Household dust is an important source of exposure to a lesser known – but ubiquitous and potentially toxic – flame retardant, reports a study from Belgium. Exposure to dust contaminated with hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDs), a flame retardant used to prevent polystyrene insulation and textiles from catching on fire, was strongly correlated with blood concentrations in people. This study is the first to examine the relationship between dust, diet and serum concentrations of HBCDs. Results are consistent with studies of other better known flame retardants, such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and suggest that indoor sources may contribute most to exposure to these chemicals.

An Assessment of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs) in Sediments and Bivalves of the U.S. Coastal Zone
Source: Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment (NOAA)
From press release:

NOAA scientists, in a first-of-its-kind report issued today, state that Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs), chemicals commonly used in commercial goods as flame retardants since the 1970s, are found in all United States coastal waters and the Great Lakes, with elevated levels near urban and industrial centers.

The new findings are in contrast to analysis of samples as far back as 1996 that identified PBDEs in only a limited number of sites around the nation.

Based on data from NOAA’s Mussel Watch Program, which has been monitoring coastal water contaminants for 24 years, the nationwide survey found that New York’s Hudson Raritan Estuary had the highest overall concentrations of PBDEs, both in sediments and shellfish. Individual sites with the highest PBDE measurements were found in shellfish taken from Anaheim Bay, Calif., and four sites in the Hudson Raritan Estuary.

Watersheds that include the Southern California Bight, Puget Sound, the central and eastern Gulf of Mexico off the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla. coast, and Lake Michigan waters near Chicago and Gary, Ind. also were found to have high PBDE concentrations.

Efforts to make furniture less flammable have given residents of California higher blood levels of potentially toxic flame retardants called PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) – nearly twice the national average, scientists from Massachusetts and California are reporting. Their study, the first to examine regional variations in PBDE levels in household dust and blood within the U.S., is published in Environmental Science & Technology.

Over the past few years, the issue of whether Deca BDE, the only PBDE flame retardant currently used in North America, breaks down in the environment has become a key issue to scientists researching the controversial compound. Klaus Rothenbacher, a toxicologist with the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum, an industry group, reignited the debate at the Fifth International Workshop on Brominated Flame Retardants (BFR 2008) held June 3−4 in Victoria, British Columbia (Canada). In his conference presentation, Rothenbacher contended that although scientists can “force” Deca BDE to debrominate in the laboratory, it is unlikely to happen in the environment.

The conclusions of a risk assessment of brominated flame retardant tetrabromobisphenol-A (TBBPA) are to be published in the European Union (EU) Official Journal, which should enable a smooth transition of the material through the REACH registration procedure. The Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) legislation entered into force in the EU on June 1, 2007.

Deborah Rice, an award-winning toxicologist, was removed from a group of experts researching a widely-used flame retardant after industry lobbyists complained that she was biased.

New research published in ES&T (DOI: 10.1021/es702272s) identifies for the first time a flame retardant known as HCDBCO (hexachlorocyclopentadienyldibromocyclooctane) in the environment and shows that it can be found at high levels in Canadian homes. A second paper published in ES&T (DOI: 10.1021/es702378t) reports that a U.K. home contains the highest concentrations ever documented in residential dust of another more well-known flame retardant, HBCD (hexabromocyclododecane). Together, the papers suggest that people in the developed world may be exposed to significant concentrations of flame retardants beyond PBDEs in their homes.

A study by Indiana University researchers found the chlorinated flame retardant Dechlorane Plus in the bark of trees across the northeastern United States, with by far the highest concentrations measured near the Niagara Falls, N.Y., factory where this chemical is produced.

A study of gull eggs shows that more chemicals used as flame retardants are showing up in the environment.

…authors of the new cat study argue in an upcoming issue of Environmental Science & Technology that house cats “may serve as sentinels to better assess human exposure and adverse health outcomes related to low-level but chronic PBDE exposure.”

If only the flame retardant chemicals routinely added to consumer products from carpets to cell phones just did their job and nothing more. Health officials, however, are concerned that one class of these chemicals called polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs), may be doing more than reducing fire-related injuries and property damage.

