Flame Retardants – Green Lifestyle Market

Farmed Salmon Contaminated With Toxic Flame Retardants

(Dr. Mercola) Fish are an important part of the ecosystem and the human diet. Unfortunately, overfishing has depleted many fish stocks, and the proposed solution — fish farming — is creating far more problems than it solves. Not only are fish farms polluting the aquatic environment and spreading disease to wild fish, farmed fish are also an inferior food source, in part by providing fewer healthy nutrients; and in part by containing more toxins, which readily accumulate in fat.

Farmed Salmon = Most Toxic Food in the World

Salmon is perhaps the most prominent example of how fish farming has led us astray. Food testing reveals farmed salmon is one of the most toxic foods in the world, having more in common with junk food than health food.¹ Studies highlighting the seriousness of the problem include:

•A global assessment² of farmed salmon published in 2004, which found 13 persistent organic pollutants in the flesh of the fish. On average, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentrations in farmed salmon was eight times higher than in wild salmon, prompting the authors to conclude that “Risk analysis indicates that consumption of farmed Atlantic salmon may pose health risks that detract from the beneficial effects of fish consumption.”

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The International Agency for Research on Cancer and the Environmental Protection Agency classify PCBs as probably carcinogenic.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PCBs elicit a significant number of health conditions in animal studies, including cancer, immunosuppression, neurotoxicity and reproductive and developmental toxicity.³ Disturbingly, research suggests contaminated fish is the most common source of PCB exposure, as the chemicals accumulate and build up in the fat tissue.⁴

•A 2005 investigation⁵ by another group of scientists concluded even relatively infrequent consumption of farmed salmon may be harmful to your health thanks to the elevated dioxin levels in the fish.

•Toxicology researcher Jerome Ruzzin, who has tested a number of different food groups sold in Norway for toxins, discovered farmed salmon contain five times more toxins than any other food tested. (In light of his own findings, Ruzzin has stopped eating farmed salmon.)

•A 2011 study⁶ published in PLOS ONE found chronic consumption of farmed salmon caused insulin resistance, glucose intolerance and obesity in mice, thanks to the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) found in the fish.

According to the authors, “Our data indicate that intake of farmed salmon fillet contributes to several metabolic disorders linked to Type 2 diabetes and obesity, and suggest a role of POPs in these deleterious effects. Overall, these findings may participate to improve nutritional strategies for the prevention and therapy of insulin resistance.”

Researchers Warn Farmed Salmon May Contain Fire Retardant Chemicals

Now, researchers warn^7,⁸ farmed Atlantic salmon sold in the U.S. and U.K. may also contain polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), toxic POPs that have been restricted or banned in the U.S. and many European countries due to their toxic influence on child development.⁹ As reported by The Star,¹⁰ “[A] new study by the University of Pittsburgh has found evidence of PBDEs in food fed to farmed salmon — even in those in supposedly PBDE-free environments.”

Related: Does Meat Cause Cancer? Yes and no…

PBDEs are a class of chemicals that for years were used as flame retardants, and while restrictions were placed on some of the chemicals in this class in 2004, they can still be found in older products — and in the environment. China, Thailand and Vietnam — three areas that process significant amounts of electronic waste — are known to have higher levels of PBDEs in the environment.

In more recent years, flame retardant pollution has raised serious concern, as these chemicals build up in the environment over time and are in many areas now found in both ground water and open waters.

Health risks associated with these chemicals, including PBDEs, include infertility, birth defects, neurodevelopmental delays,¹¹ reduced IQ,¹² hormone disruptions¹³ and cancer. In fact, flame retardant chemicals have been identified as one of 17 “high priority” chemical groups that should be avoided to reduce breast cancer.^14,¹⁵

Toxic Fish Food Blamed for Farmed Salmon Toxicity

You’re probably familiar with the saying that “you are what you eat.” However, a key take-home message here is that “you are what your food eats.” In other words, whatever the animal you eat consumed, you consume also, which means you really need to know the source of the animals’ feed as well. In the case of farmed fish, toxins in the fish feed and environmental concentrations of the chemicals have been identified as the two primary culprits.

Related: How Farmed Fish Degrades Our Health and the Environment – Better Options Included

According to the authors, when the fish are raised in areas with high PBDE concentrations in the water, the feed becomes a relatively minor contributor. In PBDE-free waters, on the other hand, elevated concentrations of these toxins in the feed may be high enough to end up on your plate. As noted by lead author Carla Ng, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering:¹⁶

“[I]n otherwise clean and well-regulated environments, contaminated feed can be thousands of times more significant than the location of the farm for determining the PBDE content of salmon fillets … The international food trade system is becoming increasingly global in nature and this applies to animal feed as well.

Fish farming operations may import their feed or feed ingredients from a number of countries, including those without advanced food safety regulations. The United States and much of Europe banned several PBDEs in 2004 because of environmental and public health concerns. PBDEs can act as endocrine disruptors and cause developmental effects. Children are particularly vulnerable.”

