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  • 2016-05-14 (xsd:date)
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  • Are Dryer Sheets Full of Toxic Chemicals? (en)
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  • On 11 April 2016, blog posts appeared on health and wellness sites claiming that fabric softener dryer sheets are dangerous, toxic, interfered with the body's hormone regulation, and cause cancer. The posts listed several volatile organic compounds (or VOCs) as chemical culprits that cause hormone imbalance, neurotoxicity, respiratory problems, and even cancer: Before even reviewing any published material it was clear the blog author had conflated dryer sheets, laundry detergents, and dryer emissions. The study that it referenced had been published several years before — a press release on Steinemann's web site was dated to 2010, where she pointed out that green laundry products scored no better than their competitors in lab testing: We found a paper published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in January 2011, which gave a literal laundry list of 25 air fresheners, laundry detergents, fabric softeners, dryer sheets, disinfectants, dish detergents, all-purpose cleaners, soaps, hand sanitizers, lotions, deodorants, and shampoos that emit volatile organic compounds, and again, noted that green products give off just as many potentially harmful chemicals as their standard counterparts: The paper affirmed that products included in the study were subject to federal safety regulation, and Steinemann said that self-reporting symptoms was a significant aspect of her research: While Steinemann did conduct research in 2010, that research was not restricted to dryer sheets and appeared to rely heavily on self-reported reactions to volatile organic compounds, which are not necessarily a reliable barometer of possible risk. There was no indication those compounds were found specifically in dryer sheets, rather than detergent, shampoo, aerosol air fresheners, lotions, or any of the other dozens of items included in Steinemann's research. None of the purported toxins were present in a popular brand of fabric softener [PDF]: Procter & Gamble provided the same information for other brands, including Gain and Downy: The blogs listed the following ingredients as toxic components of dryer sheets: Alpha-Terpineol, Benzyl acetate, Benzyl alcohol, Chloroform, Ethanol, Ethyl Acetate, Linalool, and Pentane. We were unable to find any of those ingredients on material safety data forms for dryer sheets, but all the cited ingredients (except chloroform) were classified by the Food and Drug Administration as generally recognized as safe (GRAS). We were unable to corroborate the claim that chloroform was commonly (or even infrequently) present in any fabric softener dryer sheets. (en)
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