It annoys me when news stories don't link to their sources. Here it is: <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2605.2009.01019.x/abstract" rel="nofollow">http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2605.2009....</a><p>The study is terrible. All the reported effects include 0 well within the 95% confidence interval (e.g. ranges like -2.3 to +3.2), yet mysteriously the P values end up just the right side of "significant". This reeks of confirmation bias, or worse.
The experiment:<p><i>The women, who gave birth to 74 boys and 71 girls, were followed up when their children were aged four to seven and asked about the toys the youngsters played with and the games they enjoyed.</i><p>The result:<p><i>They found that two phthalates DEHP and DBP can affect play behaviour. Boys exposed to high levels of these in the womb were less likely than other boys to play with cars, trains and guns or engage in "rougher" games like playfighting.</i><p><pre><code> DEHP - used to make PVC soft and pliable, used in products like flooring
DBP - used as a plasticiser in glues, dyes and textiles
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I recently read an article on a similar topic: <a href="https://medium.com/@GregDowney1/plastics-tiny-penises-and-human-evolution-6424e217df68" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@GregDowney1/plastics-tiny-penises-and-hu...</a>
I'd really prefer a link to the actual study or paper, because this sounds a little... biased, to say the least. More specifically, it sounds like the whole "Bisphenol A" thing [1] and from even before that, the "soy mimics estrogen" thing [2].<p>There's nothing new under the sun.<p>1: <a href="http://www.fda.gov/newsevents/publichealthfocus/ucm064437.htm#current" rel="nofollow">http://www.fda.gov/newsevents/publichealthfocus/ucm064437.ht...</a><p>2: <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/ask-well-is-it-safe-to-eat-soy/" rel="nofollow">http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/ask-well-is-it-safe...</a>
I've never heard a single thing about concerns over PVC until today. Before I even saw this article on HN I was in the process of researching it because a friend brought up how their dad told them not to drink the water from their faucet because it's running through PVC. I'm in the process of buying a house that has new PVC all over and I can't find any reliable info on this concern. Does anyone here have any sources to share?