Even low levels of chemicals in crumb rubber are toxic

Published 1:31 am Wednesday, August 31, 2016

“I’ll throw my body in front of the trucks if you choose crumb rubber!” I told my (former) colleagues on the school board last year. I wasn’t kidding, and my view was based on science.

Dr. Bruce Lanphear, an internationally respected researcher on the effects of chemicals on the brain, has called for a moratorium on the use of crumb rubber for artificial turf fields. You can learn about the effect of very low levels of chemicals on children’s brains by watching a seven-minute video Dr. Lanphear made, called “Little Things Matter.” It is on YouTube. I offered to ask Dr. Lanphear to talk with our school board. I got no response.

One of the chemicals in crumb rubber is lead. Dr. Lanphear spent decades studying the effects of lead and demonstrated there is no safe level of this toxin. The Centers for Disease Control agrees. Levels below what can be detected in normal blood tests cause irrevocable damage to the developing brain.

So how is it possible, as Michael Peterson writes, that numerous studies have not found harmful effects from crumb rubber? (“Many scientific studies prove no health, safety concerns associated with synthetic turf and crumb rubber infill,” Aug. 24).

There is a chasm between proving a chemical causes harm and proving it is safe. It takes many years of studying the exposures of large numbers of people to identify how chemicals affect us. For example, last year the University of Oregon published research showing that a particular gene makes some people more susceptible to lead poisoning.

A long-term study has not been done with crumb rubber. But we do know without a doubt that chemicals like lead are toxic in minute quantities. So why would we willingly expose our children to them?

— Laura Wishik