pet food Archives

July 25, 2024

The perils of plastics extend to our pets

By Aidan Charron

By now, you’d practically have to be living on Mars not to have heard about the health risks associated with plastics and the toxic chemical cocktail used to produce them.

Almost all plastics are derived from fossil fuels and have been found to contain over 16,000 chemicals, many of which are considered hazardous. Shockingly, despite evidence of harm, the US regulates only six percent of chemicals used to produce plastic, leaving potential health risks from most of the chemicals unchecked.

As plastics break down, they don’t disappear – they degrade into smaller pieces known as microplastics. When we eat, drink, or inhale microplastics, they leach plastic chemicals directly into our bodies.

To bring attention to these dangers, EARTHDAY.ORG released a report last November, Babies VS. Plastics, highlighting infants’ heightened plastics exposure and vulnerability to health risks. It makes for grim reading: microplastics and their additive chemicals are linked to interruptions in maternal-fetal communication, damaged DNA, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, early onset puberty, and some forms of cancers.

Writing that report, I discovered that crawling on the floor puts babies at increased risk of inhaling microplastics in household dust. And since babies chew on everything, they are also more likely to ingest microplastics. The report made me wonder about my own plastics exposure, and about my two rescue dogs, Buzz and Sally. Since dogs and cats crawl on the floor and chew on everything their whole life span, are pets, like babies, especially vulnerable to microplastics?

November 4, 2022

Tests find PFAS in baby products and pet food packaging

By Shannon Kelleher

Testing on popular brands of infant bedding, bibs and other products for babies found nearly one third contained toxic PFAS chemicals and there were indicators that all of the products tested could contain PFAS, the Environmental Working Group said this week.

The research organization also found PFAS in pet food packaging, researchers reported.

The findings add to a growing list of household products found to contain these per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also called “forever chemicals” because they do not break down naturally over time. Some types of PFAS have been linked to cancer and other serious health problems. Young children and pets are especially vulnerable to toxic chemicals.

“A greater understanding of the specific sources of where [PFAS] come from helps inform our decisions and understanding of where we can try to avoid exposures,” said Krystal Pollitt, a Yale researcher who has studied PFAS in household dust and was not involved in the EWG assessments.