Prop 65 DEHP warning

When a Prop 65 warning for DEHP may be needed, and what the safe-harbor wording looks like

Direct answer. A Prop 65 warning for di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) may be needed when a business knowingly and intentionally exposes a person to listed DEHP and no exemption in the statute applies. OEHHA’s DEHP page shows cancer currently listed and reproductive toxicity currently listed. Cancer: date of listing 01/01/1988, basis the State’s Qualified Experts. Reproductive toxicity: listed as causing developmental toxicity and male reproductive toxicity, each dated 10/24/2003, basis Authoritative Bodies-National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health/US Food and Drug Administration. The same page prints No Significant Risk Level (NSRL): 310 (adult) µg/day. It prints Maximum Allowable Dose Level (MADL): 4200 µg/day (intravenous- adult); 600 µg/day (intravenous- infant boys, age 29 days to 24 months); 210 µg/day (intravenous- neonatal infant boys, age 0 to 28 days). It prints MADL - Oral: 410 µg/day (adult); 58 µg/day (infant boys, age 29 days to 24 months); 20 µg/day (neonatal infant boys, age 0 to 28 days). Those are the figures that page prints. Because DEHP is listed for both endpoints, the matching long-form sentence in OEHHA’s final regulatory text for 27 CCR § 25603(a)(2)(D) names a chemical known to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. This page does not decide that any product needs a warning. It is not legal advice.

Prop 65 Warning Manager (Shopify App Store · Write a review) displays California Prop 65 warnings on product pages and keeps an audit trail of warning edits, assignments, and storefront activation events. It does not decide whether an exposure requires a warning. Lead, BPA, and formaldehyde are different listings: lead, BPA, and formaldehyde.

Related: CLPLens — Hazard pictograms on the product page, not only the parcel.

Free check first: Prop 65 warning question check runs in your browser and sends nothing. Describe a product and see which list names and 27 CCR warning rules to read.

Checklist before you treat DEHP as in or out of a warning

Read the live OEHHA DEHP page. Quote the NSRL and each MADL only as that page prints them.
Read Health and Safety Code § 25249.6 (the warning duty) and § 25249.10 (exemptions) on the official California code.
For where DEHP is found, use the P65Warnings DEHP fact sheet. Do not add a product that sheet does not name.
For the sentence, read §§ 25601–25603. DEHP is listed for both endpoints, so the long-form shape to read is § 25603(a)(2)(D). Short-form content is the short-form warning.
If more than one listed phthalate is present, § 25601(b) requires the name of one or more chemicals for each endpoint, unless the named chemical is listed for both and has been so identified. Naming DEHP does not, by itself, name every other listed phthalate.

The endpoints and safe-harbor levels OEHHA prints

OEHHA’s chemical page, as read for this guide, shows two chemical-status lines: cancer, currently listed, and reproductive toxicity, currently listed. Cancer listing details are date of listing 01/01/1988 and basis the State’s Qualified Experts. Reproductive listing details are developmental toxicity and male reproductive toxicity, each with date of listing 10/24/2003 and basis Authoritative Bodies-National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health/US Food and Drug Administration.

The safe-harbor lines on that page, copied as printed, are:

No Significant Risk Level (NSRL): 310 (adult) µg/day.
Maximum Allowable Dose Level (MADL): 4200 µg/day (intravenous- adult); 600 µg/day (intravenous- infant boys, age 29 days to 24 months); 210 µg/day (intravenous- neonatal infant boys, age 0 to 28 days).
Maximum Allowable Dose Level (MADL) - Oral: 410 µg/day (adult); 58 µg/day (infant boys, age 29 days to 24 months); 20 µg/day (neonatal infant boys, age 0 to 28 days).

This page does not convert those figures to ppm, and it does not add a route the page does not print. For any other figure, see OEHHA.

