Over the last few years, public health professionals, scientists, and community groups have grown increasingly concerned about the contamination of human bodies by toxic chemicals. Meanwhile, chronic health problems, particularly those that affect children, have continued to rise. Our report, Growing Threats: Toxic Flame Retardants & Children's Health, documents the emerging case of the toxic flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). Unfortunately, the potential for harm to children’s health is becoming all too clear.
What are PBDEs?
Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs) are chemicals that are added to computer plastics, foam products, and commercial textiles to slow the spread of fire.(1) PBDEs are believed to be slowly released over the life of these products, making their way up the food chain and accumulating in peoples’ bodies.(2)
Levels of PBDEs are increasing in people and the environment.
PBDEs have traveled around the world and are steadily accumulating in the tissues of humans and animals. As early as 1998, scientists found PBDE levels rising exponentially in women’s breast milk. From the breast tissue of women in San Francisco to the blubber of Arctic whales, these toxic chemicals have become a much closer part of our lives than their manufacturers ever intended. Consider:
• Swedish studies show
that the levels of PBDEs in human breast milk have increased 40-fold since
1972.(3)
• North American breast milk samples contain 40 times the amount of PBDEs found
in Swedish samples.(4)
• Breast tissue from San Francisco Bay Area women show some of the highest
levels of PBDEs yet found in people.(5)
• Researchers report increasing levels of PBDEs in animals as diverse as fish
in Virginia to whales in the Arctic.(6)
Exposure may have severe consequences for children’s health.
Lab research indicates that the PBDEs now found in our bodies have the potential to disrupt the process of brain development in children both in the womb and in early life. At the same time, studies have found dramatically increasing numbers of children with developmental, learning, and behavior disorders over the last decade. Studies show:
•
Large numbers of women in the U.S.
may carry PBDEs in their bodies, passing them on to their babies in the womb
during critical stages of development.
• PBDEs may impair the intelligence and motor skills of children.
All PBDEs disrupt thyroid hormone balance
because the chemical structure of PBDEs closely resembles thyroid
hormones.(7) Thyroid hormone function is critical to proper
brain development both in the womb and after birth.(8)
• Newborn mice exposed to PBDEs experience damage to their nervous systems,
resulting in learning and motor deficits that worsen as the animals grow
older.(9)
Use of these chemicals is unnecessary.
Numerous alternatives to PBDEs are available, safe to human health, cost effective, and capable of meeting stringent fire standards. Making a fire-safe product does not demand that we expose our families to developmental toxics. A variety of furniture, plastic, and electronics manufacturers have already deployed products that meet stringent fire-safety standards without the use of PBDEs. Companies are already developing and implementing alternatives to PBDEs.
The Son of PCBs
Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) were once widely used in hundreds of industrial and commercial applications. PCBs are now known to cause cancer and a number of serious non-cancer health effects, including damage to the immune, reproductive, nervous, and endocrine systems. Concern over the toxicity and persistence in the environment of PCBs led Congress in 1976 to enact §6(e) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that included, among other things, prohibitions on the manufacture, processing, and distribution in commerce of PCBs.
Some scientists call PBDEs the “Son of PCBs,” because they look like the PCBs, behave like the PCBs, and have at least some of the same toxic effects as the PCBs. Meanwhile, PCBs were banned in the U.S. in 1976, but PBDEs are still in heavy use in this country.
Assembly Bill 302
In August 2003, Governor Davis signed AB 302 (Chan-Oakland) into law. Sponsored by Environment California, AB 302 prohibits any person, on and after June 1, 2006, from manufacturing, processing, or distributing any product containing two types of PBDEs, PentaBDE and OctaBDE.
Momentum is building worldwide to
reduce and eliminate the use of PBDEs.
• Several states, including Maine, Hawaii, Michigan, Washington,
Oregon, Illinois, Maryland, and New York, have followed California’s
lead and taken action against PentaBDE
and OctaBDE.
• The European Union voted in December 2002 to ban the use of PBDEs in
electrical and electronic equipment sold in member countries.(10)
• In Germany, PBDEs have been banned since 1986 because, when burned, they also
produce dioxin, considered the most toxic chemical known to science.(11)
• A growing number of electronics and furniture manufacturers, including Sony
and IKEA, have adopted official policies to phase out their use of PBDEs.(12)
Notes
1. National Chemicals Inspectorate (Sweden), "KEMI Proposes a
Prohibition of Flame Retardants," 15 March 1999; Bromine Science and Environmental Forum, An
Introduction to Brominated Flame Retardants, 19 October 2000.