After several decades of use, PBDEs are widely distributed in the environment as contaminants, and trace levels of these chemicals can be measured in animal tissues and in the food chain (they can be found, for example, in bird eggs and human breast milk). To help scientists evaluate the risks of PBDEs by improving measurements of these pollutants in the environment, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has re-evaluated several of its environmental reference materials to report PBDE concentrations in them, officials said on Aug. 16.

A mysterious epidemic of thyroid disease in pet cats in the United States may be due to dust from fire-retardant chemicals used in carpets, furniture, mattresses, electronic products and even pet food, researchers report.

And while the researchers said there’s no evidence to suggest a threat to humans posed by the chemicals — called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) — they can’t rule out the possibility.

Residents of a Chinese region where 80 percent of families include workers who dismantle and recycle electronic devices have high concentrations of flame-retardant chemicals in their blood, researchers report. Inhabitants of a fishing village not far away also carried elevated amounts of the chemicals, called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs).

Washington will become the first US state to phase out the use of the brominated flame retardant Deca-BDE in consumer products beginning in 2008 provided a safer alternative is found. This substance is widely used in home textiles such as upholstered furniture even though the European Commission has already twice proposed banning the use of Deca-BDE.

Scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst have created a synthetic polymer — a building block of plastics — that wouldn’t need the flame-retardant chemicals that are added to many plastics before they can be used in bus seats, airplanes, textiles and countless household items. Some of these additives have been showing up in dust in homes and offices, fish, fat cells and breast milk, raising concern that they pose a risk to human health and the environment.

Led by UMass Amherst scientists Richard Farris, Bryan Coughlin and Todd Emrick, the research team presented an update on their work to industry representatives and scientists from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Army on May 14. The team described the new polymer in the journal Macromolecules last year.

Toxic trade off
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/16155377.htm

Flame retardant risk stokes debate
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/16160154.htm

Nonstick chemicals may pose a threat
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/16167561.htm

Flame retardant chemicals are building up in some of Washington’s rivers and lakes, according to a state Department of Ecology (Ecology) study released on Aug. 31.

Ecology collected fish from 20 major rivers and lakes throughout Washington during 2005. Three-to-four fish species were typically analyzed for each waterbody. The goal of the survey was to establish existing levels of PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) that could be used in the future to evaluate the effectiveness of the state’s efforts to reduce PBDEs in the environment.

The complete study, PBDEs Flame Retardants in Washington Rivers and Lakes: Concentrations in Fish and Water, 2005-06 [116 p., PDF], is available at http://www.ecy.wa.gov/biblio/0603027.html.

Summary: A class of brominated flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs) are under assault from environmental activists and regulators both in the United States and overseas. Flame retardants give people more time to escape a fire by delaying flashover, the explosive-like eruption of flames responsible for most of the fatalities and property damage in residential fires. PBDEs are particularly effective flame retardants and have long been widely used in the manufacture of televisions and other electrical equipment, furniture, and mattresses.

Fire retardants truly save lives. Their use in television cabinets alone is estimated to save 190 lives a year in the U.S. In the United Kingdom, where materials used in many home furnishings must be fire-resistant, researchers reckon the regulations have spared about 1,150 lives and prevented almost 13,500 injuries over the course of a decade.

Nevertheless, U.S. and European regulators have effectively banned two of the three most prominent PBDE flame retardants. An assortment of states, environmental groups, and foreign governments, moreover, is seeking to ban the third one (i.e., decaBDE) as well, even though there is no credible evidence that the chemical represents a danger to humans or the environment. Numerous studies, in fact, have concluded that our exposure to the compound is minimal and does not pose an adverse health risk for people at expected exposures.

Current evidence shows that the benefits of PBDE flame retardants, in terms of lives saved and injuries prevented, far outweigh any demonstrated or likely negative health effects from their use.

Purdue researchers are trying to find out if filet of lake trout with a side of flame retardant is your next meal.

Inez Hua, an associate professor in environmental engineering, is the principal investigator for research being conducted on pollutants in fish found in the Great Lakes.

The federal government wants to add two chemicals that have been widely used in the production of stain repellants and flame retardants to Canada’s list of toxic substances, one of the most aggressive regulatory actions in the world against the compounds.

The substances, polybrominated diphenyl ethers and perfluorooctane sulfonate, have been widely used for decades in consumer products such as computers, mattresses, televisions, furniture and clothing. They are probably found in most homes in the country.