News Coverage
Safety of new flame retardant questioned
Published November 10, 2004
WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency may be sacrificing public health and safety by moving too quickly to approve a new fire retardant to replace chemicals being taken off the market, scientists told a public health conference this week.
At the end of this year, penta and octa are being taken off the market under a voluntary agreement reached between the EPA and their manufacturer, Great Lakes Chemical Corp. of Indianapolis, following studies that showed the chemicals are accumulating in the breast milk of American women at 10 to 100 times the levels measured in European women.
In the last two years, studies have shown that exposure of laboratory animals in the womb to such chemical mixtures, known as PBDEs, can cause learning problems, lowered intelligence, early puberty and feminization of male sex organs.
Little information is publicly available on the chemical components of a new fire retardant called Firemaster 550 that the EPA has approved to replace chemicals being taken off the market, scientists attending the American Public Health Association's annual convention told a workshop on fire retardants.
All that is known about Firemaster 550, which is actually a mixture of chemicals, is the general type of chemicals used in the mixture and that EPA officials and Great Lakes say it is less toxic and less likely to accumulate in the bodies of people than the fire retardants it is designed to replace, said Sonya Lunder, a scientist with the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that studies chemical pollution.
It is "naive," Lunder said, to allow industry "to handpick the replacement" for chemicals that are being taken off the market because of health and safety concerns.
Robert Campell, director of corporate and regulatory affairs for Great Lakes, said the new retardant has undergone 10 years of testing and has been shown to be considerably less toxic and less likely to accumulate in human fat tissue than the chemicals it replaces.
Great Lakes has patented Firemaster 550, but there are already companies - primarily in developing countries - that are trying to copy the fire retardant, Campbell said.
"This is a competitive world and there are people out there who would love to have the better mousetrap, so naturally we are reluctant to share what the (chemical components) are," Campbell said.
PBDEs retardants are chemical cousins to PCBs and PBBs, chemicals used as heat insulators and flame retardants that were banned in the 1970s after they were found to spread easily, persist for long periods in the environment and accumulate in the body fat of people and animals, Lunder said.
Three decades later, PCBs and PBBs can still be measured in people and animals around the globe, including children born long after they were taken off the market, Lunder said.
Tris, another flame retardant widely used to make children's pajamas, was also taken off the market in the 1980s because of health concerns, Lunder said.
"When we look at the history of fire retardants, we can assume that public health protection arrives late if at all," Lunder said.
EPA toxicologist Linda Birnbaum, who has led the agency's investigation into the dangers of PBDEs, said the chemical composition of Firemaster 550 is so closely held within the EPA that even she and other government scientists don't have access to it.
"I sure as heck would like to know more about what these compounds are going to look like," Birnbaum said.