Stink!

Directed and Narrated by Jon Whelan

When Jon Whelan lost his wife, Heather, to breast cancer, he became extremely conscientious about their two young daughters, who were now his sole responsibility. After noticing a noxious stink in their brand-new Christmas pajamas, he set out to discover what it was. The manufacturer refused to respond to his questions, so he sent the pj’s to a lab for chemical analysis. The findings? They contained two phthalates—endocrine disruptors that have a known link to breast cancer. Coincidentally or not, the lifetime risk of breast cancer has risen from 1 in 20 in the 1970s to now 1 in 8.

Determined to discover how these toxic ingredients could possibly be legal in a children’s product, Jon undertook a research project that led to a dirty little secret of the manufacturing industry: If a company categorizes a toxic chemical as part of its “perfume” or “fragrance” formula, it doesn’t have to disclose that ingredient on the product’s label.

The chemicals in fragrance are known to cause infertility, birth defects, diabetes, learning disabilities and cancer, and can mutate DNA. Yet because of the fragrance loophole, the manufacturers can completely hide these ingredients.

There are 17,000 unregulated chemicals in use in the U.S. today. In cosmetics alone, 10 ingredients have been banned, whereas in the European Union, where corporations and lobbyists don’t have a stranglehold on government, more than 1200 have been banned.

And surprise, surprise. The American Chemistry Council spent more than $51 million from 2010 to 2014 lobbying Capitol Hill to block action on reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Ironically, even “Promise Me,” the fragrance designed by the Susan G. Komen organization to raise money for its efforts, contains toxic chemicals that increase the risk of breast cancer.

Stink! Is an important film with an urgent message, but how could someone who is so concerned about toxins and health encourage his children to release plastic balloons, on which they write with marker pens, into the environment? Maybe Whelan’s next film will document plastics in the ocean, where most balloons end up in the bellies of marine life. (Net Return, Inc.)