An Ounce of Prevention . . . .
Flame Retardants in Home & Body
I like to worry. All my friends think I’m paranoid. But am I paranoid enough?
Evidently not. For 30 years I’ve been oblivious to a major health threat --- flame retardants
in upholstered furniture and bedding. Why did it take so long to realize that one-third of each
day, I slept on a foam mattress and foam crumble pillow that were full of flame retardants?!
Once I was educated, I bought an organic slab of foam (which is not called a ‘mattress’
because it isn’t covered, more on why later) and replaced my old pillows with un-treated,
organic latex pillows. You can avoid regrets by learning from my mistakes -- read on!
PBDEs were banned in California in 2006 (hooray!!), but that’s the year that mattresses
were required by the state to withstand 70 seconds of direct flames from a blow torch
without catching fire (woe is us!!!). The state giveth with one hand and taketh away with
the other!
Let’s start with the foam in upholstered furniture made between 1975 and 2006, which
was legally required to retard flames, usually achieved with PBDEs (polybrominated
diphenyl ethers). Health savvy people know that bromine blocks the use of iodine in
our cells.
Because PBDEs alter brain development and the reproductive system, disrupt thyroid
hormones, correlate with higher cancer rates, and can lower a child’s IQ 4 to 6 points,
California banned them in 2006. But plenty of treated furniture remains in use, and the
fire retardants that replaced PBDEs, like bromine, have similar problems.
On the periodic table, bromine is in the column of halogens (called ‘salt makers’ because
they bind to metals). Fluorine is at the top, then come chlorine and bromine, with iodine,
the heaviest, at the bottom. (The lighter halogens above iodine are more reactive, so they
can block normal use of iodine). While the halogen chlorine is safe enough in table salt,
its toxic potential is clear when you think of chlorinated water or chlorinated hydrocarbons
like DDT and other persistent pesticides.
There are hundreds of types of PBDEs, deca, penta, and octa being common ones, and
they are also used as flame retardants in electronics, typically constituting 5-30% of a product’s
net weight.
But it gets worse. The same foam that is used in upholstered furniture, and consequently
is loaded with flame retardants, is also crumbled up and made into carpet padding. While
European countries never allowed PBDEs, and therefore have low levels in their citizens,
people in Canada and many states typically carry 1000 parts per billion (ppb), while
Californians, hoodwinked by the chemical companies into ‘protecting our children’ from
fires in the home (usually caused by smoldering cigarettes), have over 10,000 ppb of PBDEs!!!
It would be great if Paul Stamets’ mushroom mycelium could decontaminate these flame
retardants, as he has used them to decontaminate fossil fuel in soil and other toxic sites,
because sending old furniture to the dump (you wouldn’t want to give it to the thrift store to
poison some other family!!) will surely be harmful to the environment and water table. But
burning it would be worse because dioxin is created.
It’s bad enough that your comfy sofa is poisoning the family, but mattresses are even more toxic,
required in California since 2006 to pass the flame test, and nation-wide since 2007. The easiest
way to meet that standard is with flame retardants like the heavy metals antimony and bromine,
the roach killer boric acid. Antimony has toxic effects similar to arsenic, such as spontaneous
abortion, failure to conceive, heart beat irregularities, liver damage, eye irritation, and hair loss.
Boric acid is a known reproductive and developmental toxin.
A 2009 study of 38 households measured the PBDE body burdens in the 44 participating
adults and found that the best predictor of high bromine levels is if a person used foam
sleeping pillows instead of polyester or feather pillows, or if their vehicle seat cushions
were high in PBDEs. Leather auto upholstery contains no flame retardants. Pillows aren’t
required to pass a flame test but since polyurethane foam typically contains flame retardants,
natural latex pillows are safer. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2799463/pdf/ehp-117-1890.pdf)
People living with furniture and bedding containing these chemicals can reduce ingestion of
the dust if they vacuum twice a week and wash hands before eating. But unlike the outgassing
of solvents used to make foam etc, which means old furniture is safer because it puts little or no
solvents into the air, fire retardant chemicals just get worse as the foam breaks down into fine
dust with age and sifts out of furniture and carpet padding, contaminating the house. Obviously,
your goal is to get rid of upholstered furniture and carpet padding made in the 70’s onward.
If you want to test your house for PBDEs, bromine, and antimony, you can rent an XRF (X-ray
fluorescence) detector which will register percentage by weight in the product. Perhaps a rental
center has them, or you can contact AjaxRentals.com (877-386-2480).
