Read the full article by Alden Wicker (The Guardian)
“Our outfits contain BPA, PFAS and other dangerous substances – but we still know little about their cumulative impact.
Mary (whose name I’ve withheld to protect her job) was one of hundreds of Alaska Airlines attendants reporting that year that the uniforms were causing blistering rashes, swollen eyelids crusted with pus, hives, and in the most serious case, breathing problems and allergic reactions so severe that one attendant, John, had to be taken off the plane and to the ER multiple times.
Tests commissioned by Alaska Airlines and the flight attendants’ union turned up tributyl phosphate, lead, arsenic, cobalt, antimony, restricted disperse dyes known to cause allergic reactions, toluene, hexavalent chromium, and dimethyl fumarate, an antifungal that had recently been banned in the European Union. But the uniform maker, Twin Hill, avoided culpability in court by saying none of these many mixed chemicals, on their own, were present at high enough levels to cause all of the different reactions. Alaska Airlines announced in 2013 it would procure new uniforms, without admitting the uniforms had caused health issues. A lawsuit from attendants against Twin Hill was thrown out in 2016 for lack of evidence.
But a 2018 Harvard study found that after the introduction of the uniforms, the number of attendants with multiple chemical sensitivity, sore throats, cough, shortness of breath, itchy skin, rashes and hives, itchy eyes, loss of voice, and blurred vision had all more or less doubled. ‘This study found a relationship between health complaints and the introduction of new uniforms,’ the study’s authors concluded.
Mary (whose name I’ve withheld to protect her job) was one of hundreds of Alaska Airlines attendants reporting that year that the uniforms were causing blistering rashes, swollen eyelids crusted with pus, hives, and in the most serious case, breathing problems and allergic reactions so severe that one attendant, John, had to be taken off the plane and to the ER multiple times.
Tests commissioned by Alaska Airlines and the flight attendants’ union turned up tributyl phosphate, lead, arsenic, cobalt, antimony, restricted disperse dyes known to cause allergic reactions, toluene, hexavalent chromium, and dimethyl fumarate, an antifungal that had recently been banned in the European Union. But the uniform maker, Twin Hill, avoided culpability in court by saying none of these many mixed chemicals, on their own, were present at high enough levels to cause all of the different reactions. Alaska Airlines announced in 2013 it would procure new uniforms, without admitting the uniforms had caused health issues. A lawsuit from attendants against Twin Hill was thrown out in 2016 for lack of evidence.
But a 2018 Harvard study found that after the introduction of the uniforms, the number of attendants with multiple chemical sensitivity, sore throats, cough, shortness of breath, itchy skin, rashes and hives, itchy eyes, loss of voice, and blurred vision had all more or less doubled. ‘This study found a relationship between health complaints and the introduction of new uniforms,’ the study’s authors concluded.
This story of sick attendants has played out again and again, as American Airlines, Delta, and Southwest all introduced new uniforms, which were brightly colored polyester instead of the old standby, wool, and were layered with anti-wrinkle, stain-resistant, and flame-retardant textile technology.
The impact of exposure to harmful chemicals on textile workers, many of whom work in developing countries, has been well documented and includes breathing problems, rashes, and even death.
‘Flight attendants are the canary in the coalmine because of the length and consistency of their exposure,’ said Dr Irina Mordukhovich, one of the Harvard study’s authors. ‘That doesn’t mean that other people in the population are not still being affected in some way. Let’s say someone has clothing with the same components – they may not even notice; they just don’t wear it so much.’
Karly Hiser is a pediatric nurse practitioner in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her oldest son was a toddler when his eczema worsened, she said. She switched her family to fragrance-free soaps and non-toxic cleaning products, and smeared him with lotion, Vaseline, and prescription steroid cream after long baths. ‘Everything we tried did not help,’ she said. Open wounds developed on his hands and behind his knees, and they got infected.
Like any parent on a budget, Hiser had been buying cheap clothing from mass-market brands, including polyester athletic clothes, but he was refusing to put his clothes on.
Despite her job as a nurse practitioner, it took Hiser over a year to figure out what she now firmly believes: that the clothes were the problem. ‘You know, like the nutrition labeling for food, I would prefer if there was better labeling for clothing,’ she said. ‘Not all chemicals are bad or harmful, but I would like to at least be aware of what’s in children’s clothing.’