Where the fact sheet says DEHP is found

The P65Warnings fact sheet, posted June 2017, says DEHP is on the Proposition 65 list because it can cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. It says exposure to DEHP may increase the risk of cancer, and may also harm the male reproductive system, and that exposure to DEHP during pregnancy may affect the development of the child. It says DEHP belongs to a family of chemicals called phthalates, which are added to some plastics to make them flexible, and that DEHP is still used in various types of plastic consumer products, including some:

Shower curtains, furniture, and automobile upholstery, garden hoses, floor tiles, and coverings on wires and cables.
Rainwear and shoes.
Lunchboxes, binders, and backpacks.
Plastic food packaging materials.
Medical devices and equipment, including some types of blood and intravenous solution bags, tubing for dialysis, feeding tubes, oxygen masks, and surgical gloves.

The same sheet says: “Avoid plastics known as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or vinyl (with recycle code 3).” It also says California law prohibits the manufacture, sale, or distribution of children’s toys and child care articles containing DEHP at levels greater than 0.1%, and that federal law has a similar prohibition. That 0.1% sentence is the fact sheet’s statement of a toys and child-care-articles law. It is not the NSRL and it is not a MADL. The sheet does not say every PVC product needs a warning.

Safe-harbor wording in §§ 25601–25603

Section 25601 is the clear-and-reasonable frame. Section 25602 is the method of transmission. Section 25603 is the content. Where a warning is being provided for more than one endpoint (cancer and reproductive toxicity), § 25601(b) says the warning must include the name of one or more chemicals for each endpoint, unless the named chemical is listed as known to cause both cancer and reproductive toxicity and has been so identified in the warning. DEHP is listed for both endpoints on the OEHHA page above. The unless-clause applies when that named chemical is so identified in the warning. It does not say that naming DEHP covers a different listed phthalate that the warning does not name.

For exposures to a chemical that is listed as both a carcinogen and a reproductive toxicant, § 25603(a)(2)(D) sets these words: “This product can expose you to chemicals including [name of one or more chemicals], which is [are] known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.” The brackets are the regulation’s placeholders. Section 25603(a)(2)(E) says that where the warning is for a single chemical, the words “chemicals including” may be deleted from the warning content in subsections (A), (B), and (D). Short-form content is the short-form warning. This page does not paste those short-form variants.

For internet purchases, § 25602(b) requires a warning that meets the content rules to be provided before the purchase is completed. Catalog purchases are § 25602(c). The methods are Prop 65 warning examples. This page does not repeat them.

What this page is not

Not legal advice, an exposure assessment, or a decision that a SKU needs a warning.
Not a substitute for the live OEHHA DEHP page, the P65Warnings fact sheet, the Health and Safety Code, or 27 CCR.
Not a ppm limit. The figures above are the NSRL and MADLs the OEHHA page prints, in µg/day, for the routes that page names.
Not the lead listing. That URL is Prop 65 lead warning.
Not the BPA listing. That URL is Prop 65 BPA warning.
Not the formaldehyde listing. That URL is Prop 65 formaldehyde warning.
Not the short-form method. That URL is Prop 65 short-form warning.

Prop 65 warning question check — which list names and 27 CCR rules to read
Prop 65 BPA warning
Prop 65 lead warning
Prop 65 formaldehyde warning
Prop 65 short-form warning — § 25602(a)(4) and § 25603(b)
Prop 65 warning examples — § 25602 methods, including internet and catalog
OEHHA: Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP)
P65Warnings.ca.gov: DEHP fact sheet
OEHHA final regulatory text (PDF)
Prop 65 Warning Manager — live App Store listing
Shopify apps hub
Tools

Not legal advice. Confirm OEHHA’s DEHP page, the P65Warnings DEHP fact sheet, Health and Safety Code §§ 25249.6 and 25249.10, and 27 CCR §§ 25601–25603 before you treat a DEHP exposure as in or out of a warning. Prop 65 Warning Manager displays California Prop 65 warnings on product pages and keeps an audit trail of warning edits, assignments, and storefront activation events.