News Coverage
U.S. mothers' milk contains highest world levels of fire retardants
Published September 24, 2003
Mothers in the U.S. pass on fire-retardant chemicals through breast milk to their nursing babies at the highest concentration in the world, according to a study released Tuesday.
The Environmental Working Group, which conducted the study, said that the average amount of polybrominated diphenyl ethers - or PBDEs - in 20 first-time nursing mothers was 75 times that of the average found in recent European studies.
PBDEs, chemical cousins to banned PCBs, are found in hundreds of products including computers, televisions, cars, foam cushions and furniture. Studies have shown that the chemicals in newborn laboratory animals impair "attention, learning memory and behaviour", but no parallel studies on human babies were mentioned.
Europe has banned the use of some forms of the chemical starting in 2004. The United States does not regulate the products, despite recent studies showing rapid build-ups in human beings, animals and the environment, EWG said, although individual states have moved to ban them.
The U.S. and Canada use about half of all PBDEs produced every year globally, the group said.
The Environmental Working Group's president, Ken Cook, said the findings showed the shortcomings of a regulatory system which relies on consumers to prove that new substances are harmful before they can be banned. DDT and PCBs were banned in the U.S. over past decades only under heavy public pressure.
"How is it that chemical companies can put new products on store shelves that have undergone such little scrutiny?" he asked.
PBDEs belong to a group of fire retardants introduced after the 1978 ban of another class of fire retardant chemicals, PBBs, which had found their way into meat and dairy products.
The brominated flame retardants described in Tuesday's study are more likely to escape into the environment than other chemicals because they are simply mixed into the plastic or foam product, not chemically bound, EWG said.
The world's three largest producers of the chemical - Great Lakes Chemical Corp. of Indiana, Albemarle Corp. of Louisiana and Israel's Dead Sea Bromine Group - have their own lobbying group in Washington, the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum (BSEF).
BSEF on Tuesday dismissed the study, saying the amounts found constituted a "very low detection of minute levels" of a lifesaving fire safety material.
"These extremely low levels ... are similar to those examined by the National Academy of Sciences, other world health and environment officials, and industry research," the group said in a statement.
It added that thousands of lives were saved every year through the use of flame retardants, which were "peerless in reaching tough fire safety standards such as those found in the United States".
The industry group cited a 2003 study carried out by the industry group on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration that found the substance posed "no significant risk to children's health".
An article published by the American Chemical Society in 2000, however, found that "PBDEs have been found in the body fat of many wildlife species, including sperm whales in the Atlantic Ocean ... the latter finding suggests that even the deep ocean is now contaminated."
Other U.S. studies have found high levels of the chemicals in mother's milk in specific regions, such as Austin, Texas, and Denver, Colorado, but the EWG research sampled women around the country to discount any geographical bias.
Lauren Sucher, an EWG spokeswoman, said that the sample size of 20 women was adequate for the study, because it showed that high concentrations are found nationwide.
"It is not just a localized problem," she said.
The women were chosen on a "convenience sample" basis, which meant they were located through networking by the researchers and not through blind advertisements. But Sucher said there was no common trend that bound the subjects together, such as diet, exercise, or job.
Of the two most highly exposed mothers, one worked in computer- related research, and one was a nurse.
In the study, levels ranged from 9.5 to 1,078 parts per billion of chemicals found in the milk fat. The average level was 159 parts per billion.
Those levels compared to mother's milk collected in the mid-1990s that showed 6 parts per billion for Finnish mother's milk and 11 parts per billion for German women. Japanese women studied in 2000 had a maximum of 1.5 parts per billion.
The group urged U.S. environmental officials to phase out all toxic fire retardants "as quickly as possible". California has moved to ban some PBDEs in 2008 and Massachusetts is considering a ban.