What Makes the Fish Feed so Toxic?

One of the main ingredients in farmed salmon feed is fatty fish such as eel, selected for their high protein and fat content. The problem is, many toxins readily bind to fat, and the fish feed industry is using fish deemed unfit for human consumption due to elevated toxicity. As you might expect, when the fish used in fish feed contain toxic levels of pollutants, they get incorporated into the feed pellets.

One significant source of fish for farmed salmon feed is the Baltic Sea, which is well-known for its elevated pollution levels. Nine industrialized countries dump their toxic waste into this closed body of water, which has rendered many Baltic Sea fish inedible. In Sweden, fish mongers are actually required to warn patrons about the potential toxicity of Baltic fish.

According to government recommendations, you should not eat fatty fish like herring more than once a week, and if you’re pregnant, fish from the Baltic should be avoided altogether. As mentioned by Ng, fish farms may also import their feed, or individual ingredients from other countries with lax regulations and significant pollution.

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Toxic Manufacturing Processes Add to the Problem

Some of the toxicity also stems from the manufacturing process of the feed pellets. The fatty fish are first cooked, resulting in protein meal and oil. While the oil has high levels of dioxins and PCBs, a chemical called ethoxyquin is added to the protein powder as an “antioxidant,” which further adds to the toxicity of the final product. Ethoxyquin, developed as a pesticide by Monsanto in the 1950s, is one of the best kept secrets of the fish food industry — and one of the most toxic.

The use of ethoxyquin is strictly regulated on fruits, vegetables and in meat, but not in fish, because it was never intended for such use. Fish feed manufacturers never informed health authorities they were using this pesticide as a means to prevent the fats from oxidizing and going rancid, so its presence in farmed fish was never addressed. Disturbingly, testing reveals farmed fish can contain levels of ethoxyquin that are up to 20 times higher than the level allowed in fruits, vegetables and meats.

What’s more, the effects of this chemical on human health have never been established. The only research done on ethoxyquin and human health was a thesis by Victoria Bohne, a former researcher in Norway who discovered ethoxyquin can cross the blood-brain barrier and may have carcinogenic effects. Bohne was pressured to leave her research job after attempts were made to falsify and downplay her findings.

Environmental Pollution Is Also Affecting Wild Fish, Including Some Salmon

Salmon is one fish species looked to as an indicator of environmental conditions, and salmon have become increasingly toxic. While farmed salmon is by far the worst, even wild salmon can contain unwanted pollutants. In a study¹⁷ of salmon found in Puget Sound, researchers discovered 40 contaminants, including drugs, in the flesh of the fish.

Some of the drugs were found at levels known to interfere with growth, reproduction and behavior. No one knows exactly how this chemical cocktail affects the fish, especially as they are exposed in combination. In all, the study found 81 of 151 contaminants tested for in Puget Sound off the coast of Washington.

Aside from toxins already mentioned above, such as PCBs, PBDEs and other POPs, researchers have also found a long line of pesticides — including the long-banned DDT — at concerning levels in fish off the coast of California.¹⁸ And despite the Clean Water Act, enacted nearly 40 years ago, there are areas of the U.S. where the water is so contaminated with mercury that residents are warned to refrain from eating any locally caught fish.¹⁹

Microplastic Pollution — Another Increasingly Common Seafood Hazard

The fish you eat may also come with a side order of microplastic,²⁰ as 13 metric tons of plastic enter the waterways every year. Once consumed, microplastic particles tend to remain in the body and accumulate, becoming increasingly concentrated in the bodies of animals higher up the food chain.

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Scientists are still unsure of the effect this may have on those who eat the fish, but common sense would suggest it might not be entirely harmless, considering the fact that microplastic fibers soak up toxins like a sponge, concentrating PCBs, flame retardant chemicals, pesticides and anything else found in the water.

Evidence also suggests these microscopic particles can cross cellular membranes, causing damage and inflammation inside the cell. According to a 2016 report²¹ by the British Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs [DEFRA], microplastics have been found in a wide variety of sea creatures, from zooplankton to whales and everything in between.

According to this report, “microplastics are present in seafood sold for human consumption, including mussels in North Sea mussel farms and oysters from the Atlantic.” Eating six oysters could introduce about 50 plastic microbeads into your body and, according to DEFRA, this kind of contamination may indeed “pose a threat to food safety.” Other studies have found one-third of the fish caught in the English Channel contain microbeads, as do 83 percent of scampi sold in the U.K.²²

Nutritional Differences Between Farmed and Wild Salmon

As mentioned at the beginning, farmed salmon is also nutritionally less desirable than wild, which actually ties in with its toxicity. One significant nutritional difference is the fat content. Wild salmon contains about 5 to 7 percent fat, whereas the farmed variety can contain anywhere from 14.5 to 34 percent.

This elevated fat content is a direct result of the processed high-fat feed that farmed salmon are given, and since they contain more fat, they also accumulate higher amounts of toxins. Even when raised in similarly contaminated conditions, farmed salmon will absorb more toxins than the wild fish because of this.

