"Are Kids Eating Window Caulk?" By Julie Gunlock. Well known cover girl Cindy Crawford is pulling her kids out of their Malibu school because routine soil tests on the school grounds found elevated levels of a chemicals called PCBs in window caulking in the class rooms. PCBs were banned by Congress in 1976 after it was revealed they could cause cancer and harm the immune and reproductive systems. Over the years, schools have been instructed to remove the caulking around windows if the schools … [Read more...]
Hype about Window Caulk and PCBs
August 22, 2014
"When There Is A Penis Mystery, Just Blame Endocrine Disruptors," By By Hank Campbell. Cindy Crawford says polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) will cause her son not to reproduce. She hasn't gone full-on Jenny McCarthy or anything, but there's never been a single study to find PCBs in window caulk can be an endocrine disruptor. There haven't been PCBs linked to reproductive issues at all, except in cases where animals in labs have been subjected to surfactants and gavage dosing of the stuff - the … [Read more...]
Kids at Risk from Window Caulk–Not
August 22, 2014
"Cindy Crawford Attacks PCBs but Doesn’t Have the Facts Straight," By American Council on Science and Health. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a class of chemicals that were commonly used in electrical insulation and may be found in the window caulking of older buildings. Well-known supermodel, Cindy Crawford, is now taking issue with the presence of PCBs in the window caulking at her children’s school and has decided to homeschool her kids to avoid them. Crawford says, “I look 10 years … [Read more...]
Yellow Journalism, PCBs, & Environmental Health Perspectives
February 24, 2014
"Another Chemical Scare: Yellow Dye this Time. Yawn," by American Council on Science and Health. Public health concern about polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) had, we believed, been laid to rest in 1979 when 1976’s Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) was used to ban commercial use in manufacturing. Since PCBs do not occur naturally, and remain in the environment for many years, most environmentally detectable sources of PCB have been attributed to “legacy” sources. However, an Environmental … [Read more...]
Scientist Says: PCBs ‘Not Particularly Toxic’
September 6, 2013
"Opinion: PCBs are Not ‘Toxic Time bombs,’" by Joe Schwarcz. We hadn’t heard much about polychlorinated biphenyls since the fire at St-Basil-le-Grand in 1988, but we sure are hearing a lot now. There are two angles to news about the illegally stored PCB-filled transformers and contaminated waste in Pointe-Claire. There is the legal and political story, and there is the scientific one. Without question, the PCB-containing materials were improperly and illegally stored and will have to be removed … [Read more...]
Surprising Facts about PCBs
September 6, 2013
"PCBs: Not What You Thought," by American Council on Science and Health. The always-brilliant Dr. Joe Schwarcz, Ph.D., a professor of chemistry (among other things) at McGill University in Montreal, has hit another one out of the park — as can be discerned from his latest “Dr. Joe” column in the Montreal Gazette. Dr. Schwarcz is one of the great skeptics and rebutters of junk-science scares, especially those based on the often-intentional misinterpretation of chemistry. This time he takes on … [Read more...]
