WASHINGTON (July 18, 2022) — The American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) High Phthalates Panel released the following statement in response to the recent publication of Welch et al. 2022, Associations Between Prenatal Urinary Biomarkers of Phthalate Exposure and Preterm Birth:
“As confirmed by this research, the high molecular weight phthalates, DINP and DIDP, are not associated with statistically significant increased odds of preterm birth. This distinction is important for those interpreting the results to recognize, as this confirms the differences between phthalate compounds and adds to the growing body of scientific support for DINP and DIDP.
“In the past six years, numerous government regulatory agencies, including the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the Australian National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS), and Canada’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change and Ministry of Health, have found, after rigorous regulatory review, that DINP and DIDP are safe as currently used.”
“We support the use of robust, and reproducible science in protecting public health. While we are pleased that this study provides more evidence of the clear biological distinctions between different compounds in the broad family of phthalates, as the authors note, there are significant methodological shortcomings with this research. Welch et al. 2022 fails to account for well-established risk factors for preterm birth, including unhealthy diet, gestational diabetes and hyperglycemia, and Urinary Tract Infections (UTI), some with stronger associations from larger sample sizes. The lack of such methodological rigor makes the results of this study questionable, especially in light of the “seemingly small in magnitude”1 odds ratios in question.”
1 Associations Between Prenatal Urinary Biomarkers of Phthalate Exposure and Preterm Birth