But farmed salmon doesn’t just contain more fat overall; another nutritional travesty is its radically skewed ratios of omega-3 to omega-6 fats.²³ Half a fillet of wild Atlantic salmon contains about 3,996 milligrams (mg) of omega-3 and 341 mg of omega-6.²⁴ Half a fillet of farmed salmon from the Atlantic contains just a bit more omega-3 — 4,961 mg — but an astounding 1,944 mg of omega-6;²⁵ more than 5.5 times more than wild salmon.

While you need both omega-3 and omega-6 fats, the ratio between the two is important and should ideally be about 1-to-1. The standard American diet is already heavily skewed toward omega-6, thanks to the prevalence of processed foods, and with farmed salmon, that unhealthy imbalance is further magnified rather than corrected.

A Norwegian report on farmed fish feed ingredients²⁶ talks about the negative impacts of the antinutritional factors of plant proteins and other additives in the feed. Some of the most common ingredients in farmed fish feed include soybeans, rapeseed/canola oil, sunflower meal and oil, corn gluten meal from corn grains, wheat gluten, pulses (dry, edible seeds of field peas and faba beans), palm oil, and peanut meal and oil — none of which are natural wild salmon foods.

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However, as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) explains,²⁷ Atlantic farmed salmon feeds can also contain animal by-products from poultry, meat meal, blood and hydrolyzed feathers. Additives such as enzymes, crustacean products (to color the salmon flesh), vitamins and selenium are also added — and again, none these are ingredients that any wild salmon has ever encountered and all are about as far from a species-appropriate diet as you can get.

Salmon Farming Is Not a Green Solution

More than half of the fish Americans eat now comes from fish farms.²⁸ Aquaculture promotes itself as a sustainable solution to overfishing, but when you consider it takes 1.5 to 8 kilograms (3.3 to 17.6 pounds) of wild fish to produce a single kilogram (2.2 pounds) of farmed salmon, you start to realize there are significant holes in that claim. In reality, the aquaculture industry is actually contributing heavily to the depletion of wild fish stocks rather than saving it.²⁹

A salmon farm can hold upward of 2 million salmon in a relatively small amount of space. As with land-based factory farms where animals are kept in crowded conditions, fish farms are plagued with diseases that spread rapidly among the stressed fish. Sea lice, pancreas disease and infectious salmon anemia virus have spread all across Norway, yet consumers have not been informed of these fish pandemics, and sale of diseased fish continues unabated.

To stave off disease-causing pests, a number of dangerous pesticides are used, including one known to have neurotoxic effects. Workers who apply this pesticide must wear full protective clothing, yet these chemicals are dumped right into open water, where it spreads with local currents.

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The pesticides used have been shown to affect fish DNA, causing genetic effects. Estimates suggest about half of all farmed cod, for example, are deformed due to genetic mutations. What’s worse, female cod that escape from farms are known to mate with wild cod, spreading the genetic mutations and deformities into the wild population.

Genetically Modified Salmon May Hit US Grocers by 2019

It’s become quite clear that fish farms are not a viable solution to overfishing. If anything, they’re making matters worse, destroying the marine ecosystem at a far more rapid clip. Consumers also need to be aware that some farmed salmon may be genetically engineered (GE) to boot. AquaBounty salmon, engineered to grow twice as fast as typical farm-raised salmon, received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in November 2015, and could be on sale in the U.S. by 2019.

Crazy enough, the FDA is not regulating Aquabounty’s salmon as food. It chose to review it as a drug. All GE animals, it turns out, starting with this GE salmon, will be regulated under the new animal drug provisions of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, “because the recombinant DNA (rDNA) construct introduced into the animal meets the definition of a drug.” Yet the reason given for not requiring the fish to carry some form of GE label is that it’s nutritionally equivalent to conventional farm-raised Atlantic salmon.

The unnatural growth rate was achieved by inserting the DNA from two other fish, a growth-promoting gene from a Chinook salmon and a “promoter” gene from the eel-like ocean pout. This genetic tweaking results in fish with a chronic, continuous release of growth hormone. While a typical salmon might take up to 36 months to reach market size (and grow only in spurts during warm weather), AquaAdvantage GM salmon are ready for market in just 16 to 18 months.

The fish are being grown on land and have several other supposed safeguards in place to prevent both escape and breeding with wild populations but, in nature, nothing is foolproof. This became readily evident last year, when thousands of land-based Atlantic salmon escaped when the pens were broken asunder by a passing storm.³⁰

Are There Any Healthy Seafood Options Left?

So, what’s the answer? Unfortunately, the vast majority of fish — even when wild caught — is frequently too contaminated to eat on a frequent basis. Most major waterways in the world are contaminated with mercury, heavy metals, POPs and agricultural chemicals.

This is why, as a general rule, I no longer recommend eating fish on a regular basis. There are exceptions, however. One is authentic wild-caught Alaskan salmon, the nutritional benefits of which I believe still outweigh any potential contamination. The risk of wild Alaskan salmon accumulating high amounts of mercury and other toxins is reduced because of its short life cycle, which is only about three years.

