, 13 , 74 –76, 9 9
nylon, 9 , 33 –34, 73 , 93 , 122
petrochemical, 12
polyester
about, 10
dyes and, 43 –44
electrostatic potential of, 78 –79
heat reaction of, 85
identification of, 122
muscle fatigue and, 74 –76
rayon, 9
spandex, 10 , 23
static and, 75 –76
Teflon, 10
vinyon, 9
asbestos, 153
asthma, 50 , 107
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), 89

B
babies, 10 . See also children
flame retardants and, 90
formaldehyde levels and, 46
skin sensitivity and, 53 , 66 –69, 79
sleepwear, 61 (See also sleepwear)
bamboo fibers, 141
bathing suits, 10
beauty products
bioaccumulation of chemicals in, 13 , 64 , 110
dyes in, 73
formaldehyde in, 51
nanoparticles in, 135
quaternium-15 in, 105
Betty’s Book of Laundry Secrets (Faust and Rodale), 125
bioaccumulation
body burden and, 110
of flame retardants, 57 , 88 –89
of permethrin, 97
skin care products and, 13 , 64
of triclosan, 25
biodegradability of fabric
detergents and, 104 –105, 108
dyes and, 43
environment and, 14
organic fabric and, 117 , 138
shoes and, 34
birth defects, 64
bladder cancer, 111
bleaching
fabric care, natural, 123 , 126
fabric production, 42 , 53 , 139
nanoparticles and, 130
Blum, Arlene, 54 –55, 57 , 58 –59
body burden, 63 –65, 110
Bra and Breast Cancer Study, 19 –21
brain damage, 89 , 100 , 137
bras, 12
braless options, 20 , 22 , 35
breast cancer and, 17 –22
constriction of, 23 , 26 –30, 32 –3 3
discomfort of, 22 , 30
history of, 30
purposes of, 31 –33
skin problems and, 28
spandex in, 23
temperature and, 22 , 23
Braungart, Michael, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things ,
14 –15, 36 , 140
breast-feeding, 20 , 29 –30, 32
breasts
cancer
bras and, 12 , 17 –22, 26 , 29
breast feeding, as prevention, 29 –30
increase in, 11
synthetics and, 33 –34
cysts in, 18 , 29
health of, 35
massage, 31
pain in, 22 , 29
toxins in, 24 –26
brighteners, optical, 42 , 105 , 139
brocade, 114
brominated Tris, 54 –56
bronchitis, 50
Brookstein, David, 47 , 50
burns, hazards of, 12 , 85 –86
burn tests, 121 –123
buying decisions, 14 –15
Buzz Off Insect Shield, 93 –94

