NEW YORK - Daily exposure to synthetic chemicals called phthalates, which are used in plastic food containers, cosmetics and hundreds of other consumer products, may lead to roughly 100,000 premature deaths each year in older Americans, according to a new study.
The study, led by a team at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, also estimated that those deaths could cost the U.S.
between $40 billion and $47 billion in lost economic productivity, a value more than quadruple that of previous estimates.Phthalates make plastics more flexible and are among the most common chemicals found to disrupt the body’s hormones, known as the endocrine system.