Alaskan salmon (not to be confused with Atlantic salmon) is not allowed to be farmed, and is therefore always wild-caught. Canned salmon labeled “Alaskan salmon” is a less expensive alternative to salmon fillets. Remember that wild salmon is quite lean, so the fat marks — those white stripes you see in the meat — are on the thin side. If a fish is pale pink with wide fat marks, the salmon is likely farmed. Avoid Atlantic salmon, as salmon bearing this label are almost always farmed.

Another exception is smaller fish with short lifecycles, which also tend to be better alternatives in terms of fat content, such as sardines and anchovies. With their low contamination risk and higher nutritional value, they are a win-win alternative. Other good choices include herring and fish roe (caviar), which is full of important phospholipids that nourish your mitochondrial membranes.

Fire Retardant Chemicals Are Contaminating Drinking Water Across the US

(Dr. Mercola) Flame retardant chemicals have been identified as one of 17 high priority chemical groups that should be avoided to reduce breast cancer.^1,² In the environment, these chemicals are also poisoning pets and wildlife. Yet despite their significant health risks, they continue being used — ostensibly because they save lives in case of fire.

However, researchers and firefighters alike say flame retardant chemicals actually cause more harm than good, as the fire suppression they provide is minuscule at best,³ while releasing toxic fumes when they burn — toxins that may be more far more likely to kill you than the fire itself.

In addition to that, the chemicals do not remain inertly bonded within the foam or upholstery until or unless a fire actually occurs. They escape in the form of dust, making their way into everything from babies’ mouths to breast milk and water supplies.

Related: Skin Creams Pose Serious Fire Risk

9 in 10 Americans Have Flame Retardant Chemicals in Their System

Research⁴ published in 2015 found Tris phosphate and triphenyl phosphate (TPHP) in every single dust sample collected from American homes; 91 percent of urine samples from the residents contained metabolites of Tris phosphate, and 83 percent of residents had metabolites of TPHP.

Other tests have shown 90 percent of Americans have flame retardant chemicals in their bodies, and many have six or more types in their system.⁵ Eighty percent of children’s products tested⁶ have also been found to contain flame retardant chemicals, including nursing pillows, baby carriers and sleeping wedges, which can have significant health ramifications.

As noted by Linda S. Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences,⁷ these chemicals can alter a child’s developing reproductive system and nervous system, and have been shown to reduce IQ.^8,⁹ For example, children born of women exposed to high levels of flame retardant chemicals called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) during pregnancy have an average of 4.5 points lower IQ.^10,¹¹ Such children are also more prone to hyperactivity disorders.

Firefighters Are at High Risk

About half of U.S. firefighters believe cancer is the greatest occupational health risk they face.¹² Indeed, California female firefighters aged 40 to 50 are six times more likely to develop breast cancer than the national average. A major reason for this is because of the high levels of dioxins and furans firefighters are exposed to when flame-retardant chemicals burn.

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What many fail to realize is that an object treated with flame retardant chemicals can indeed still catch fire — it’s merely retarded by seconds — and when it does go up in flames it will emit much higher levels of toxic carbon monoxide, soot and smoke than an untreated object. Ironically, these three things are more likely to kill you than a burn might, which means flame-retardant chemicals may actually make fires deadlier when you’re caught in them.

According to the chemical industry, fire-retardant furniture provide a fifteenfold increase in escape time in the case of a fire. This claim came from a study using powerful, NASA-style flame retardants, which provided an extra 15 seconds of escape time. But this is not the same type of chemical used in most furniture. Tests have shown that the most widely used flame-retardant chemicals actually provide no meaningful benefit in case of a fire, while increasingthe amounts of toxic chemicals in the smoke.

The Role of Big Tobacco and Chemical Industry Front Groups

In 2013, I wrote about the deceptive campaigns¹³ that led to the proliferation of fire retardant chemicals. Big Tobacco played a key role in this development. Flame retardant chemicals were developed in the 1970s, a time when 40 percent of Americans smoked and cigarettes were a major cause of house fires. The tobacco industry, under increasing pressure to make fire-safe cigarettes, resisted the push for self-extinguishing cigarettes and instead created an industry front group called the National Association of State Fire Marshals.

The group pushed for federal standards for fire retardant furniture and, in 1975, California became the first state to enact such fire standards (Technical Bulletin 117).

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Another front group called Citizens for Fire Safety — which is actually a front group trade association for manufacturers of flame retardant chemicals, not a coalition of concerned citizens — has fought to protect the chemical industry from legislation that might cut into business, and has helped expand the commercial use of flame retardant chemicals into an ever-greater number of products besides furniture.

What’s worse, while the original fire standard specified that any chemical used had to be proven safe for human health, politicians removed this requirement, and the law went into effect without this requirement. The end result is now becoming increasingly obvious, as fire retardant chemicals are becoming an environmental pollutant of tremendous concern.

