Is Our Clothing Making Us Sick? Here’s What One Journalist Wants Us to Know
"Even the largest, most affordable drugstore brands are now reformulating their beauty and cleaning products to be safer. And you can find organic milk at conventional grocery stores, too. Yet fashion, a $2.5 trillion global industry, has somehow completely evaded the same scrutiny."
These words by journalist and author Alden Wicker in her new book To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick—and How We Can Fight Back hit a grave and critical chord. Clothing manufacturers are lacing the items we put on our bodies with horrendous chemicals. Take formaldehyde, a severe and ubiquitous preservative and fertilizer linked to cancer. A study sampling a variety of dyed garments published in the journal Toxic found formaldehyde in:
22 percent of the tested cotton garments
14 percent of synthetic material garments
47 percent of cotton-synthetic garments
Unbeknownst to us, chemicals are everywhere in our daily clothes—and it could be harming us.
This fact underscores Wicker's intention in her book. Chemicals, such as formaldehyde, go totally unregulated in the clothing industry. Manufacturers can spray whatever they choose to up an item’s performance, say to prevent wrinkles or to make them waterproof, without scrutiny. It's bizarre, especially as Wicker points out that we have ingredient lists for our foods and personal care items—much of which continues to contain harmful ingredients—yet there is no transparency labeling for a t-shirt or pair of pants colored with dyes made of fossil fuels.
Wicker, who has covered the topics of sustainability and ethical fashion for years (she's the founder of EcoCult, a site that takes an in-depth look at the fast fashion world), began investigating chemicals in fashion several years ago. Her interest was piqued when Delta flight attendants began complaining they were getting sick after wearing new uniforms provided to them by the company. The attendants reported breaking out in rashes. Some even complained of breathing issues.
That story led Wicker to investigate the unregulated use of potentially harmful chemicals. She spent more than two years studying clothing chemicals and our health. She interviewed a wide array of people who were impacted by the issue, including consumers and garment factory workers. Her research and reporting revealed just how many of us are unaware of the fact that our clothing has the potential to make us sick.
In an interview for 'Fresh Air,' Wicker told Tanya Mosley, "This is a conversation I've had over and over and over again over the past few years where people say, I've never heard about this before, and then I start to tell them about some things, and they go, oh, yeah. You know what? You're right. I do get a rash when I wear things like this […]."
Wicker's book is stunning in its breadth of information and it's also a rallying cry. We must continue to investigate what goes in and on our bodies, challenge toxic measures taken by corporate giants, and fight for transparency and truth.
To learn more about Alden Wicker and to order her book To Dye For, visit aldenwicker.com.