The period known as March Madness is almost over as the Kentucky men s and the Notre Dame women s basketball teams both prepare to take on UCONN. And of course, as with many major sporting events, devoted fans have been purchasing university-branded gear to get in the spirit. A new study, conducted by Healthy Stuff.org, a project of the non-profit Ecology Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, found that some of this gear may contain high levels of toxic chemicals.
The March Badness, study, as it was called, maybe as a result of the bad conclusions drawn from their findings, involved looking at 65 products sold during the collegiate basketball tournament, including baby bibs, koozies and key chains. Researchers found that over 70 percent of the products contained a chemical of-concern including lead, mercury, phthalates or chemicals used in flame-retardants ACSH s
Dr. Elizabeth Whelan had this to say. Phthalates and flame-retardants pose no known adverse health effects and activist groups and their studies should stop scaring the public about them and re-focus their energies on the many real and known threats to human health. In the meantime, there is no reason why basketball fans should be afraid of purchasing their team s products.
