7. Toxicology, environment, hygiene, analysis

7.1 Non-toxicity of plasticizers

Plasticizers have often given rise to controversy in the field of toxicology, as they are used in flexible PVCs to come into contact with food (meat and cheese packaging, soft drink capsules, etc.) or blood for transfusion. The most pessimistic calculations lead to possible intakes of 2.2 g DOA and 13 to 20 mg DOP per person per year.

All animal tests (on rats, mice, hamsters, dogs and primates) involved much higher ingested doses, the effects of which were very different from one species to another. Subchronic toxicity (no observable effect on all the species mentioned) was not observed for doses below 50 mg/kg per day for DOP and 150 mg/kg per day for DINP and DIDP. The same applies to alterations in reproductive mechanisms...