Major athletic clothing brands sold worldwide, including in Canada, have been found to contain high levels of the toxic chemical BPA in their sports bras, shirts, shorts and leggings, according to a United States consumer watchdog group.
The Center for Environmental Health (CEH) on May 17 sent out legal notices to eight athletics brands after testing showed high amounts of bisphenol A (BPA) in the clothing they sold. This comes months after the group previously issued legal notices to a handful of other athletic companies and alerted consumers about the issue.
Brands that were tested included Adidas, Athleta, Champion, Fabletics, Kohl’s, New Balance, Nike, Patagonia, Pink, The North Face and Reebok. After testing the athletic clothing, CEH found BPA levels 40 times over the California limit.
Although the U.S. has not implemented a complete ban on BPA, states like California have imposed their own restrictions. Under California law, the maximum allowable level for BPA via skin exposure is three micrograms per day.
Global News reached out to the above brands for a comment on the findings, but only Adidas got back by deadline.
“We are reviewing the report,” a spokesperson for Adidas said in an emailed statement.
“Safeguarding the health and safety of our consumers and protecting the environment is of paramount importance for us as a brand. Adidas is committed to following global best practices and complying with the strictest international safety requirements.”
Jimena Diaz Leiva, the science director at CEH, told Global News that activewear shirts, sports bras, leggings and shorts are the new product categories for which the CEH served legal notice.
“But we’re ongoing in this research, so there’s certainly more to come. It’s pretty ubiquitous. This type of fabric seems to be kind of a problem across a lot of brands.”
BPA is an industrial chemical used in making polycarbonate, a type of plastic commonly found in food and beverage containers such as cans and reusable water bottles.
While Canada has previously acknowledged that BPA “may pose a risk to human life or health,” there is currently no comprehensive regulation in place similar to California’s.
However, Cassie Barker, the toxics senior program manager at Environmental Defence, an advocacy organization, said there are specific restrictions for the chemical in Canada.
For example, in 2010, the federal government formally declared BPA to be toxic and banned its use in baby bottles. Canada has set a limit on the amount of BPA that can be present in polycarbonate plastic baby food containers and in infant formula packaging.
“But that’s such a specific small use of where BPA is being used as a plasticizer,” Barker explained. “And they are in all kinds of other applications … in our cash receipts whenever we buy something, through what we consume, and then in these contact materials where we absorb BPA through our skin.”
While BPA is listed on Environment Canada’s list of toxic substances alongside arsenic, asbestos, lead and mercury, Health Canada also concludes that the current amount of BPA exposure Canadians get from food and beverage containers is low enough that it doesn’t pose a health risk when used in those products.
“It is important for Canadians to understand that just because a chemical may be detected in a consumer product or in our bodies, it does not necessarily mean it is causing harm,” a Health Canada spokesperson stated in an email to Global News.
Health Canada explained to Global News via email that instead of using a specific safety limit for chemicals (like California did with BPA), it uses margins of exposure (MOE) as a metric to assess potential risks.
The MOE is calculated by establishing a level of exposure that is not anticipated to cause harm to human health and dividing it by the estimated level of human exposure, the spokesperson said. A higher MOE means a greater margin of safety between potential health effects and exposure to a substance.
Health Canada said in 2008, it conducted a risk assessment of BPA and found human exposure can result from food packing, the environment and from use of consumer products. However, reproductive and developmental toxicity effects were evaluated and found ” there were no health concerns for the general population at current levels of exposure, but that there was a potential concern for infants.”
Although Global News asked Health Canada about BPA in clothing such as sportswear, the regulator did not mention clothing in their response.
Industry as gatekeepers
Under the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, a company is not allowed to manufacture or import into the country, advertise or sell a product — such as sportswear — that is “a danger to human health or safety.”
Health Canada also says it regularly monitors the marketplace and tests products to verify that products sold in the country are safe, including performing routine compliance verification on consumer products.
“It’s often left to industry to be their own gatekeeper on these issues, which is a huge problem,” Barker said. “We really need people to believe in the fact that what’s on the shelf is safe. We need the government to actually be doing that testing to make sure that things like BPA aren’t in contact with our bodies in all these ways throughout the day.”
As a consumer, Barker said, it is challenging to determine the presence of BPA or other toxic chemicals in sports gear because such additives are often undisclosed and unlabeled in textiles that come into direct contact with our bodies.
“Ideally, companies would be phasing out all of these substances in our clothing so that we wouldn’t be trying to figure out whether there is a coating on our clothing that we wear so close to our bodies all day long,” she said.
What can consumers do?
The question of a safe threshold for BPA exposure remains debated, as conflicting studies present different conclusions, with some indicating potential health concerns even at low doses, while others suggest no significant risks.
Despite the ongoing debate, BPA has still been declared as a significant risk for cancers like breast, ovarian, cervical, prostate and lung, and has been linked to reproductive abnormalities, Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
“For consumers, what we recommend right now is trying to limit … (the time) in your activewear,” Diaz Leiva said. “One thing you can do is try and take those clothes off afterward (your workout), and as much as you can, limit the exposure.”
“It’s very disappointing that in 2023, these major companies like Nike and Adidas don’t have chemical policies where they test their products before they go to market for these very harmful substances,” she added.
The exact motives for companies including BPA in their clothing are not fully clear, she said, speculating that it could be a deliberate choice or an unintended consequence of utilizing recycled materials.
Barker believes that regardless of whether a company is aware of the presence of chemicals, it is their responsibility to know what’s in their products.
“If a plasticizer is being applied somewhere in their supply chain, that may not be easy to track,” she said. “But it is fairly easy to test that final product for the chemicals that are present and to address that before it hits the shelf.”