C
camel, 115
cancer
bladder cancer, 111
breast cancer
bras and, 12 , 17 –22, 26 , 29
breast-feeding, as prevention, 29 –30
increase in, 11
synthetics and, 33 –34
cervical cancer, 111
esophageal cancer, 111
leukemia, 46
prostate cancer, 11
Cancer on Five Continents (International Association of Cancer Registries),
21
Cancer Prevention Coalition, 24 , 104
carbon dioxide emissions, 122 –123
carcinogens. See also cancer; specific toxins
chromium, 35 –36
in detergents, 104 –105
in dyes, 70 –73
flame retardants as, 57 –58
increase in, 11
Carothers, Wallace Hume, 9
Carter’s sleepwear, 66 –69
Casey, Michael, 69
cashmere, 115
Cawthorne, Simon, 2 2
CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), 63 , 100
cervical cancer, 111
chemicals
common, 59 –62
harmful, list of, 149 –152
for pretreatment, 149 –150
sensitivity to
of breasts, 34
of children, 44 , 60
dyes and, 44 , 72 –73
of genitals, 79
increase of, 65 –70
synergies of
about, 13 , 108
body burden and, 64
breast cancer and, 26
fragrances and, 110
permethrin and, 95 , 97 –100
Chemtura Corp., 91 –92
chiffon, 114
children
chemical sensitivity and, 44 , 60
formaldehyde and, 47 , 49 –50
and PBDEs, 90
pesticide exposure and, 93 –95, 99 –100
sleepwear for, 54 –56, 58 , 59 , 61 , 66 –69
China
dyes and, 74
flame-retardant uniforms from, 87
formaldehyde and, 50 –51, 60 , 74
natural fibers and, 114 , 115 , 120
Chinese linen, 115
chlorinated Tris, 58
chloroform, 107
chloromethane, 106
chrome dyes, 43 , 71
chromium tanning, 35 –36
cleaning
agents for, 10 , 14 , 103 –105, 110 –112
methods, nontoxic, 112 , 125 –126
cleaning methods, nontoxic, 112
clothes drying, natural, 123 , 124 , 126 –127
clothing
bathing suits, 10
bras
braless options, 20 , 22 , 35
breast cancer and, 17 –22
constriction of, 23 , 26 –30, 32 –33
purposes of, 30 –33
skin problems and, 28
spandex in, 23
corsets, 8 –9, 30
military, clothing and uniforms
burn hazards of, 12
flame retardants in, 83 –87
formaldehyde in, 72
permethrin in, 13 , 83 –87, 93 , 95 –9 6
pantyhose, 9
school uniforms, 60
shoes, 34 –39
sleepwear, 54 –56, 58 , 59 , 61 , 66 –69
undergarments, 77 –80
Colman, Ben, 134
The Complete Book of Breast Care (Lauersen and Stukane), 32
conditioner (hair), 104 , 105
Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), 54 –59, 61 , 67
contact dermatitis, 11 , 12 , 44 , 46 , 67 –73
Coolmax, 85
copper, 71
corsets, 8 –9, 30
cosmetics
bioaccumulation of chemicals in, 13 , 64 , 110
dyes in, 73
formaldehyde in, 51
nanoparticles in, 135 , 136
quaternium-15 in, 105
cotton
chemicals and, 52 –54
flame retardants and, 61
heat reaction to, 122
as natural fiber, 41 , 113 –114
organic, 116 –119, 146
coughing, 50
CPSC (U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission), 54 –59, 61 , 67
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things (Braungart and
McDonough), 14 –15, 36 , 140
cumulative effects
body burden and, 110
of flame retardants, 57 , 88 –89
of permethrin, 97
skin care products and, 13 , 64
of triclosan, 25

D
damask, 114
Darbre, Philippa, 26
DEET, 98 –100
deodorants, 24 , 25
dermatitis, 11 , 12 , 44 , 46 , 67 –73
detergent, 25 , 103 –106, 108 –109, 112 , 123
detoxification, 65 –66
dichlorinated Tris, 56
diethanolamine, 104
dioxane, 25 –26, 106
dioxin, 71
disinfectants, 105
disorders, developmental, 69 , 90
disperse dyes, 43 –44, 72 –74, 151
disposal, impact of
detergents, 105
dyes, 43
nanoparticles, 13 4
shoes, 34 , 36
uniforms, 84 , 101
Dixon, Richard, 60
Douglass, John M., 22
Dr. Bronner’s soap, 112
Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras (Singer), 21
Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book (Love), 32
dry cleaning, 110 –112
dryerballs, 123
DuPont Company, 9 , 87
durability of fabric, 117 , 118 , 120
dyes
as allergens and carcinogens, 43 , 70
in Chinese-made clothing, 74
contact dermatitis and, 69 –72
disperse dyes, 43 –44, 72 –74, 151
formaldehyde in, 43 , 70 , 74
hair dyes, 73
list of, 150 –151
natural, 42 –43, 124 –126

E
easy care fabrics, 10 , 13 , 44 , 59 –60
Ecological Society of America, 134
ecosystems. See environment
eczema, 68 , 110
EDTA, 42 , 104 , 139
electrostatic discharge, 13 , 76 –77
endocrine system damage, 98
environment. See also organic fabric; waste, disposal of; wastewater
cleaning agents and, 103
flame retardants and, 88 –89, 90 , 95
general impact on, 14 –15, 34 , 36 , 42 , 44
nanoparticles and, 129 –130, 134 –135
organic farming and, 118 –119
PEG in, 104 –105
permethrin and, 100 –101
pollutants, list of, 139 –140
toxic fragrances in, 108
Environmental Defense Fund, 55 –56
Environmental Working Group (EWG), 60 , 63 –64, 88 –89, 105
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), 10 , 95 –96, 100 , 106
Epstein, Samuel, Toxic Beauty , 24 –25, 104
esophageal cancer, 111
ethylene, 10
Etzel, Ruth A., 50
European Journal of Cancer , 18 –19

