Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health, by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie, Knopf Canada, 323 pages, $32.Saturday Night Live episodes to quotes from Miss Marple - as well as the authors' brio in using their own bodies as test subjects. It's a fascinating and frightening read leavened by frequent references to pop culture - everything from Over nine chapters, Smith, a biologist and executive director of Environmental Defence, and Lourie, an environmental consultant, examine how the very chemicals that relieve us of bad smells, unsightly stains, sticky foods, invasive weeds and flammability - not to mention brittle toys - threaten our own and our children's health. Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health, written by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie. And it's these invisible additives that leave the toy box stewing in a distinctly modern dilemma: A growing body of evidence links the chemicals to "de-masculinizing" effects in infant boys, according to That vinyl plaything owes its pliability to chemicals called phthalates. Plunge your hands into a well-stocked toy box and no doubt your fingers will alight upon an example of modern chemistry's ingenuity: the soft, rubbery toy that bounces back after being squeezed, pummelled or chewed on.
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