Is it muddy bananas?

Is there a way to find out which models are guilty?

This seems like a nothing burger. Plenty of things you shouldn't ingest like BPA, plastic, and solder are perfectly benign when used to construct consumer electronics.

I'd be more interested to hear they found something that leeches through the skin being used to create the body of the headphones.

According to the article all of them.

All that we're sampled. So which were sampled?

They mentioned some brands, but not models.

I did wonder this myself. Can it enter the body via normal usage? And if so, in what dose? Enough for us to care?

I don't make a habit of putting headphones in my mouth, but young children do things like that.

Clickbait!
This is nothing news since the report isn't publicly available. This is just the media working to keep you scared and reading.

They have updated and included the article/paper 😊

Wait.. What do you mean with shouldn't injest.. I thought it was perfectly fine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Lotito

No, you just have to have the anxiety of which toxic chemicals you are in contact with every time you use your headphones. You're welcome.

feminisation of males

Looks closely

The guardian

Well that's all I need to know about this.

BPAs have been shown to absorbed through the skin. Headphones are increasingly worn for long, continuous periods. Unlike other plastic objects which are handled for shorter periods.

I’m not entirely convinced of the danger myself (tinnitus seems a bigger worry for headphone use to me), but I thought it was a matter worthy of further discussion.

UPDATE: The article has now linked to the newly published study. It claims a maximum concentration of bisphenols of 351mg/kg, above the 10mg/kg limit proposed by ECHA, but they don't give any concrete numbers on how likely any of those bisphenols are to actually leech from the product into your body. The average sum of all bisphenols/sample was just 15. They note the parts not touching the skin often had more bisphenols than the parts actually touching the skin, with about 50% more of those areas than the non-skin-contacting ones being put in their "green" category, meaning it's fairly in compliance with most protective standards.

Of the parts touching the skin, 68% were green, 21% yellow, and 11% red.

And onto flame retardants, 100% of products with HFRs were green, and 84% with OPFRs were green.

For pthalates, 87% were green, and less than 1% were red.

Essentially, the TLDR is that most of the things they tested either met most standards, were very close to meeting them, or technically didn't meet standards but mostly just in areas that didn't even come in contact with the skin at all. AKA, it's mostly overblown.

Original Post:
No source linked by the article, no visible press releases that don't just pretend to be a real press release while citing the articles, no official blog posts, and the only official sounding mention of this that comes from a more direct source is a coalition on linkedin saying a person at a sub-group of the broader project was gonna talk with them about it.

No stats, no numbers, just "they found it" in the headphones.

You could find a chemical well under the safe limit in drinking water, and say "we found x in your water" and make a big scare of it when it's not a big deal.

While I have no doubt BPA and its counterparts could be used in manufacturing of headphones, without any actual data, this is literally no better than when your uncle at Thanksgiving starts yapping about how the government found some data one time and that means you should never drink tap water again.

Everything is toxic at some dose.

Who is chewing on their headphones?

Sheepskin earpads it is!

we can't eat headphones anymore?

Only Beets by Dr Dre.

Uhm, guys, the skin is not a plastic wrap but a organ; it absorbs substances. And while some can be bad for the skin (like, causing rash or cancer), some others can get into the blood stream this way. And some plastic softeners (of earpieces for example) are not allowed in most markets for this very reason.

Not about the article but about some of the comments here.

Do they make condoms from Israeli circumcised foreskin?

From my experience reading the guardian, click bait isn’t their thing. Also it says the investigation isn’t finished and they reached out for a comment , which usually means there’s room for an explanation or clarification if their findings are off. This is pretty common to openly ask “correct us if we’re wrong”.

Also it mentions the organization and European program backed by the EU.

https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/life/publicWebsite/project/LIFE22-GIE-HU-ToxFree-LIFE-for-All-101114078/awareness-raising-and-behaviour-change-program-to-empower-consumer-citizens-to-live-toxic-free-lives-reduce-chemical-risks-on-their-health-and-the-environment-and-to-upscale-their-positive-impact

I'm also puzzled by this choice of words.

Looking at the study, 'female', or 'feminisation'/'feminization' isn't used once. But 'oestrogen' appears a lot.
I guess some of these materials interfere with hormone activity and they call that feminisation? Still puzzled.

Bisphenols: Mostly used in the manufacturing of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins, bisphenols
are endocrine disruptors that mimic oestrogen , potentially leading to metabolic disorders, reproduc-
tive issues, and increased cancer risk even at trace concentrations (Maffini et al., 2006; Rochester &
Bolden, 2015)

PhP (Triphenyl phosphate): The most prevalent OPFR in our samples, TPhP is a confirmed endocrine
disruptor (Hu et al., 2023; Li et al., 2025). It interferes with oestrogen and thyroid hormone axes (Ji et al.,

1. and is linked to obesity and metabolic changes (Wang et al., 2019)

BPA (Bisphenol A): Binds to oestrogen receptors and alters gene expression and hormone activity (Alon-
so-Magdalena et al., 2012). BPA has been detected in amniotic fluid, placental tissue, and umbilical cord
blood, indicating transplacental transfer. Studies have confirmed that BPA can migrate from synthetic
materials into artificial sweat (Wang et al., 2019), and dermal absorption is well established (Toner et
al., 2018). These findings led to the EU ban of BPA in thermal receipt paper in 2020, although it has been
widely substituted with BPS (ECHA, 2020)

BPAF (Bisphenol AF): Demonstrates stronger oestrogenic activity than BPA and is increasingly used in
thermal paper and plastic applications (Moreman et al., 2017)

RDP (Resorcinol bis(diphenyl phosphate)): Used as a substitute to TPhP, RDP is an emerging neurotox-
in and acts as an endocrine disruptor that interferes with thyroid and oestrogen pathways. It has been
linked to metabolic imbalances in animal studies (Xie et al., 2023). Scientists report stronger oestrogen-
ic effects than TPhP and RDP´s exposure showing metabolic disorders in rats and their offspring (Liu et
al., 2023).

Click through to the report and go to the first annex on page 37. It has a list of all the models.

Maybe it's been updated since you commented this, but there's definitely a link that leads to a download of the publicly available report.

Nice, it wasn't before 😁 (the paper)

HyperX and Razor are the only ones all red (bad chemicals everywhere) - Sony and Apple has mostly green 😊

Regarding the feminization of males, I can confirm that as a lifelong music lister and creator, I am now a transgender woman. I do not recall having feelings of wanting to wear dresses, talk about my feelings, and drink appletinis prior to donning the cans around age 8, in order to listen to Metallica’s latest album. It is noteworthy that later CD purchases were often far less macho and included Ace of Base and Alanis Morissette, likely due to my rapidly progressing, toxin-induced feminization.

Thank you.

I enjoyed this.

The feminization of men

Fellas I'm willing to run this gauntlet.

I love Lemmy precisely because of people like you, and because of people like you I learn something new everyday!

Damn, what a compliment. Thank you.