Chemicals in disposable nappies pose risk

AFP

A French public health watchdog has issued a warning about the risks of several chemicals found in disposable nappies, particularly artificial perfumes.

This has led the French government to demand that manufacturers withdraw them from their products.

The Anses health organization stressed no medical study had shown disposable diapers caused health problems.

But “we cannot exclude a risk ... because we have recorded some substances that are above healthy limits,” said Gerard Lasfargues, deputy director of the Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (Anses).

The chemicals identified in the study include two artificial perfumes as well as other complex aromatic products that are refined from oil, and potentially dangerous dioxins.

The French government called a meeting of nappy manufacturers yesterday and gave them 15 days to remove the products identified by the watchdog.

“I want to reassure parents: Anses says that there is no immediate risk for the health of our children,” Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said. “Obviously we should continue putting nappies on our babies. We’ve been doing that for at least 50 years.”

She added that the report does not exclude “a health risk for children in the long term.”

Market leader Pampers, which belongs to US consumer products group Procter & Gamble, said its diapers “are safe and have always been so.”

Scientists working for Anses tested 23 types of nappies in real-life conditions as they were worn by children, which it said was a world first.

“We calculated the amount (of chemicals) absorbed, calculated according to the time a nappy is worn, the number of nappies worn by babies, up to 36 months, and then we compared the results with toxicology standards,” Lasfargues said.

An average baby in France wears 3,800 to 4,800 nappies, Lasfargues said, with the potentially hazardous chemicals found even in products marketed as environmentally friendly.