VI Letter to NBC Producers Attacks Misinformation in Today Show Reports

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 18, 2008 (VNS) – The Vinyl Institute told NBC News producers in a letter sent earlier this week that inaccurate and misleading information about several types of plastics, including PVC, unnecessarily confused and alarmed those watching the Today Show the mornings of April 9 and 10.

“Beyond the fact that bisphenol-A (BPA) has not been found to be harmful, it is highly unlikely that any PVC bottles will contain this ingredient at any level,” Tim Burns, VI president, said in the letter, sent to three producers and to Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC News’ chief medical editor, who participated in the reports.

On April 10, Snyderman, answered consumer and industry questions, and referred viewers to a web site owned by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), calling it an “unbiased” source of information. “This is hardly an unbiased web site on PVC – or other plastics, as far as we can tell,” Burns pointed out. He outlined several facts that contradicted assertions in the “Smart Plastics Guide” on the IATP web site:

• Vinyl chloride workers are protected by OSHA-enforced workplace regulations and industry practices. In fact, data reported by industries to OSHA shows that the illness and injury rate for the vinyl industry has been declining steadily and is lower than for the manufacturing sector as a whole.
  
• Vinyl chloride manufacturing facilities are regulated and operated so as to protect local communities, and studies have found no greater incidence of diseases such as cancer next-door to such plants than in farther-away communities where no such manufacturing facilities are located.
  
• While it is true that PVC products contain stabilizers, lead has been replaced for such purposes by other stabilizers in almost all applications. Plasticizers are added only to make flexible vinyl products – not to bottles, which are rigid. Moreover, plasticizers such as phthalates have been reviewed and approved for use in vinyl products by agencies such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission (toys) and Food and Drug Administration (medical devices, packaging). Both agencies noted that they had no knowledge of human harm from plasticizers used in vinyl products.
  
• Dioxin is associated with almost any form of burning or combustion – incineration of food, wood, and garbage; coal and oil power plants, on-road and off-road diesel engines; fireplaces; forests fires; volcanoes; manufacturing cement and metals and other sources – and emissions associated specifically with vinyl are a tiny fraction of the total. Moreover, according to EPA data, dioxin emissions to the environment have been falling for decades. During this period vinyl production and use have soared.

Information on the IATP site “does not recognize much of the scientific, peer-reviewed information available about vinyl and disparages some of it,” Burns noted, and he added, “We hope future coverage of plastics, including PVC/vinyl, will be more accurate, balanced and supported by scientific evidence.”