A French health agency said no medical study had proved health problems caused by disposable diapers (AFP Photo/JOEL SAGET) |
Paris (AFP)
- A French public health watchdog issued a warning Wednesday about the risks of
several chemicals found in disposable nappies, particularly artificial
perfumes, leading the government to demand that manufacturers withdraw them
from their products.
The Anses
health body stressed there was no medical study which had proved health
problems caused by disposable diapers.
But
"we cannot exclude a risk... because we have recorded some substances that
are above healthy limits," the deputy director of the Agency for Food,
Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (Anses), Gerard Lasfargues,
told AFP.
The
chemicals identified in the study -- described as the first of its kind --
include two artificial perfumes as well as other complex aromatic products that
are refined from oil, and potentially dangerous dioxins.
The French
government called a meeting of nappy manufacturers on Wednesday morning and
gave them 15 days to remove the products identified by the watchdog.
"I
want to reassure parents: Anses says that there is no immediate risk for the
health of our children," Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said after the
meeting.
"Obviously
we should continue putting nappies on our babies. We've been doing that for at
least 50 years," she said, while adding that the report does not exclude
"a health risk for children in the long term".
"That's
why as a precaution we want to protect our children from possible
effects," said Buzyn, who met the manufacturers along with the economy and
environmental ministers.
In a
statement on Wednesday, market leader Pampers, which belongs to US consumer
products group Procter & Gamble, said its diapers "are safe and have
always been so."
Scientists
working for Anses tested 23 types of nappies in real-life conditions as they
were worn by children, which it said was a world first.
"We
calculated the amount (of chemicals) absorbed, calculated according to the time
a nappy is worn, the number of nappies worn by babies, up to 36 months, and
then we compared the results with toxicology standards," Lasfargues said.
An average
baby in France wears 3,800 to 4,800 nappies, Lasfargues said, with the potentially
hazardous chemicals found even in products marketed as environmentally
friendly.
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