F
fabric. See also dyes; nanoparticles
biodegradability of
detergents and, 104 –105, 10 8
dyes and, 43
environment and, 14
organic fabric and, 117 , 138
shoes and, 34
care of, 103 –112, 124
drying, 123 , 124 , 126 –127
dyes (See dyes)
finishing and sizing, 10 , 42 , 44 , 151 –152
identifying natural vs . synthetic, 121 –123
nontoxic care of, 112
organic, 52 –54, 113 –114, 116 –119
production, 41 –45, 120 , 139 –140
safe care of, 123
softeners, 107 –110, 123
stains, treatment of, 60 , 80 –81, 125 –126, 130
storage of, 122 –123
wrinkle-resistant, 59 –60
Fabrican, 137 –138
fashion. See also restrictive clothing; specific garments
sexiness and, 31
Victorian, 8 –9
Faust, Betty, Betty’s Book of Laundry Secrets , 125
fertility
female, 80 –81, 90
flame retardants and, 55
male, 76 –80, 81
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) and, 89 –90
Perc (perchloroethylene) and, 111
permethrin and, 99
fetal growth, 58 , 63 , 81
Fiber-Etch, 122 –123
fibers, synthetic
acrylic, 9
breast cancer and, 33 –34
as burn hazard, 12 , 85 –86
electrostatic discharges and, 76 –77
fertility and
female, 80 –81, 90
flame retardants and, 55
male, 76 –80, 81
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) and, 89 –90
Perc (perchloroethylene) and, 111
permethrin and, 100
heat reaction of, 122
history of, 9 –11
identification of, 121 –123
modacrylic, 9
muscle fatigue and, 13 , 74 –76, 99
nylon, 9 , 33 –34, 73 , 93 , 122
petrochemical, 12
polyester
about, 1 0
dyes and, 43 –44
heat, reaction to, 85
identification of, 122
static and, 77 –79
rayon, 9
spandex, 10 , 23
Teflon, 10
vinyon, 9
finishing and sizing, 10 , 42 , 44 , 151 –152
Firemaster 550, 91 –92
fire retardant chemicals, list of, 92
flame retardants, 10 , 90
absorption of, 54 –56
in furniture, 58 , 88 –89
infants and, 90
in military uniforms, 84 –87
pregnancy and, 63
protective steps for, 58 –59
in sleepwear, 54 –56, 58 , 59 , 61 , 66 –69
trade secrecy law and, 56 –59
vs . flame resistant fabric, 91 –92
flammability of synthetics, 12 , 85 –86
flax, 113 –114
flip-flops, 38 –39
foot health, 36 –39
formaldehyde, 10
about, 45 –47, 60 , 139 , 151
in bras, 28
children and, 47 , 49 –50
China and, 50 –51, 60 , 74
in dyes, 43 , 70 , 74
fabric softeners and, 107
hazardous levels of, 47 –52
measurement of, 48 , 51
regulation of, 46 –47
Formaldehyde on Trial (Tataryn), 49 –50
fragrance
in laundry products, 106 , 108 –109
list of, 109
safe additives as, 123
stabilizers, 105
fragrance-free detergents, 123
fungicidal agents, 44 –45
furniture upholstery, 58 , 59 , 88 –89

G
garments. See specific garments
global warming, 15
government regulations
clothing labels and, 121
formaldehyde and, 46 –47
fragrances and, 106 , 108 –109
trade secrecy law and, 56 –59
Greenpeace International, 25
Greenpeace Research Laboratories, 42 –44, 139 , 140

H
hair dyes, 73
halogenated chemicals, 57
headaches, 50 , 99
health condition s
ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), 89
allergies (See allergies)
arthritis, 107
asthma, 49 , 107
birth defects, 64
bladder cancer, 111
brain damage, 89 , 100 , 137
of breasts (See breasts)
bronchitis, 50
cervical cancer, 111
coughing, 50
dermatitis, 11 , 12 , 43 –44, 46 , 67 –73
disorders, developmental, 69 , 90
eczema, 68 , 110
esophageal cancer, 111
of feet, 36 –39
headaches, 49 , 99
heart palpitations, 49
immune system, 53 , 63 , 64 , 65
insomnia, 53 , 65
irritable bowel syndrome, 107
kidney damage, 43 , 58 , 98
leukemia, 46
liver damage (See liver damage)
lung damage, 42 , 46 , 49 , 50 , 136
lymphatic system, 26 –30, 136
memory loss, 99
muscle fatigue, 13 , 74 –76, 99
nervous system disorders, 64
Parkinson’s disease, 98
prostate cancer, 11
respiratory effects, 11 , 50 , 134 –135
thyroid damage, 58 , 80 , 89
vaginal infections, 37
heart palpitations, 50
heavy metals, 43
hemp, 114 , 119 –121
herbicides, 52 , 118
The Hippocrates Health Institute, 11 –12
Holladay, Steven D., 94
hormone disrupters
breast cancer and, 26
EDTA, 42 , 104 , 105 , 139
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), 89
permethrin, 100
PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), 80 –81
hose, 9
hydrogen peroxide, 123
hyperactivity, 69 , 89

