Many Art Supplies Fail to Include Risk Notices : Health: Recent law requires warning of toxic chemicals that pose long-term hazard. Manufacturers say they are awaiting U.S. guidelines before complying.

Despite a federal labeling law, many art supplies containing toxic chemicals still do not include warnings of long-term health hazards, according to a report issued Thursday by a national consumer organization.

Moreover, almost 80% of the toxic art supplies surveyed do not include a required phone number so that consumers can ask for safety information, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group study showed.

“We’re talking about health effects such as cancer, reproductive defects and problems with specific organs,” said California Public Interest Research Group spokeswoman Julie Duncan at a Los Angeles press conference, one of several held by USPIRG chapters nationwide. “The kinds of products we’re talking about are markers, glue, thinner, paint--things that are commonly used in households, workplaces and in schools.”

A spokesman for the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission quickly took issue with PIRG’s findings, saying that little evidence has been uncovered that many art supplies pose such chronic health hazards as kidney and liver damage, birth defects or nervous system depression.

But spokesman Ken Giles acknowledged that the commission’s compliance program will not get under way until Oct. 1, 11 months after the labeling law took effect. Congress passed the law in 1988. In addition, the federal agency has yet to issue final guidelines to manufacturers on how to evaluate chronic hazards. A hearing on a set of draft guidelines is scheduled for Oct. 17 in Washington.

In the meantime, companies that provide warnings are at an economic disadvantage because “consumers are using the unlabeled product, thinking it’s safe,” said Lucinda Sikes, author of the USPIRG report.

“Consumers who are out there looking at two different turpentines or adhesives see one saying permanent brain damage and one that doesn’t,” Sikes said. “Even though the same chemicals are in both of them, the consumer will choose the one without the warning.”

Companies say they still don’t know what is legally required of them.

Laurie Doyle, associate director of the Art & Craft Materials Institute, said that the 125 manufacturers represented by her organization “are waiting for the federal government to finalize the toxicological guidelines” before deciding about new warning labels.

Doyle agreed that some products in retail shops currently fail to warn of long-term health hazards and do not include manufacturers’ phone numbers. But much of this merchandise, she said, was probably placed on the shelves before the law took effect last November.

She added that virtually all art products that can cause immediate harm contain proper warning labels.

Indeed, USPIRG found that art products containing toxic substances do warn against inadequate ventilation or prolonged use. However, 23 of 52 products failed to state the possible long-term toxic hazards.

For example, Duncan showed reporters two different brands of spray paint purchased this week in Los Angeles art supply shops. The label of a brand named Country Manor Water Formula warned that the product could cause long-range kidney or central nervous system damage. But the label on a can of EnviroSpray, which also contains chemicals that can cause kidney and central nervous system damage, includes no chronic hazard warning, Duncan said.

“We’re still waiting for rules to come down from the CPSC,” David Fonsen, general manager of EnviroSpray’s manufacturer, Environmental Technology, Inc., said. “It’s almost a question of what the hell is proper labeling. Give us an indication of what we need to do and we’ll do it.”