Authorities say Fluorescent brighteners cause cancer——they're actually safe

What is fluorescence?

When it comes to fluorescence, many people immediately associate it with fireflies, which are often the most beautiful scenes in our childhood memories. In fact, fluorescence is just a physical phenomenon of cold luminescence, which absorbs incident light of a certain wavelength (usually ULTRAVIOLET or X-ray) and then emits light of longer wavelength (usually visible light). For example, absorbing blue light gives off green light, absorbing green light gives off red light, and most commonly absorbing ultraviolet light gives off blue light. Once the incident light stops, the luminescence disappears. According to experts, fluorescent substances are common in nature, but also in a variety of animals, such as many sea creatures such as shrimp, crabs, jellyfish, and terrestrial fireflies, which emit light because they contain fluorescent proteins. Some fluorescent substances even exist in the human body, such as some amino acids, vitamins A, E and B12, nucleotides, hormones, etc. Many of the most common foods also fluoresce, such as fermented foods such as soy sauce, pu 'er tea, white wine, black tea and coffee.

In the interview reporter discovers, consumer often has a kind of fear to the material that can give out fluorescence, think can have harm to human body. And national dye quality supervision and inspection center senior engineer Dong Zhongsheng in an interview pointed out that a substance will emit fluorescence, and whether toxic has nothing to do with, because fluorescence phenomenon is a pure physical phenomenon, no chemical reaction, will not have adverse effects on health. Besides the vitamin that can give out fluorescent, protein, tryptophan, tyrosine and hormone wait, still maintain the material that life is necessary, can be absorbed by human body. So there is no relationship between toxicity and fluorescence.

What is fluorescent whitening agent?

Many white fabrics will add fluorescent whitening agent in the production process, such as in KTV, concert and other brilliant lights to see the fluorescent reaction is an example. In addition, a lot of white stuff around us actually contains fluorescent brighteners. Such as plastic tube, copy paper and so on. Fluorescent brighteners are organic compounds that absorb ultraviolet light and thus emit blue or blue-violet light.

The reporter consulted the national standard GB/T6687-2006 "dye terminology" also found such a statement: fluorescent whitening agent is a colorless fluorescent dye, under the irradiation of ultraviolet light, can stimulate blue, purple light, and the matrix on the yellow light complementary and whitening effect. Popular point says, fluorescent brightener is to use the complementary lubricious action on optics to make white or light color article (wait like textile, plastic, paper) whiten, increase bright or increase colourful, do not produce chemical reaction between it and article, rely on optical action to increase the whiteness on object vision however feeling.

Anyone with any optical knowledge knows that white matter generally absorbs slightly the blue light in visible light, causing a certain amount of blue to be inadequate, making it slightly yellowish and old. If the fluorescent brightener is dyed on a substance with a certain whiteness, it will absorb ultraviolet light invisible to the naked eye and emit bright and gorgeous blue-purple fluorescence, which is complementary with the yellow light on the substance to obtain white light, thus having whitening effect on the object.

According to Dong Zhongsheng introduction, fluorescent whitening agent is to use optical principle to achieve whitening effect, so will not cause damage to articles, and is bleaching, blue and other methods cannot achieve, is the most effective, the most commonly used whitening method. According to the reporter, fluorescent whitening agent has more than 75 years of use history. From the initial application in textiles, it has been widely used in paper making, detergent, textile, plastic, paint, ink, leather, anti-counterfeiting, laser detection and other fields, and even applied in biomedicine, and its application fields are still expanding, and closely related to our production and life. And according to association of industry of Chinese catharsis things relevant personage introduces, fluorescent brightening agent is agent of a kind of function, a lot of clothings are worn in use process, cause yellowing because of all sorts of reasons, white clothings whiteness drops, colour is no longer brightening. Add fluorescent brightener in detergent, can let clothings restore original whiteness and color as far as possible. Therefore, fluorescent brighteners are widely added in laundry detergents at home and abroad.

Is fluorescent whitening agent safe?

Each of us has been in close contact with fluorescent whiteners in fabrics, as well as washing products containing fluorescent whiteners, such as laundry detergents. According to the reporter understanding, fluorescent brightening agent from the last century, mainly used in textiles at the beginning, has developed to the present mainly used in a number of industries such as washing products, so far there has not been a case caused by fluorescent agent cause disease or personal injury.

From the 50 s of the last century, around the security of fluorescent whitening agent, began to study abroad, many toxicologists and European chemical industry association, the soap and detergent association, Japan national test of health institutions, independent organizations, research institutions, such as soap and detergent association of Japan conducted in-depth study and released the report. The results showed that fluorescent whitening agent had no skin sensitization, phototoxicity, transoral toxicity, transdermal toxicity, reproductive toxicity, mutagenicity and carcinogenicity. As early as August 2011, China Washing Products Industry Association held a media meeting for experts on the safety of fluorescent whitening agent for laundry detergent in Beijing. Relevant authoritative experts also gave a conclusion: "Laundry detergent containing fluorescent whitening agent is safe for human body and environment."