I
illness. See health conditions
immune system, 53 , 63 –65
imported clothing, 50 –51. See also China
Industrial Revolution, 8
infants, 10 . See also children
flame retardants and, 90
formaldehyde levels and, 46
skin sensitivity and, 53 , 66 –69, 7 9
sleepwear for, 61
infertility
female, 80 –81, 90
flame retardants and, 55
male, 76 –80, 81
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) and, 89 –90
Perc (perchloroethylene) and, 111
permethrin and, 100
insecticides
about, 13 , 45 , 140 , 153
in cotton, 52 , 53 , 116 , 118
environment and, 100 –101
exposure levels of, 97 –98
military uniforms and, 83 –87, 93 , 95 –96
outdoor wear and, 93 –97
pregnancy and, 63
sensitivity to, 65
synergistic effects of, 98 –100
wool and, 114
insomnia, 53 , 65
Institute for Textile and Apparel Product Safety, 47
International Agency for Research on Cancer, 42 , 44 , 46 , 111
International Association of Cancer Registries, Cancer on Five Continents, 21
International Year of Natural Fibres, 14
irritable bowel syndrome, 107
J
Jacobs, Mary Phelps, 30
Johns Hopkins University Breast Center, 18

K
Kennedy, Donald, 57
kidney damage, 43 , 58 , 98
Klosterhaus, Susan, 92

L
Lackman, Michael, 66
La Lech League International, 29 –30, 148
The Lancet , 18 , 22
Lauersen, Niels H., The Complete Book of Breast Care , 32
laundry detergent, 25 , 103 –106, 108 –109, 112 , 123
Lazarov, Aneta, 72 –73
LDM (Lymphatic Drainage Massage), 31
legislation
clothing labels and, 121
formaldehyde and, 46 –47
fragrances and, 106 , 108 –109
trade secrecy law and, 56 –59
leukemia, 46
Levi’s, 114 , 116
limonene, 106
linen, 75 –76, 114 , 122
liver damage
dyes and, 43
nanoparticles and, 13 5
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) and, 58
permethrin and, 98
trichloroethylene and, 42
triclosan and, 105
Lotus Organics, 66
Love, Susan M., Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book , 32
lung damage, 42 , 46 , 49 , 50 , 136
lymphatic drainage massage (LDM), 31
lymphatic system, 26 –30, 136

M
MacIntosh, Helen Suh, 111
magnets, as cleaning agent, 112
Mansel, Robert, 22 , 29
McDonough, William, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things
, 14 –15, 36 , 140
melatonin, 23
Melzer, David, 80
memory loss, 99
metals and metal compounds, 71 , 152
microscopic particles. See nanoparticles
military, clothing and uniforms
burn hazards of, 12
flame retardants in, 83 –87
formaldehyde in, 72
permethrin in, 13 , 83 –87, 93 , 95 –96
modacrylic, 9
mohair, 115
mosquito sprays, 97 . See also insecticides
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, 65
muscle fatigue, 13 , 74 –76, 99
mutagens, 55 , 58

N
nanoparticles
about, 10 , 129 –130
clothing examples with, 132 –133
environmental impact of, 134 –135
human health and, 135 –137
nanosilver, 13 , 129 , 131 , 132 , 134 –138
release of, 130 –131, 134 –135
National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides, 93
natural and organic fabric
benefits of, 113 , 117
cotton, 52 –54, 113 –114, 116 –119
environmental sustainability and, 138 –141
hemp, 114 , 119 –121
identification of, 121 –123
types of, 113 –116
wool, 115
natural dyes, 42 –43, 124 –126. See also dyes
nervous system disorders, 64
neurological damage, 89 , 100 , 13 7
Nike, 85 , 116
Nomex, 87
nonoxynol (4-NP), 25
Northrup, Christiane, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom , 32 –33
nylon, 9 , 33 –34, 122

