Link Between Fetal Exposure to PVC Plastic Chemical and Obesity in Offspring

By Dr. Mercola

When you get out of the shower in the morning, you probably don’t pay much attention to your vinyl shower curtain, except to maybe note when it needs a cleaning.

And if your home contains soft, flexible plastic flooring, such as vinyl or those padded play-mat floors for kids (often used in day cares and kindergartens, too), you probably don’t give them much thought either...

You might know that plastic is hard and very rigid and the only way to make these flexible plastics is to use plasticizers such as phthalates, and one of the phthalates is a particularly pernicious one called tributyltin.

Tributyltin is not only a common phthalate in PVC, it’s also found in marine paints, where it acts as a biocide to discourage the growth of barnacles, bacteria, algae and other organisms on ship and boat hulls. >