Some pharmacologic and toxicologic effects of di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) and other plasticizers.

With the recent demonstration of the migration of phthalate ester plasticizers from vinyl plastic biomedical devices (1-4), its identification in human and animal tissues (5, 6), and evidence for its ubiquitous distribution in the environment (7, 8),tt it has become necessary to reevaluate the toxicologic potential of this class of chemi- cal compounds. Di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), as an example of the most widely used of the phthalate esters, deserves par- ticular emphasis. In general, the phthalate esters have been reported to have a low order of acute toxicity (9-11). For example, of eight different phthalate esters examined in one study, the intraperitoneal LD50 dose in mice ranged from 1.5 to 14.2 g/kg. In rats, the intraperitoneal LD50 of DEHP has been reported by several investigators to range from 2 to 31 g/kg. One report