O
odor-resistance, 129
off gassing, 48 , 117
olefin, 10
optical brighteners, 42 , 105 , 139
organic and natural fabric
cotton, 52 –54, 113 –114, 116 –119
environmental sustainability and, 138 –141
hemp, 114 , 119 –121
identification of, 121 –123
types of, 113 –116
wool, 114
Organic Trade Association, 116
outdoor wear, 13 , 93 –95, 99 , 116
oxidative bleaching, 42

P
pajamas, 54 –56, 58 , 59 , 61 , 66 –69
pantyhose, 9
parabens, 24 –25
Parkinson’s disease, 98
Patagonia, Inc., 116
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), 57 –59, 88 –90
PEG (polyethylene glycol), 104 –105
perchloroethylene (Perc), 111 –112
perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), 10 , 60
perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), 60 , 63 –64, 80 –81
permanent press, 69 , 72
permethrin
about, 13 , 45 , 140
environment and, 100 –101
exposure levels of, 97 –98
military uniforms and, 93 , 95 –96
outdoor wear and, 93 –97
skin absorption and, 95 –97
synergistic effects of, 98 –100
personal care products
bioaccumulation of chemicals in, 13 , 64 , 110
dyes in, 73
formaldehyde in, 51
nanoparticles in, 135
quaternium-15 in, 105
pesticides
about, 13 , 45 , 140 , 153
in cotton, 52 , 53 , 116 , 118
environment and, 100 –101
exposure levels of, 97 –98
military uniforms and, 93 , 95 –96
outdoor wear and, 93 –97
pregnancy and, 63
sensitivity to, 65
synergistic effects of, 98 –10 0
wool and, 114
petrochemicals, 8 , 12 , 34 , 112 , 141
Petten, Alison, 107 –108
PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), 60 , 63 –64, 80 –81
phosphates, 104
phthalates, 105 , 139 , 153
plant dyes, 124 –126
plastics, 65
polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), 57 –59, 88 –90
polyester
about, 10
dyes and, 43 –44
heat, reaction to, 85
identification of, 122
muscle fatigue and, 74 –76
static and, 78 –79
polyethylene glycol (PEG), 104 –105
polyvinyl chloride, 9
Pratt, Andy, 50 –51
pregnancy
chemical body burden and, 63 –64
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) and, 90
PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and, 60 , 81
shoes and, 37 –38
preservatives. See also formaldehyde
parabens, 24 –25
triclosan, 25 , 105 , 140
pretreatment chemicals, 149 –150
Proban, 86 –87, 93
production stages (fabric), 41 –45
propylene gas, 10
prostate cancer, 11

Q
quaternium-15, 105

R
ramie, 115
Randolph, Theron, 65
rashes, 28 , 67
The Rational Dress Society, 8 –9
rayon, 9 , 122
Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH), 57
regulations, government
clothing labels and, 121
formaldehyde and, 46 –47
fragrances and, 106 , 108 –109
trade secrecy law and, 56 –59
removal of stains, natural, 125 –126
reproductive toxins
DEHP, 44 , 92
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) and, 57 –59, 88 –90
Perc (perchloroethylene), 111
permethrin, 99 –100
toluene, 9 , 108 , 150
Tris, 54 –56, 58 , 5 9
respiratory effects, 11 , 50 , 134 –135
restrictive clothing. See also bras
corsets, 8 –9, 30
infection and, 37
shoes, 34 –36
undergarments, men’s, 79
Rodale, Maria, Betty’s Book of Laundry Secrets , 125