She added that as a consumer, she believes it’s crucial to actively voice concerns and inquire about the contents of the products from these companies.
“But I think even more important is to tell elected officials that you don’t want to have to be trying to figure out what’s in your products. You want them to make sure the rules are strong and comprehensive so that these products aren’t even coming into Canada in the first place.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit an all-time low in the U.S. this year, part of a big drop in the youth use of tobacco overall, the government reported Thursday.
There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs. The number went from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year — the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key survey began in 1999.
“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, in a statement. However, “our mission is far from complete.”
A previously reported drop in vaping largely explains the overall decline in tobacco use from 10% to about 8% of students, health officials said.
The youth e-cigarette rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% last year — the lowest at any point in the last decade. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, followed by nicotine pouches.
Use of other products has been dropping, too.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of high school students smoked. This year, it was just 1.7%, down from the 1.9%. That one-year decline is so small it is not considered statistically significant, but marks the lowest since the survey began 25 years ago. The middle school rate also is at its lowest mark.
Recent use of hookahs also dropped, from 1.1% to 0.7%.
The results come from an annual CDC survey, which included nearly 30,000 middle and high school students at 283 schools. The response rate this year was about 33%.
Officials attribute the declines to a number of measures, ranging from price increases and public health education campaigns to age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers selling products to kids.
Among high school students, use of any tobacco product dropped to 10%, from nearly 13% and e-cigarette use dipped under 8%, from 10%. But there was no change reported for middle school students, who less commonly vape or smoke or use other products,
Current use of tobacco fell among girls and Hispanic students, but rose among American Indian or Alaska Native students. And current use of nicotine pouches increased among white kids.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama man was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in the January hack of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission social media account that led the price of bitcoin to spike, the Justice Department said.
Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, is accused of helping to break into the SEC’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, allowing the hackers to prematurely announce the approval of long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC’s account was compromised. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.
Authorities say Council carried out what’s known as a “SIM swap,” using a fake ID to impersonate someone with access to the SEC’s X account and convince a cellphone store to give him a SIM card linked to the person’s phone. Council was able to take over the person’s cellphone number and get access codes to the SEC’s X account, which he shared with others who broke into the account and sent the post, the Justice Department says.
Prosecutors say after Council returned the iPhone he used for the SIM swap, his online searches included: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
An email seeking comment was sent Thursday to an attorney for Council, who is charged in Washington’s federal court with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
The price of bitcoin swung from about $46,730 to just below $48,000 after the unauthorized post hit on Jan. 9 and then dropped to around $45,200 after the SEC’s denial. The SEC officially approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin the following day.
Google, Meta and TikTok have removed social media accounts belonging to an industrial plant in Russia’s Tatarstan region aimed at recruiting young foreign women to make drones for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Posts on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok were taken down following an investigation by The Associated Press published Oct. 10 that detailed working conditions in the drone factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, which is under U.S. and British sanctions.
Videos and other posts on the social media platforms promised the young women, who are largely from Africa, a free plane ticket to Russia and a salary of more than $500 a month following their recruitment via the program called “Alabuga Start.”
But instead of a work-study program in areas like hospitality and catering, some of them said they learned only arriving in the Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.
In interviews with AP, some of the women who worked in the complex complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages and areas of study, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching. AP did not identify them by name or nationality out of concern for their safety.
The tech companies also removed accounts for Alabuga Polytechnic, a vocational boarding school for Russians aged 16-18 and Central Asians aged 18-22 that bills its graduates as experts in drone production.
The accounts collectively had at least 158,344 followers while one page on TikTok had more than a million likes.
In a statement, YouTube said its parent company Google is committed to sanctions and trade compliance and “after review and consistent with our policies, we terminated channels associated with Alabuga Special Economic Zone.”
Meta said it removed accounts on Facebook and Instagram that “violate our policies.” The company said it was committed to complying with sanctions laws and said it recognized that human exploitation is a serious problem which required a multifaceted approach, including at Meta.
It said it had teams dedicated to anti-trafficking efforts and aimed to remove those seeking to abuse its platforms.
TikTok said it removed videos and accounts which violated its community guidelines, which state it does not allow content that is used for the recruitment of victims, coordination of their transport, and their exploitation using force, fraud, coercion, or deception.
The women aged 18-22 were recruited to fill an urgent labor shortage in wartime Russia. They are from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive also is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.
Accounts affiliated to Alabuga with tens of thousands of followers are still accessible on Telegram, which did not reply to a request for comment. The plant’s management also did not respond to AP.
The Alabuga Start recruiting drive used a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos with upbeat music that show African women smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while directing cranes, and donning protective equipment to apply paint or chemicals.
Videos also showed them enjoying Tatarstan’s cultural sites or playing sports. None of the videos made it clear the women would be working in a drone manufacturing complex.
Online, Alabuga promoted visits to the industrial area by foreign dignitaries, including some from Brazil, Sri Lanka and Burkina Faso.
In a since-deleted Instagram post, a Turkish diplomat who visited the plant had compared Alabuga Polytechnic to colleges in Turkey and pronounced it “much more developed and high-tech.”
According to Russian investigative outlets Protokol and Razvorot, some pupils at Alabuga Polytechnic are as young as 15 and have complained of poor working conditions.
Videos previously on the platforms showed the vocational school students in team-building exercises such as “military-patriotic” paintball matches and recreating historic Soviet battles while wearing camouflage.
Last month, Alabuga Start said on Telegram its “audience has grown significantly!”
That could be due to its hiring of influencers, who promoted the site on TikTok and Instagram as an easy way for young women to make money after leaving school.
TikTok removed two videos promoting Alabuga after publication of the AP investigation.
Experts told AP that about 90% of the women recruited via the Alabuga Start program work in drone manufacturing.
