News Coverage
Chemical ban proposed
Published October 24, 2003
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is negotiating with a chemical manufacturer to phase out two neurotoxic chemicals used as fire retardants, which a recent Environmental Working Group study found at potentially harmful levels in the breast milk of American mothers.
EPA sources in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics confirmed to the working group that the agency is negotiating an agreement with Great Lakes Chemical Co. of West Lafayette, Ind., to end manufacture of two forms of polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs. The chemicals are used in hundreds of everyday items, including computers, TVs, cars and furniture. Great Lakes is the only U.S. manufacturer of the two forms, penta and octa PBDE.
Like PCBs, their long-banned chemical relatives, PBDEs and other brominated fire retardants are persistent in the environment and build up in people's bodies over a lifetime. They impair learning, memory and behavior in laboratory animals at surprisingly low levels. Infants and fetuses are most at risk, because the most toxic effects occur during periods of rapid brain development.