Chemicals in clothing are a complex, opaque and an under-researched area. ‘There’s not necessarily a lot of evidence that goes into deciding what is a safe limit of a chemical,’ Mordukhovich said. ‘Even if each chemical is below thresholds that would be considered a direct safety issue, what we don’t know is if you have hundreds of chemicals interacting together, what effects does that have?’
When the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had 38 pieces of children’s clothing tested from the ultra-fast-fashion brands Zaful, AliExpress, and Shein, it found that one in five had elevated levels of toxic chemicals such as lead, PFAS, and phthalates. This year, the period panty brand Thinx settled a lawsuit stemming from a test by a Notre Dame professor showing high levels of fluorine, indicating the presence of PFAS, a highly toxic class of ‘forever chemicals’ that provide water and stain repellency.
A 2022 study by Professor Miriam Diamond at the University of Toronto and Professor Graham Peaslee at Notre Dame estimated, meanwhile, that on average, children wearing stain-resistant school uniforms would be exposed to 1.03 parts per billion of PFAS per kilogram of their body weight per day through their skin. PFAS have been connected to several cancers, fetal abnormalities, reproductive disorders, obesity, and reduced immune system function. When it accumulates in the blood, PFAS are considered toxic at the parts-per-billion level. More research is needed on how readily PFAS shed from clothing can be absorbed into the skin and bloodstream, but the results are alarming enough to spur firefighters to revolt against their PFAS-laden turnout gear.
Some chemicals found in clothing, such as BPA, PFAS, and phthalates, have been found in time-bound experiments and longitudinal studies to mimic hormones and interfere with our endocrine system, causing a little-understood cascade of health effects ranging from extreme weight fluctuations and fatigue to infertility and chronic disease.
Once exposure stops, some chemicals, such as BPA, can be metabolized and peed out by the body, eventually breaking down and going away. Others, such as heavy metals, accumulate in the body and in the environment, lasting for decades or, in the case of PFAS, forever.
In the US, there are no federal standards for what can be put on clothing and sold to adults. The EU has banned more than 30 substances for use in fashion, and it will reject some shipments at the border, but its testing program is small and easily skirted.
Beyond fashion, it’s clear that many Americans are concerned that the government is falling down on its job of protecting us from harmful substances. Organic food promising to be free of pesticide residues is the fastest growing sector in the food market, with sales hitting $57.5bn in 2021. Beauty has followed close behind, with millions of women overhauling their entire bathroom cabinets in the past decade, throwing out legacy brands with toxic ingredients like phthalates and parabens. Influencers, bloggers, and beauty brands have stoked this fear and distrust to garner engagement and sell products – while often going too far in demonizing perfectly safe substances.
Yet fashion, a $2.5-tn global industry, has somehow completely evaded the same scrutiny.
One reason is that neither consumers or professionals know which, or even how many, chemical substances are used to manufacture, process, weave, dye, finish, and assemble clothing and accessories.
But what I really want to see is action from our governments. A few states have labeling requirements or forthcoming bans on PFAS in clothing, but the federal government does not regulate what chemicals can be put on clothing and sold to adult consumers. We need a total overhaul of how we manage chemicals in consumer products in this country.
I would like to see the federal government catch up to the good work being done by the European Union – and go beyond it. It should implement taxes and tariffs on untested chemicals to fund desperately needed research, require chemical companies to register all chemicals in use and share any associated research, ban certain classes of chemicals for use in fashion, and expand the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s ability to test and recall toxic fashion.
But what I really want to see is action from our governments. A few states have labeling requirements or forthcoming bans on PFAS in clothing, but the federal government does not regulate what chemicals can be put on clothing and sold to adult consumers. We need a total overhaul of how we manage chemicals in consumer products in this country.
I would like to see the federal government catch up to the good work being done by the European Union – and go beyond it. It should implement taxes and tariffs on untested chemicals to fund desperately needed research, require chemical companies to register all chemicals in use and share any associated research, ban certain classes of chemicals for use in fashion, and expand the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s ability to test and recall toxic fashion.”…