News Coverage
Chemical found in breast milk
Study shows levels of flame retardant 75 times as high as in Europe, where
Published September 22, 2003
Katrina Friedman eats organic, exercises regularly, does everything she can to be healthy for her 8-month-old daughter.
So when a friend suggested she sign up for a study testing for traces of a chemical flame retardant in breast milk, the Oakland mom thought nothing of it. Then she got the results.
The first ever nationwide study, conducted by the Environmental Working Group and released last week, found the average level of bromine-based fire retardants in the milk of 20 first-time mothers to be 75 times that found in recent European studies. Two participants registered the highest levels ever reported in the United States.
"You try to do everything right for your baby. I try to eat organic food, you berate yourself for having a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, and then I find out these invisible chemicals have been seeping into my life and into my baby's," she said.
"And it's not just me that has this chemical. I just happen to know what my risk level is. But everyone's exposed to this."
The study confirms several troubling trends concerning the chemical flame retardants, which appear in everything from coffee makers to smoke detectors to mattress pads to carpets.
It meshes with other recent findings showing Americans have higher levels of the chemical than any other population on Earth. Bromine-based flame retardants are banned in Europe and subject to a voluntary phase-out in Japan. In the U.S., only California has banned the chemical, effective 2008.
It also confirms the ubiquity of the compounds, which can be found in household dust, the tissue of Arctic animals, fish in the San Francisco Bay and now, apparently, humans. Each of the 20 women sampled had detectable levels of the chemical, ranging from 9.5 to 1,078 parts per billion. Friedman was in the middle, with 79 parts per billion.
"What this says to me -- this study as well as others -- is that this isn't a regional problem," said Tom McDonald, staff toxicologist with California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. "It's not a California problem. It's really a whole North America issue."
Polybrominated diphenyl ethers, commonly known as PBDEs, is a class of 209 chemicals used in thousands of everyday products that has seen rampant increase in recent years as safety standards call for less flammable products.
The chemical causes brain damage and impairs motor skills and is a close cousin to PCBs, which were banned in the 1970s. Half of all PBDEs used in the world are used in the Americas -- some 73 million pounds in 2001 alone, according to the study.
PCB use peaked at 86 million pounds per year in 1970. A bio-accumulative toxin, many adults still have detectable amounts of PCBs in their bodies. There is ample evidence, say scientists like McDonald and those with the Environmental Working Group, that PBDEs are similarly long-lasting and, with PCBs, work together to cause adverse health effects.
"What we're seeing in people's bodies is equalling what we saw at the peak of PCB exposure," said Bill Walker, California director of the Washington, D.C.-based environmental group. "We were not surprised to find PBDEs in the milk of all the women we sampled. But we did not expect to find the levels that we did."
Health officials and the Environmental Working Group were emphatic Tuesday in declaring that even women with high levels of fire retardants in their breast milk should continue to breast feed. Adverse effects on learning and behavior, the group noted, are strongly associated with fetal exposures, and breast milk remains an essential source of nutrients and fats necessary for newborns.
If anything, say scientists, the study underscores the mystery of how the chemicals enter the body. Friedman works for a Web consulting firm in San Francisco. Of the study's two most highly exposed participants, one works in computer-related research and the other is a registered nurse.
That upper end is dangerously near the level found to cause impairment in laboratory animals, McDonald said, noting that dosages 10 to 100 times as strong caused problems in rats. "At 10-fold, you might say that's an adequate margin, but in my business it really isn't. To see change in the function of a behavior in an animal, that's a very crude test. You have to build in some uncertainty there."
And people like Friedman seeking to reduce or eliminate exposure are out of luck.
While some computer manufacturers, to comply with European rules, label their products as "PBDE-free," there's virtually no way to know what products contain bromine-based fire retardants, or how much, McDonald said. "It's absolutely impossible for a consumer to find out what's in their couch or what's in the seat of their cushion."
Nor can the average Joe find out how much is in his body. The Environmental Working Group paid $800 per sample. And it got a bulk discount.
"We're the first to say that testing 20 women in 17 states does not give you a comprehensive picture of what's in the United States. But it does give you a pretty good overall idea," said Walker.
"We're providing one more piece of evidence that the system ... is broken and needs to be fixed."