If you want to test yourself or your family members, DoctorsData.com has a $150 hair test
and a urine test for heavy metals like antimony, but they don’t have a test for bromine (which is
a halide not a heavy metal), nor do they test for PBDEs. Evidently the CDC isn’t concerned
about flame retardant contamination; they have no list of companies who test for any of these
chemicals.
Assemblymember Mark Leno has sponsored legislation to get rid of these chemicals for 5 years.
Chemical companies spent $23 million to block passage. GreenSciencePolicy.org has a
petition to sign in support of banning these chemicals.
FYI, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not allowed to regulate these chemicals.
Only food, drugs, and pesticides are regulated. In contrast, Europe requires manufacturers to
demonstrate that chemicals are safe for people and the environment before they can be on the
market. A Swedish company is developing a nontoxic fire retardant called Molecular Heat Eater
that is derived from oranges and lemons, and cigarettes that extinguish themselves within
minutes are now mandatory in New York State.
Firefighters oppose the use of these chemicals in furniture and carpet padding for the obvious
reason that they are harmful to emergency response workers. (See “Flame Retardants May
Create Deadlier Fires” http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=flame-retardants-may-create-deadlier-fires)
The US Consumer Products Safety Commission reported (Risk Assessment, January 2006)
that the average adult would absorb a daily dose of .802 mg of antimony, l081 mg boric acid,
and .073 mg of deca from flame proof mattresses. Not that they have used that research to
ban those chemicals! And remember that the EPA can’t regulate anything.
I called the Natural Mattress Store in San Rafael (it has two other locations) at (866) 329-5204.
They tell me that every model of mattress must past the federal burn test, done by independent
labs to the specs of Technical Bulletin 633: it can’t burst into flame while receiving propane
flames for 70 seconds, on both the top and the side.
Unlike, polyurathane foam, which is very flammable since it’s made from petroleum, latex is
not as flammable, but it still wouldn’t pass the test by itself. So the Natural Mattress Store
uses wool (their wool is organic) in the cover because it is a natural fire blocker without any
chemicals added to it. It comes off the roll about 2-3 inches thick but when it’s quilted into
the mattress cover it compresses to about ¾ of an inch. Another source for chemical-free
mattresses is European Sleep Works, (866) 941-5340.
The prices at both places are way beyond my budget; instead I bought my new twin-size
6-inch firm latex foam slab for about $800 --- it isn’t technically a mattress --- and covered
it myself. The other way around the chemicals is to get a doctor’s prescription that exempts
you from the flame retardant rule, but would a major mattress manufacturer bother to make
chemical-free mattresses for this small market? And remember to get chemical-free pillows
since the greatest source of flame retardants is foam pillows.
Sweet and safe dreams,
Lauren Ayers
Articles used for this review:
Toxins in mattresses, Mark Strobel
http://www.peopleforcleanbeds.org/final-vote.htm#which_chemicals
Atrazine, PBEDs, lower IQ
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=10-P13-00005&segmentID=3
http://www.loe.org/images/100129/Prenatal%20Exposure%20to%20PBDEs.pdf
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100119121434.htm
Flame Retardants, Arlene Blum, NYTimes 11-06, KPFA 7-12
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/opinion/19blum.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/82199
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/californians-have-worlds-highest-levels-of-flame-retardants .
Tris, PBDEs
http://moniqueattinger.hubpages.com/hub/Sleeping-With-The-Enemy-Flame-Retardants-On-Childrens-Pajamas
State law sparks worries over flame retardant, SF Chronicle, 3-05
http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/State-s-mattress-fire-law-sparks-new-worries-over-2726658.php
California has highest levels, worst for low income,of PBDE, penda, deca
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/californians-have-worlds-highest-levels-of-flame-retardants
Chemical Front Groups revealed by Environmental Health Fund
http://environmentalhealthfund.org/documents/Citizens%20for%20Fire%20Safety.pdf
How to test for flame retardants
http://greenhomeguide.com/askapro/question/is-there-a-way-to-test-my-carpet-padding-for-pbdes
http://www.xrfrentals.com/xrf-for-rohs-rohs-analyzer-rohs-analysis-rohs-weee-rohs-lead.html
Ouch Couch, Laura’s Rules, Ikea, 4-12
http://laurasrules.org/2012/04/09/ouch-couch-a-sad-sofa-saga-part-1/
http://laurasrules.org/2012/04/10/ouch-couch-a-sad-sofa-saga-part-2/
Is It Safe to Play Yet? New York Times, 3-12
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/garden/going-to-extreme-lengths-to-purge-household-toxins.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Federal Mattress Standards
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/560.pdf
Wool needs toxic chemicals, only prescription gets safe bed
http://www.peopleforcleanbeds.org/wool_burns.htm
7-29-12
Evidently not. For 30 years I’ve been oblivious to a major health threat --- flame retardants
in upholstered furniture and bedding. Why did it take so long to realize that one-third of each
day, I slept on a foam mattress and foam crumble pillow that were full of flame retardants?!
