PFAS in baby wipes? We’ve got a solution for that.

No parent should have to worry if the products they’re bringing home to care for their children are endangering their family’s health. That’s why PennEnvironment has been working to pass House Bill 2238.

Representatives Mandy Steele, Brian Munroe, Tarik Khan, Greg Scott (at podium), Stephanie Wein of PennEnvironment and Steve Hzodovich of Clean Water Action at press conference supporting House Bill 2238
Zach Newman | Used by permission
Representatives Mandy Steele, Brian Munroe, Tarik Khan, Greg Scott (at podium), me and Steve Hzodovich of Clean Water Action at press conference supporting House Bill 2238

As the mother of an eight month old, I’m in a lot of parenting spaces including WhatsApp chats of local Philly moms, subreddits of new parents around the world, and neighborhood Facebook pages where people are selling their used high chairs or buying second-hand onesies. 

But over  the last few days, one topic has come up in all these places again and again: 

“Have you heard there may be toxic PFAS in this brand of baby wipes?”

According to the legal news site Legal360, a class action lawsuit has been filed against Costco after private testing revealed toxic PFAS chemicals (also called “forever chemicals”) in Costco’s Kirkland signature brand baby wipes.  And it doesn’t stop at wipes – Environmental Health News reportedly found evidence of toxic PFAS chemicals in 23% of all of the diaper brands they tested.

Photo by Stephanie Wein | Used by permission

PFAS are linked to cancers, hormone disruption and other health issues.  And no parent should have to worry if the products they’re bringing home to care for their children are endangering their family’s health.  

That’s why PennEnvironment has been working to pass House Bill 2238, an important public health proposal that would ban PFAS in a broad set of consumer products sold or manufactured in Pennsylvania.  Sponsored  by State Representatives Greg Scott (Montgomery County), Mandy Steele (Pittsburgh) and Tarik Khan (Philadelphia), HB2238 recently passed the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee in the state House, and currently has the support of over 60 bipartisan cosponsors.

We shouldn’t have to wonder if PFAS are in our baby products, cookware, food containers, our menstrual products, our carpeting or the litany of other products in which they are currently found. And it starts with passing HB 2238.

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