Rubber Ducky Isn't So Fun Afterall

"Hasbro, home to the My Little Pony brand, had no comment..."

Oh my goodness, I wondered as I half-consciously listened to NPR early this morning. What could they have responded with 'no comment' to? Was the CEO laundering money? Were they smuggling drugs in Monopoly boxes?! What?? What horrifying despicable acts were they up to, those corporate mongers, those ne'er do wells!!

My interest was peaked. I listened further.

Turns out that Hasbro and other companies were refusing to disclose which chemicals they used to make their plastics softer, despite the growing concern of carcinogens by parents across the US.

Ahh, that magic buzz word, "carcinogens". Whatever did we do before the discovery of carcinogens? More importantly whatever did we do before the discovery of the effects of carcinogens... in lab rats. The newest member of the carcinogen family? Phthalates. Studies have shown that high doses of phthalates can cause reproductive problems in rodents.

If only my parents had known. All of that time wasted trying to dissuade me from getting into cars with strangers, doing drugs, swimming right after eating... what they really should have focused on was carcinogens. They were everywhere apparently. The paint in our house. My #2 pencils. Even my cute and yellow and chubby rubber ducky. Sure I was fond of him, heck he made bathtime lots of fun. Unbeknownst to me, everytime I made my way to the tubby, I was walking into a death trap.

And yet, here I sit, cancer-free. A miracle, I know. How did I manage to cheat death you ask? Maybe because I didn't eat my rubby ducky, I just bathed with it.

Anytime you read that X product has been known to cause cancer in rats, know that they are exposing these rats to a ridiculously high level of the stuff. And let me give you a quick lesson on lab rats. Lab rats are great for testing out initial drugs and therapies because they are a decent indicator -- I use the word "decent" loosely -- of how humans will respond to those same drugs and therapies. However results are rarely 100% reproducible in humans. Why? Because, surprise surprise, humans are different from rodents. Not a valid comparison.

So let your kids play with all of the phthalate based toys they want to. You can rest easy. In a few short years they'll be moving on to small communication devices that emit microwave radiation, more commonly known as the cellular phone.