Once I was educated, I bought an organic slab of foam (which is not called a ‘mattress’
because it isn’t covered, more on why later) and replaced my old pillows with un-treated,
organic latex pillows. You can avoid regrets by learning from my mistakes -- read on!
PBDEs were banned in California in 2006 (hooray!!), but that’s the year that mattresses
were required by the state to withstand 70 seconds of direct flames from a blow torch
without catching fire (woe is us!!!). The state giveth with one hand and taketh away with
the other!
Let’s start with the foam in upholstered furniture made between 1975 and 2006, which
was legally required to retard flames, usually achieved with PBDEs (polybrominated
diphenyl ethers). Health savvy people know that bromine blocks the use of iodine in
our cells.
Because PBDEs alter brain development and the reproductive system, disrupt thyroid
hormones, correlate with higher cancer rates, and can lower a child’s IQ 4 to 6 points,
California banned them in 2006. But plenty of treated furniture remains in use, and the
fire retardants that replaced PBDEs, like bromine, have similar problems.
On the periodic table, bromine is in the column of halogens (called ‘salt makers’ because
they bind to metals). Fluorine is at the top, then come chlorine and bromine, with iodine,
the heaviest, at the bottom. (The lighter halogens above iodine are more reactive, so they
can block normal use of iodine). While the halogen chlorine is safe enough in table salt,
its toxic potential is clear when you think of chlorinated water or chlorinated hydrocarbons
like DDT and other persistent pesticides.
There are hundreds of types of PBDEs, deca, penta, and octa being common ones, and
they are also used as flame retardants in electronics, typically constituting 5-30% of a product’s
net weight.
But it gets worse. The same foam that is used in upholstered furniture, and consequently
is loaded with flame retardants, is also crumbled up and made into carpet padding. While
European countries never allowed PBDEs, and therefore have low levels in their citizens,
people in Canada and many states typically carry 1000 parts per billion (ppb), while
Californians, hoodwinked by the chemical companies into ‘protecting our children’ from
fires in the home (usually caused by smoldering cigarettes), have over 10,000 ppb of PBDEs!!!
It would be great if Paul Stamets’ mushroom mycelium could decontaminate these flame
retardants, as he has used them to decontaminate fossil fuel in soil and other toxic sites,
because sending old furniture to the dump (you wouldn’t want to give it to the thrift store to
poison some other family!!) will surely be harmful to the environment and water table. But
burning it would be worse because dioxin is created.
It’s bad enough that your comfy sofa is poisoning the family, but mattresses are even more toxic,
required in California since 2006 to pass the flame test, and nation-wide since 2007. The easiest
way to meet that standard is with flame retardants like the heavy metals antimony and bromine,
the roach killer boric acid. Antimony has toxic effects similar to arsenic, such as spontaneous
abortion, failure to conceive, heart beat irregularities, liver damage, eye irritation, and hair loss.
Boric acid is a known reproductive and developmental toxin.
A 2009 study of 38 households measured the PBDE body burdens in the 44 participating
adults and found that the best predictor of high bromine levels is if a person used foam
sleeping pillows instead of polyester or feather pillows, or if their vehicle seat cushions
were high in PBDEs. Leather auto upholstery contains no flame retardants. Pillows aren’t
required to pass a flame test but since polyurethane foam typically contains flame retardants,
natural latex pillows are safer. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2799463/pdf/ehp-117-1890.pdf)
People living with furniture and bedding containing these chemicals can reduce ingestion of
the dust if they vacuum twice a week and wash hands before eating. But unlike the outgassing
of solvents used to make foam etc, which means old furniture is safer because it puts little or no
solvents into the air, fire retardant chemicals just get worse as the foam breaks down into fine
dust with age and sifts out of furniture and carpet padding, contaminating the house. Obviously,
your goal is to get rid of upholstered furniture and carpet padding made in the 70’s onward.
If you want to test your house for PBDEs, bromine, and antimony, you can rent an XRF (X-ray
fluorescence) detector which will register percentage by weight in the product. Perhaps a rental
center has them, or you can contact AjaxRentals.com (877-386-2480).
If you want to test yourself or your family members, DoctorsData.com has a $150 hair test
and a urine test for heavy metals like antimony, but they don’t have a test for bromine (which is
a halide not a heavy metal), nor do they test for PBDEs. Evidently the CDC isn’t concerned
about flame retardant contamination; they have no list of companies who test for any of these
chemicals.