Firefighting Foam Is Contaminating Drinking Water

Sharon Lerner, a reporting fellow at The Investigative Fund and an investigative journalist for The Intercept and other major media outlets, has written extensively about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS¹⁴ (two of the most well-known ones of which are PFOA and PFOS) and the industry’s attempts to cover up the damage. At the time of this writing, The Intercept has published 16 parts of Lerner’s ongoing series,¹⁵ which began in 2015.

Part 15¹⁶ addresses the U.S. military’s affinity for toxic flame retardants, despite the fact that billions of dollars are now being spent trying to clean up drinking water contaminated by firefighting foam used on military installations. Setting the scene, Lerner writes, in part:

“About an hour north of Seattle at the northern edge of Puget Sound, Whidbey Island is quiet, forested, and, in Bob Farnsworth’s neighborhood, idyllic. In the 22 years he’s lived on Whidbey, where he served as a command master chief at the Naval Air Base, Farnsworth, 61, has regularly crabbed and fished for salmon and enjoyed fruit from his own trees …

But last February, he discovered a toxic side to the Navy’s presence in his life: His well, which he had used to water his fruit trees, cook, and fill his children’s and grandchildren’s glasses over the years, tested positive for three chemicals that had apparently seeped in from foam used for firefighting on the base.

One chemical, PFOS, was present at 3,800 parts per trillion, more than 54 times a safety standard set by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2016 … The realization that he and his wife had been exposed to the chemicals, which have been linked to prostate cancer and thyroid diseases, cast the struggles they have had over the past years with these very diseases in a new light. ‘I don’t know what was related,’ he said.”

Known Toxins Replaced With Lesser-Known Ones

A similar situation is playing out near hundreds of military bases around the U.S., where PFAS chemicals have leached through the ground, contaminating surrounding groundwater. In addition to prostate cancer and thyroid problems, these chemicals have been linked to other types of cancer as well, including kidney, testicular and bladder cancer, as well as immune dysfunction, reproductive problems and hormone disruption.

Considering the public health threat posed by PFAS contamination, courtesy of firefighting foam, you’d think the U.S. government would take proactive measures to eliminate the use of these toxic chemicals. After all, other countries are using PFAS-free firefighting foam, and it works just as well. Alas, this is not happening. Lerner explains:¹⁷

“[E]ven as the Army, Navy, and Air Force have begun the slow process of addressing the contamination, which is expected to cost upwards of $2 billion, the Department of Defense isn’t abandoning this line of chemicals. While some of the precise formulations that caused the contamination are off the table, the U.S. military is in the midst of an expensive effort to replace older foam with a newer formulation that contains only slightly tweaked versions of the same problematic compounds …

Some of the studies showing the dangers of these persistent chemicals came from the manufacturers themselves … The new foam contains no PFOS and ‘little or no PFOA,’ according to an Air Force press release.¹⁸ Instead, it uses the closely related molecules that pose many of the same dangers …”

Military Specifications Require Inclusion of Fluorinated Chemicals

As it turns out, the reason why one dangerous type of firefighting chemicals is simply replaced by another, very similar one, is because military specifications require the inclusion of fluorinated surfactants, which make the foam easier to spread. As explained by Lerner, the foam “creates a thin layer over the surface of the fuel that smothers the flames and prevents the release of vapor that could otherwise reignite.”

When, in the early 2000s, the EPA started urging the military to replace PFAS-containing firefighting foam due to health and environmental concerns, the foam and surfactant manufacturers created the Fire Fighting Foam Coalition — an organization aimed at defending the use of PFAS. DuPont and Dynax were among the founding members of this organization, which presented its case not only before military branches but also the EPA.

“Their messages were reassuring: The chemicals used to replace PFOS were safe for human health and the environment, and AFFF [aqueous film forming foam] was the only way to safely protect military personnel from fires,” Lerner writes. Meanwhile, evidence¹⁹suggests fluorinated surfactants, such as those used in AFFF, are “among the most environmentally persistent substances ever.”

In the end, the Fire Fighting Foam Coalition was successful in its attempts to get AFFF excluded from the EPA’s regulatory process, and the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force were free to continue using AFFF. Even when evidence emerged showing other PFAS were just as harmful as PFOA, the EPA never reassessed the military’s use of AFFF.

Are You Drinking PFAS-Contaminated Water?

As noted by Lerner, incomplete data makes it very difficult to ascertain how widespread the PFAS-contamination might be, but drinking water near at least 46 military installations in the U.S. have been found to contain PFOA and/or PFOS at levels exceeding 70 parts per trillion (ppt), which is the EPA’s health advisory level for drinking water.²⁰ According to Lerner:

“Many more people are exposed to the chemicals at levels below that 70 ppt threshold. And, judging from the health-based levels that states have set since the EPA set its level last year, even these lower levels may pose health threats.

New Jersey is moving forward with setting 14 ppt as its drinking water standard for PFOA, just one-fifth of the EPA’s number, and recommended 13 ppt for PFOS. Vermont and Minnesota have either set or proposed safety levels for both chemicals that are lower than the EPA’s.