S
safe clothing, sources of, 143 –146
saluyot, 115 , 141
scented laundry products, 106 , 108 –109
school uniforms, 60
scouring, 10
self-cleaning fabrics, 130
sensitivity, chemical
breast tissue and, 34
children and, 44 , 60
dyes and, 72 –73
genitals and, 79
increase of, 65 –70
infants and, 53 , 66 –69, 79
Setnicka, Lu, 116
Seventh Generation, 123
shampoos, 25 , 97 , 104 , 105
Sheppard, Claude, 118
Sheppard, Linda, 118
Shockney, Lillie, 21 –22
shoes, 34 –39
shrinkage-free garments, 44 , 139
silk
care of, 124 –125
dyes and, 72
identification of, 122
processing of, 41
silver nanoparticles, 13 , 129 , 131 , 132 , 134 –138
Singer, Sydney Ross, 19 –21
Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras , 21
sizing and finishing, 10 , 42 , 44 , 151 , 152
skin
absorption of chemicals, 24 –26, 48 , 95 –97
bras and, 20 , 23 , 28
dermatitis, 11 , 12 , 44 , 46 , 67 –73
health and beauty products for
bioaccumulation of chemicals in, 13 , 64 , 110
dyes in, 73
formaldehyde in, 51
nanoparticles in, 135
quaternium-15 in, 105
sensitivity of (See sensitivity, chemical)
sleepwear, 54 –56, 58 , 59 , 61 , 66 –69
soap nuts, 112
softeners, fabric, 107 –110, 123
solvents, 41 –42, 150
soy fibers, 141
spandex, 10 , 2 3
sperm quality, 76 –77, 81 , 99
sportswear, 10 , 13 , 93 –95, 99 , 116
stains, fabric
natural removal of, 124 , 125 –126
repellent for, 130
resistant chemicals for, 59 –60, 80 –81
Stapleton, Heather, 91 –92
static
discharge, 13 , 76 –77
fabrics resistant to, 130
Steinemann, Anne, 106
sterility
female, 80 –81, 90
flame retardants and, 55
male, 76 –79, 81
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) and, 89 –90
Perc (perchloroethylene) and, 111
permethrin and, 99
stockings, 9
storage of fabric, 122 –123
stretchable fibers, 10
Stukane, Eileen, The Complete Book of Breast Care , 32
sulphur dyes, 43
sunscreen products, 135
surfactants, 25 , 104 , 105
sustainability, environmental, 14 , 140 –141
synergies, chemical
about, 13 –14, 108
body burden and, 64
breast cancer and, 26
fragrances and, 110
permethrin and, 95 , 97 –100
synthetic dyes, 43 , 72 –74, 139
synthetic fibers
acrylic, 9
breast cancer and, 33 –34
burn hazard as, 12 , 85 –86
electrostatic discharges and, 76 –77
fertility and
female, 80 –81, 90
flame retardants and, 55
male, 76 –79, 81
PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) and, 89 –90
Perc (perchloroethylene) and, 111
permethrin and, 99
heat reaction of, 122
history of, 9 –11
identification of, 121 –123
modacrylic, 9
muscle fatigue and, 13 , 74 –76, 99
nylon, 9 , 33 –34, 73 , 93 , 122
petrochemical, 12
polyester
about, 10
dyes and, 43 –44
heat, reaction to, 8 5
identification of, 122
muscle fatigue and, 74 –76
static and, 77 –78
spandex, 10 , 23
Teflon, 10 , 60 , 63
vinyon, 9

T
Tataryn, Lloyd, Formaldehyde on Trial , 49 –50
Teflon fibers, 10 , 60 , 63
testicular atrophy, 55
thermal wear, 10 , 76
thyroid damage, 58 , 80 , 89
tight-fitting clothes. See restrictive clothing
toluene, 9 , 108 , 150
Toxic Beauty (Epstein), 24 –25, 104
Toxic Substances Control Act, 91
trade secrecy law, 56 –59
triacetate, 54
trichloroethylene, 139
triclosan, 25 , 105 , 140
triethanolamine, 104
Tris, 54 –56, 58 , 59

U
Under Armour, 85
undergarments, 77 –80
uniforms
military, 72 , 83 –87, 93 , 95 –96
school, 60
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 14
unscented detergents, 123
upholstery, 58 , 59 , 88 –89
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 63 , 100
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), 54 –59, 61 , 67
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 10 , 95 –96, 100 , 106

V
vaginal infections, 37
vat dyes, 43
Vaughan, Elizabeth R., 17 –18
velvet, 114
Victorian fashion, 8 –9
Victoria’s Secret, 28
vinegar
as cleaning agent, 112
as softener, 126
vinyon, 9

W
waste, disposal of
about, 14
dyes, 43
military uniforms, 84 , 101
nanoparticles and, 134
shoes, 34 , 36
wastewater, 15 , 105 –106, 130 –131, 140
water repellent finishes, 44 –4 5
Weiss, Marissa, 21
WHO (World Health Organization), 11
wicking fabrics, 86 . See also synthetic fibers
Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom (Northrup), 32 –33
wool, 41 , 91 , 114 , 122
World Health Organization (WHO), 11
wrinkle-free fabrics, 10 , 13 , 44 , 59 –60

X
xylene, 10

Z
Zinszer, Kathya, 38
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