Assemblymember Mark Leno has sponsored legislation to get rid of these chemicals for 5 years.
Chemical companies spent $23 million to block passage. GreenSciencePolicy.org has a
petition to sign in support of banning these chemicals.
FYI, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not allowed to regulate these chemicals.
Only food, drugs, and pesticides are regulated. In contrast, Europe requires manufacturers to
demonstrate that chemicals are safe for people and the environment before they can be on the
market. A Swedish company is developing a nontoxic fire retardant called Molecular Heat Eater
that is derived from oranges and lemons, and cigarettes that extinguish themselves within
minutes are now mandatory in New York State.
Firefighters oppose the use of these chemicals in furniture and carpet padding for the obvious
reason that they are harmful to emergency response workers. (See “Flame Retardants May
Create Deadlier Fires” http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=flame-retardants-may-create-deadlier-fires)
The US Consumer Products Safety Commission reported (Risk Assessment, January 2006)
that the average adult would absorb a daily dose of .802 mg of antimony, l081 mg boric acid,
and .073 mg of deca from flame proof mattresses. Not that they have used that research to
ban those chemicals! And remember that the EPA can’t regulate anything.
I called the Natural Mattress Store in San Rafael (it has two other locations) at (866) 329-5204.
They tell me that every model of mattress must past the federal burn test, done by independent
labs to the specs of Technical Bulletin 633: it can’t burst into flame while receiving propane
flames for 70 seconds, on both the top and the side.
Unlike, polyurathane foam, which is very flammable since it’s made from petroleum, latex is
not as flammable, but it still wouldn’t pass the test by itself. So the Natural Mattress Store
uses wool (their wool is organic) in the cover because it is a natural fire blocker without any
chemicals added to it. It comes off the roll about 2-3 inches thick but when it’s quilted into
the mattress cover it compresses to about ¾ of an inch. Another source for chemical-free
mattresses is European Sleep Works, (866) 941-5340.
The prices at both places are way beyond my budget; instead I bought my new twin-size
6-inch firm latex foam slab for about $800 --- it isn’t technically a mattress --- and covered
it myself. The other way around the chemicals is to get a doctor’s prescription that exempts
you from the flame retardant rule, but would a major mattress manufacturer bother to make
chemical-free mattresses for this small market? And remember to get chemical-free pillows
since the greatest source of flame retardants is foam pillows.
Sweet and safe dreams,
Lauren Ayers
Articles used for this review:
Toxins in mattresses, Mark Strobel
http://www.peopleforcleanbeds.org/final-vote.htm#which_chemicals
Atrazine, PBEDs, lower IQ
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=10-P13-00005&segmentID=3
http://www.loe.org/images/100129/Prenatal%20Exposure%20to%20PBDEs.pdf
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100119121434.htm
Flame Retardants, Arlene Blum, NYTimes 11-06, KPFA 7-12
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/opinion/19blum.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/82199
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/californians-have-worlds-highest-levels-of-flame-retardants .
Tris, PBDEs
http://moniqueattinger.hubpages.com/hub/Sleeping-With-The-Enemy-Flame-Retardants-On-Childrens-Pajamas
State law sparks worries over flame retardant, SF Chronicle, 3-05
http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/State-s-mattress-fire-law-sparks-new-worries-over-2726658.php
California has highest levels, worst for low income,of PBDE, penda, deca
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/californians-have-worlds-highest-levels-of-flame-retardants
Chemical Front Groups revealed by Environmental Health Fund
http://environmentalhealthfund.org/documents/Citizens%20for%20Fire%20Safety.pdf
How to test for flame retardants
http://greenhomeguide.com/askapro/question/is-there-a-way-to-test-my-carpet-padding-for-pbdes
http://www.xrfrentals.com/xrf-for-rohs-rohs-analyzer-rohs-analysis-rohs-weee-rohs-lead.html
Ouch Couch, Laura’s Rules, Ikea, 4-12
http://laurasrules.org/2012/04/09/ouch-couch-a-sad-sofa-saga-part-1/
http://laurasrules.org/2012/04/10/ouch-couch-a-sad-sofa-saga-part-2/
Is It Safe to Play Yet? New York Times, 3-12
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/garden/going-to-extreme-lengths-to-purge-household-toxins.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Federal Mattress Standards
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/560.pdf
Wool needs toxic chemicals, only prescription gets safe bed
http://www.peopleforcleanbeds.org/wool_burns.htm
7-29-12
