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678950 
Technical Report 
Phthalate release from soft PVC baby toy : Report from the Dutch Consensus Group 
Konemann, WH 
1998 
National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (Netherlands) :: RIVM 
Bilthoven, the Netherlands 
RIVM report 613320 002 
30 
English 
At the request of the Secretary of State for Health,Welfare and Sports a working group of representatives from interested parties has investigated the release of phthalates from soft PVC baby toys. Since di-isononylphthalate (DINP) appeared to be the phthalate predominantly used in soft PVC toys, only this phthalate was considered in detail in any further work. The following experimental studies have been carried out: (1) a human volunteers study to determine release rates of DINP from PVC samples into saliva (carried out by TNO Nutrition and Food Research Institute), (2) a child observation study to determine the oral contact time of young children with baby toys (carried out by the Wageningen Agricultural University), (3) a new assessment of the exposure of babies to DINP from soft PVC toys (carried out by RIVM), (4) development of a routine laboratory method to determine the release rate of DINP from soft PVC baby toys (carried out mainly by TNO Nutrition and Food Research Institute, with assistance from laboratories of other Consensus Group members). Based on the results from these studies and assuming that soft PVC baby toys are the most important source of exposure of babies to DINP, it is concluded that exposure levels of children >12 months were well below the maximal Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) of 0.15 mg/kg/day, for the sample tested. For children of 3 - 12 months in rare cases the exposure may approximate or exceed the TDI, if the sample tested would be representive for products on the market. A proposal is given for a routine laboratory method to determine release rates of DINP from toys. Also a method is given to derive a maximum acceptable release rate. 
Exposure