And in December, a Michigan state legislator proposed the lowest standard yet for PFAS molecules: 5 ppt. Historically, chemical safety thresholds tend to drop over time as research mounts.”

Health concerns are not limited to PFOA and PFOS though. Many other PFAS chemicals²¹ — such as PFHxS, PFHpA, PFBA and PFBS — have been detected both in drinking water and people’s blood, yet the military is only attempting to clean up PFOA and PFOS contamination. (In all, studies have found as many as 700 different PFAS compounds at sites where firefighting foam is used.)

The military also is not providing clean drinking water to residents in affected areas unless their water contains more than 70 ppt of PFOA and/or PFOS specifically. For example, Neal Sims, another resident of Whidbey Island, does not receive bottled water, even though the four PFAS found in his tap water total more than 80 ppt. The reason for this is because his combined PFOA/PFOS level is “only” 30 ppt.

Meanwhile, European regulators took action against PFHxS last year,²² and some U.S. states have already set levels for PFBA and PFBS in drinking water.²³ Making matters worse, some of these shorter-chained replacement PFAS chemicals such as PFHxS are more difficult to filter out²⁴ than PFOA and PFOS, requiring more frequent filter replacement to ensure they’re being removed.

According to the Fire Fighting Foam Coalition, PFAS-free foam has not been adopted by the defense industry for the fact that it doesn’t work as well as AFFF. However, the difference in performance is very small and, with practice, firefighters would likely be able to apply the material quicker to meet fire suppression specs.

Without EPA pressure to replace PFAS in firefighting foam, there’s also no sense of urgency to provide additional funding to find less toxic alternatives. Lobbying to keep the chemicals in play also slows down the process. And then there’s the fact that fluorine-free foams “cannot meet specifications” for the simple fact that the standard still requires the inclusion of fluorinated surfactants.

How to Reduce Your Exposure to Toxic Flame Retardants

While the Department of Defense needs to address its role in contaminating drinking water with toxic firefighting chemicals, there are some things you can do to protect yourself and your family. Most homes have many items that contain these hazardous class of chemicals, so water contamination is not your only potential threat. Among the basics: As you replace items around your home, select items that contain naturally less flammable materials, such as leather, wool and cotton.

Also look for organic and “green” building materials, carpeting, baby items and upholstery, which will be free from these toxic chemicals and help reduce your overall exposure. This is by far the easiest route, as manufacturers are not required to disclose the chemicals they use to make their products comply with fire safety regulations.

Your mattress, for example, may be soaked in toxic flame retardants, but you will not find the chemicals listed on the label. That said, below are some additional guidelines to consider that can help reduce your exposure to flame retardants:

•If you live anywhere near a military installation or fire department fire-training area, consider getting your tap water tested for PFAS and other toxic contaminants. Water testing is a prudent step no matter where you live these days, as is filtering your water, as there are literally hundreds of potential water contaminants that can harm your health.

•Polyurethane foam products manufactured prior to 2005, such as upholstered furniture, mattresses and pillows, are likely to contain PBDEs, another common class of fire retardant chemicals, so inspect them carefully and replace ripped covers and/or any foam that appears to be breaking down.

Also avoid reupholstering furniture by yourself as the reupholstering process increases your risk of exposure. If in doubt, you can have a sample of your polyurethane foam cushions tested for free by scientists at Duke University’s Superfund Research Center. This is particularly useful for items you already have around your home, as it will help you determine which harmful products need replacing.

Older carpet padding is another major source of flame-retardant PBDEs, so take precautions when removing old carpet. The Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) guide²⁵ to PBDEs contains even more details about products in which these toxic chemicals might be lurking.

•Your mattress may be of greatest concern since you spend a large amount of your life sleeping on it. Besides PBDEs, other flame-retardant chemicals currently approved for use in mattresses include boric acid, a toxic respiratory irritant used to kill roaches; antimony, a metal that may be more toxic than mercury; and formaldehyde, which causes cancer.

To avoid this toxic exposure, I recommend looking for a mattress made of either 100 percent organic wool, cotton or flannel (all of which tend to be naturally flame-resistant) or Kevlar fibers, the material they make bullet-proof vests out of, which is sufficient to pass the fire safety standards.

There are a number of good options on the market. I’ve also put together an assortment of wool and silk bedding, including organic cotton and wool mattresses you can choose from when it comes time to replace your mattress, pillows and comforters with chemical-free versions.

•You probably also have older sources of the PBDEs known as Deca in your home, and these are so toxic they are banned in several states. Deca PBDEs can be found in electronics like TVs, cellphones, kitchen appliances, fans, toner cartridges and more. It’s a good idea to wash your hands after handling such items, especially before eating, and at the very least be sure you don’t let infants mouth any of these items.

•PBDEs are often found in household dust, so clean up with a HEPA-filter vacuum and/or a wet mop often.

