August 10, 2011

This Mystery Chemical Could Cause You To Miscarry

Some printer ink contains glymes. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/djvu83/2433598645/sizes/z/in/photostream/">Robby Tendean</a>/Flickr

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Did you print a piece of paper today? Or use a digital camera? If so, it could have exposed you to glymes, a clear liquid class of chemicals used as solvents in printer ink, carpet cleaners and other household products. For a decade, the EPA has known about studies that link glymes to health problems including miscarriages, developmental damage, and gene mutation. And yet only now is the agency beginning to regulate them. This July, the EPA announced that it plans to clamp down on glymes, which may join the ranks of the 360 chemicals subject to the EPA’s “significant new use rule.” This means that any time a company wants to use glymes, it would have to ask the EPA first. In contrast, the EPA plans to regulate BPA, the chemical once found in Nalgene bottles, by simply identifying it in a list of harmful chemicals.

In 1995, Marc B. Schenker, a UC Davis professor of medicine and chairman of the Department of Public Health Sciences, led a study that found that glymes were linked to miscarriages in semiconductor workers. The study examined 6,000 women exposed to glymes through their manufacturing work, and researchers found a pattern of increased miscarriages among them.

But factory workers aren’t the only ones who have to worry about glymes. The chemicals can also be found in lithium batteries, brake fluid, paints, prescription drugs, circuit boards, microchips, and many other products we come into contact with every day. Three glymes used in animal studies caused reproductive and developmental damage, and one showed potential for gene mutation. As if we needed more reproductive worries. In California, 276 reproductive toxins have been identified found in stuff we come into contact with every day by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment under Proposition 65.

“I’m glad to see attention to this,” Schenker told Environmental Health News. “Because the agents are no less toxic than they were 10 years ago.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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