2. Cynthia de Wit, Institute of Applied Environmental Research at Stockholm University,
An overview of brominated flame retardants in the environment. Chemosphere
46, 583-634, 2002.
3. O. Papke, et al Determination of PBDEs in human milk from the United States:
Comparison of results from three laboratories. Organohalogen Compounds 52,
197-200, 2001.
4. Ibid.
5. Jianwen She et al, Californnia Department of Toxics Substances Control, PBDEs
in the San Francisco
Bay Area: measurements in
harbor seal blubber and human breast adipose tissue. Chemosphere 46,
697-707, 2002.
6. Robert C. Hale, Mark J. La Guardia, Ellen P. Harvey, T. Matteson Mainor,
William H. Duff, and Michael O. Gaylor, The College of William and Mary
Institute for Marine Science, Polybrominated Diphenyl Ether Flame
Retardants in Virginia Freshwater Fishes, Environmental Science and Technology
35, 4585-4591, 31 October 2001; P.S. Haglund et al, Identification and
quantification of polybrominated diphenyl ethers and methoxy-polybrominated
diphenyl ethers in Baltic biota, Environmental Science and Technology 31,
3281-3287, 1997.
7. Zhou et al, Effects of short term in vivo exposure to polybrominated
diphenyl ethers on thyroid hormones and hepatic
enzyme activities in weanling rats. Toxicological Science 61, 76-82, 2001;
U. Oern and E. Klasson-Whehler. Metabolism of 2,2',4,4'-tetrabromodiphenyl
ether in rat and mouse. Xenobiotica 28, 199-211, 1998.
8. V.J. Pop et al, Low maternal free thyroxine concentrations during early
pregnancy are associated with impaired psychomoter development in infancy.
Clinical Endocrinology 50, 149-155, 1999; J.E. Haddow et al, Maternal thyroid
deficiency during pregnancy and subsequent neuropsychological development of
the child. New England Journal of Medicine 341, 549-555, 1999; G. Morreale de
Escobar et al, Is neuropsychological development related to maternal
hypothyroidism or to maternal hypothyroxinemia? J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab. 85,
3975-3987, 2000; K. Howdeshell, A model of the development of the brain as a
construct of the thyroid hormone system. Environmental Health Perspectives,
110, 337-348, 2002.
9. P Eriksson et al. Brominated Flame Retardants: A Novel Class of
Developmental Neurotoxicants in Our Environment? Environ Health Perspect
109, 903-8, 2001; P Eriksson et al. A brominated flame retardant,
2,2',4,4',5-pentabromodiphenyl ether: uptake, retention, and induction of
neurobehavioral alterations in mice during a critical phase of neonatal brain
development. Toxicol Sci 67, 98-103, 2002; H Viberg et al, Neonatal
exposure to the brominated flame retardant 2,2',4,4',5-pentabromodiphenyl ether
causes altered susceptibility in the cholinergic transmitter system in the
adult mouse. Toxicol Sci 67, 104-7, 2002; H. Viberg, A. Fredriksson, and
E. Jakobsson, Developmental neurotoxiceffects of
2,2,4,4,5-pentabromodiphenyl ether in the neonatal mouse. Toxicologist 54,
1360, 2000; H. Viberg, A. Fredriksson, E. Jakobsson, U. Ohrn, and P. Eriksson, Brominated
flame retardant: Uptake, retention, and developmental neurotoxic effects of
decabromodiphenyl ether in the neonatal mouse. Toxicologist 61, 1034,
2001; I. Branchi et al. Effects of perinatal exposure to a polybrominated
diphenyl ether (PBDE 99) on mouse neurobehavioural development.
Neurotoxicology 23, 375-84, 2002; J.L. Jacobson., S.W. Jacobson, H.B. Humphrey,
Effects of in Utero Exposure to Polychlorinated-Biphenyls and Related
Contaminants on Cognitive-Functioning in Young Children. Journal of
Pediatrics, 116:38-45, 1990.
10. The European Parliament and the European Council, "Directive
2002/96/EC of 27 January
2003 on waste electrical and electronic equipment," The
Official Journal of the European Union, 13 February 2003.
11. Environmental News Service, "EU Lawmakers Vote Broad Fire Retardant
Ban," 6 September 2001.
12. Bette K. Fishbein, Inform Ince., Waste in the Wireless World: The
Challenge of Cell Phones, May 2002; Steve Scheifers, Motorola, Bromine
Free Alternatives in Electronic Products. Presented at the EFC9 Brominated
Flame Retardants and Electronics Conference and Roundtable, San Francisco, 24
September 2002; Bjorn Frithiof, IKEA, personal communication, 5 Dec. 2002.