Federal Officials Alerting Consumers About Dangerous Mattress Chemicals

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(Dr. Mercola) In 2015, Earthjustice and Consumer Federation of America, on behalf of a group of more than 20 firefighter, health, science and consumer groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Hispanic Medical Association and the International Association of Fire Fighters, asked the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to ban organohalogen flame retardants (OFRs), which have been linked to reduced IQ, cancer, hormone disruption and reproductive system damage.¹

The petition called for sales of four categories of consumer products — children’s products, furniture, mattresses and electronic casings — to be prohibited if they contain the chemicals, and in a major victory for environmental and public health, in September 2017 CPSC voted to grant the petition to remove the toxic chemicals from the product categories mentioned.

Organohalogen Flame Retardants May Leave a Toxic Legacy Similar to PCBs

At a public hearing held prior to the vote, Genna Reed, science and policy analyst at the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, testified that OFRs should be urgently banned, comparing their use to the “earliest form of flame retardants, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs),” which are also organohalogens, along with DDT.

PCBs, which have been linked to cancer, reproductive problems and impaired fetal brain development, accumulate in the environment, leaving a lasting toxic legacy that, unfortunately, may be very similar to that left by flame retardants, even after they’re banned. Reed testified:²

“Despite being banned in 1977, these chemicals [PCBs] are still found in dangerously high amounts all over industrial hotspots of the country, and continue to bioaccumulate in a range of species. The ban of PCBs happened decades ago and we are still managing the damaging impacts of the chemical’s prevalence across the country.

The next generation of these chemicals, organohalogen flame retardants, are inside of our own homes in a range of products, thanks largely in part to the disinformation campaign sowed by special interests. The fact remains that the science does not support their continued use.”

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is also evaluating OFRs, but it could be 10 years or more before they make a decision to ban or restrict their use.³ Part of what makes OFRs so toxic is their semivolatile nature, which allows them to migrate from consumer products into household dust, where every household member, from children to pets, is easily exposed.

In a U.S. study conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), flame retardants were detected in every sample of household dust they tested, at concerning levels.

“The average level of brominated fire retardants measured in dust from nine homes was more than 4,600 parts per billion (ppb) … [while] a tenth sample contained more than 41,000 ppb of the chemicals — twice as high as the maximum level previously reported by any dust study worldwide,” EWG reported.⁴ As Reed noted, OFRs easily meet the definition of “toxic” under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act (FHSA) because ample evidence shows they have the “capacity to cause personal illness.”

“[E]xposure has been associated with a range of health impacts including reproductive impairment, neurological impacts, endocrine disruption, genotoxicity, cancer and immune disorders,” she said at the public hearing, adding that, “perhaps most egregiously, biomonitoring data have revealed that communities of color and low-income communities are disproportionately exposed to and bear high levels of flame retardant chemicals, adding to the cumulative chemical burden that these communities are already experiencing.”⁵

American Chemistry Council Deceived the Public About Flame Retardants’ Toxicity, Effectiveness

In 2012, the Chicago Tribune published a revealing investigation, “Playing With Fire,” showing how the chemical industry used tobacco-industry tactics to deceive Americans into accepting flame-retardant chemicals into their homes. In fact, Big Tobacco was involved in their pervasive spread because when the chemicals were developed in the 1970s, nearly half of Americans smoked and cigarettes were a common cause of fires.

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As revealed in Toxic Hot Seat, a documentary based on the Tribune’s investigation, rather than create self-extinguishing cigarettes to cut down on fire hazards, the tobacco industry created a front group called the National Association of State Fire Marshals, which pushed for federal standards for fire-retardant furniture.

It worked, and in 1975 California Technical Bulletin 117 (TB117) was passed, which required furniture sold in California to withstand a 12-second exposure to a small flame without igniting — and it basically became a national standard.

The chemical industry then engaged in a deceitful battle to ensure the chemicals stayed front-and-center in Americans’ homes, from establishing phony front groups to funding biased research to meet their agenda, despite evidence showing the chemicals limited effectiveness and health risks. Reed testified in September 2017:⁶

“The companies that manufacture OFRs have put significant time and money into distorting the scientific truth about these chemicals. As a 2012 Chicago Tribune investigative series noted, the chemical industry ‘has twisted research results, ignored findings that run counter to its aims and passed off biased, industry-funded reports as rigorous science.’

In one case, manufacturers of flame retardants repeatedly pointed to a decades-old government study, arguing the results showed a 15-fold increase in time to escape fires when flame retardants were present.

The lead author of the study, however, said industry officials ‘grossly distorted’ the results and that ‘industry has used this study in ways that are improper and untruthful,’ as the amount of flame retardant used in the tests was much greater than would be found in most consumer items.

The American Chemistry Council has further misrepresented the science behind flame retardants by creating an entire website to spread misleading ideas about flame retardants as safe and effective, even though research has consistently shown their limited effectiveness. In doing so, the American Chemistry Council and its member companies have promoted the prevalent use of OFRs at the expense of public health.”

