For more than 40 years, vinyl has been used in a wide variety of applications, including toys and life saving medical products such as blood bags, catheters and dialysis tubing. Among the attributes that make vinyl widely used are its superior performance, cost efficiency and safety. Indeed, the use of flexible vinyl has been critical in establishing disposable medical products which have dramatically reduced infection rates and the spread of disease. Individual additives include stabilizers, colorants, impact modifiers, processing aids and plasticizers.
Plasticizers are compounds added in the manufacture of vinyl to impart softness and flexibility.
Without plasticizers, many of the vinyl medical products doctors and nurses use everyday would not exist. Debate Plasticizers have been researched at length to determine their potential impact on human health and the environment. Indeed, vinyl and plasticizers are among the most tested materials in the world. Due to the extensive research, there has been much debate over their health impact and the differing methodologies used to evaluate plasticizers. For example, while the U.S. National Toxicology Program and the International Agency for Research on Cancer have classified DEHP as a possible human carcinogen, their methodologies have been criticized for potentially inaccurately ascribing results obtained with rodents to humans.