>The researchers found that adults aged 55 to 64 with the highest exposure to phthalates are more likely to die from all causes, particularly cardiovascular disease, compared to their counterparts with lower exposure. Or, these people who are more likely to eat poorly due to consuming large amounts of processed foods stored in phthalate laden packaging caused the study to come to a wrong conclusion. I don't see how it is definitive to say it was the phthalates when the upticks in death were from all causes. If there were a more common set of specific death causes among the group, then I would give more credence to the idea that phthalates were the cause. Since it is all across the board, I would suspect the poor lifestyles these individuals had were more of a contributing factor than simply the phthalates in the packaging. This seems to be more a case of correlation does not equal causation. All causes also includes accidental deaths such as car accidents and drownings- did the phthalates cause those too? I think a better study needs to be done that looks primarily at known effects caused by phthalates and with better controls and testing methods to precisely hone in on the deaths that were directly relatable to phthalates instead of taking the shotgun approach. This study just comes off as having a huge amount of confirmation bias, especially given the age of the participants. It tries too hard to call for something to be done in terms of regulation of phthalates when they even admit they need to do further studies "to corroborate observations and identify mechanisms" but still turn chicken little the sky is falling on the need to regulate phthalates immediately. I'm not saying phthalates are harmless, but this study is too alarmist and inconclusive to warrant such a dramatic position on regulation.