Task Force Tackles Chemical

State panel established four years ago to study flame retardant will meet for the first time

Albany Times Union, Brian Nearing
Published September 5, 2008

ALBANY -- A task force established four years ago to study potential health risks from a chemical flame retardant will hold its first meeting this month. The initial meeting of the task force on compounds known as PBDEs comes as Clean New York, a not-for-profit group calling for banning the product, released a study Thursday that found the chemical in the bodies of women and children. Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a study linking PBDEs -- short for polybrominated diphenyl ethers, which are common in electronics, plastics and furniture -- to a epidemic of hyperthyroidism in house cats. The chemical leaches out from household items and mixes with dust, which cats lick from their bodies. The state task force will meet from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Thursday at the Century House on Route 9 in Latham. The chemical has been banned in Europe, and is linked to impaired intelligence and reduced motor skills in children. California banned it in 2006, and state legislatures in Maine and Washington have also backed bans. On Thursday, a study from the Washington, D.C.-based not-for-profit Environmental Working Group found toddlers and pre-schoolers had three times more neurotoxic compounds in their blood as their mothers do. The tests were done on 20 families across the country, although none were from New York, said Bobbi Chase Wilding, a member of Clean New York, an Albany-based not-for-profit involved with the report. Nineteen families had PBDEs in their blood. State task force members include Nancy Kim, of the state Health Department; Pamela Hada-Hurst, of the state Department of Environmental Conservation; John Mueller, of the state Office of Fire Prevention and Control; Suzanne Snedeker, a researcher at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University; Kathleen Curtis, of Citizens Environmental Coalition; Leonardo Trasande, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine; John Hassett, of the state University College of Environmental Science and Forestry, David Sanders, of Great Lakes Chemical Co.; Kenneth Geiser, of the University of Massachusetts; Dennis Sweeney, of the state Professional Firefighters Association; and Raymond Dawson, of the Albemarie Corp. Brian Nearing can be reached at 454-5094 or by e-mail at bnearing@timesunion.com.