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The chemical industry also engaged in a tactic known as “regrettable substitution,” in which they removed certain flame retardants from products only to replace them with similar, less regulated chemicals that pose many of the same health risks.⁷

On a positive note, California revised TB117 so that an open flame test is no longer required. As of January 1, 2015, compliance with the updated TB117-2013 became mandatory, which requires upholstered furniture sold in the state to no longer smolder 45 minutes after a lit cigarette is placed on it. This requirement can be met without the use of flame-retardant chemicals (although the law does not ban their use).

Maine Passes Law to Phase Out Flame Retardants in Furniture

It seems the die may have been cast when it comes to the future of flame retardants in the U.S., with both the CPSC’s recent stance against them as well as an August 2017 vote in Maine, in which lawmakers passed a law to phase out all flame retardant chemicals in home furniture—overriding a veto from the governor to do so. While existing inventories of furniture will be allowed to be sold, this ends after January 1, 2019 — the date which furniture containing flame retardants may no longer be sold in the state of Maine.

As for the CPSC vote, it’s encouraging that the agency finally took a stand against toxic flame retardants. As EWG said, “The CPSC’s decision is the most sweeping action to date by the federal government to reduce Americans’ exposure to these chemicals,” although “[r]emoving these chemicals from products will not happen overnight, as the commission will appoint an expert panel of toxicologists to guide the agency on rulemaking.”⁸

In Washington, meanwhile, the Toxic-Free Kids and Families Act, which bans five flame retardants and gives the state Department of Health the ability to ban additional flame retardants in children’s products and residential furniture, took effect in July 2017. It includes the first ban on tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), which is a flame retardant often found in children’s car seats.⁹

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New TVs Loaded With Flame Retardants

While CPSC has begun the conversation to ultimately ban the use of OFRs in children’s products, mattresses, furniture and electronic casings, research released by Toxic-Free Future revealed that high levels of the chemicals are still being added to new products, namely televisions. Eleven of the 12 TVs tested contained flame retardant chemicals at levels up to 33 percent by weight in the plastic.¹⁰ Eight of them also contained flame retardants of “high concern.”

Toxic-Free Future reported, “Two of the TVs — one made by Element and one made by Samsung — contained the PBDE flame retardant deca-BDE, despite its being banned in five states. Those states are Washington, Maine, Oregon, Vermont, and Maryland. The TVs in the study were purchased in Washington. Only one TV, made by Insignia, did not contain any of the flame retardants tested for.”¹¹

It’s a concerning finding because it means the chemicals will continue to contaminate household dust and bioaccumulate in the environment and people’s bodies for many years to come. While CPSC has urged manufacturers to stop using the chemicals, they’re likely not going to give in without a fight.

Protect Yourself and Your Children From Flame Retardant Chemicals

If you have older furniture in your home but aren’t ready to replace it, consider replacing the foam cushions with flame-retardant-free foam. If you’re not sure whether your furniture’s foam contains these chemicals, Duke University scientists will test it for you. All you need to remove is a sample the size of a marble and it will be tested for the presence of seven common flame retardants.

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The research lab only has the capacity to analyze 50 samples per month, and they close submissions once the quota is reached. Before sending in your sample, check with the Duke University Superfund Submit a Sample website to see if they’re still accepting submissions (for best results, check in on the first of the month). In addition, there are steps you can take to reduce your exposure, including these tips from the Green Science Policy Institute:¹²

Avoid upholstered furniture with the TB117 label. If the label states, “This article meets the flammability requirements of California Bureau of Home Furnishings Technical Bulletin 117 … ” it most likely contains flame retardants. However, even upholstered furniture that’s unlabeled may contain flame retardants.
Furniture products filled with cotton, wool or polyester tend to be safer than chemical-treated foam; some products also state that they are “flame-retardant free.” Organic wool (100 percent) is naturally flame-resistant.
Avoid baby products with foam. Nursing pillows, high chairs, strollers and other products containing polyurethane foam most likely contain flame retardants.
Avoid foam carpet padding. If possible, minimize the use of foam carpet padding, which often contains flame retardants. If removing carpeting, take precautions to avoid exposures. You’ll want to isolate your work area from the rest of your house to avoid spreading it around and use a HEPA filter vacuum to clean up.
PBDEs are often found in household dust, so clean up with a HEPA-filter vacuum and/or a wet mop often. Washing your hands regularly can also help.

As far as mattresses go, if you want to avoid flame retardants and other chemicals in your mattress, you can have a licensed health care provider write you a prescription for a chemical-free mattress, which can then be ordered without flame retardants from certain retailers. You can also find certain natural mattresses on the market that don’t contain them. For instance, most wool mattresses do not have flame retardant chemicals added because wool is a natural flame retardant.

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Another option is to look for an organic mattress that meets the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), which means at least 95 percent of the mattress materials must be certified organic and certain substances, including flame retardants and polyurethane (common in memory foam products), are prohibited.

Since you spend from six to nine-plus hours every night with your face in close proximity to your mattress, breathing in these chemicals, choosing a flame-retardant-free mattress is an excellent first step toward reducing your exposure.