ACSH's 'Top 10 Health Scares' Include Phthalates Again, Formaldehyde

摘要

The notion that phthalate exposure in expecting mothers can stunt their children's mental development was the No. 1 "unfounded" health scare of 2014, according to the American Council on Science and Health. Media reports suggesting that phthalates can lower children's IQs stemmed from research that emerged late in 2014 from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York, titled "Persistent Associations between Maternal Prenatal Exposure to Phthalates on Child 10 at Age 7 Years." Lead author Pam Factor-Litvak, et al., compared phthalate metabolite levels in urine samples provided by 328 inner-city women during the third trimester of their pregnancies against their children's IQ scores at age seven as measured by standardized testing, drawing a connection between prenatal phthalate exposure and school-age cognitive functioning.