Will This Be the Nail in the Coffin of Toxic Flame Retardants?

They’ve been shown to cause serious health problems, and it’s not even clear that they prevent fires. So let’s ban them, says a new coalition.

Living room: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/emilysnuffer/8588839137/in/photolist-bmh9Yr-63Fthc-63FtoP-6h8UNf-4wCAuP-4TkkDj-4LHFBD-7eQZd1-8EgkuA-dYLc3V-auGGkJ-bVaLrf-vjd6m-aZGYcK-9TUkVY-pJZUDe-ibjV9M-63Ftm6-4vmPzF-gkFBB-6xJFvy-86cR4u-4vqTrN-gVBJKC-8b2JdN-83gSKQ-6ZR4Fk-e5Y3Dp-Avwpr-63FtrM-9idjr6-7WZqqX-Emo4T-afkNX8-7JEMWh-hekvaq-7G1gQv-gkFB9-aZGYiF-9iduFZ-8z6e3X-dZBpuP-aZGYh2-5TtQJB-b67sFV-4Wi89s-66tjXY-7Be8K3-5VheUS-78ofxJ">Emily May</a>/Flickr; Poison sign: <a href="https://thenounproject.com/term/poison/1636/">Robert Leonardo</a>/The Noun Project

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Flame retardant chemicals are in millions of products, from mattresses and couches to car seats to electronics. In 2011, Environmental Science & Technology published a study that found that 80 percent of 100 randomly tested children’s products were covered in fire-retardant chemical. But there’s a growing consensus that these chemicals don’t belong in our homes: They’ve been linked to cancer, hormone deficiencies, and neurological and developmental problems.

Research has found that manufacturers are simply replacing the old flame retardants with just-as-toxic chemicals.

Between 2009 and 2013, the chemical industry agreed to phase out a particularly harmful flame retardant known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs)—but further research from scientists at the Environmental Working Group and Duke University has found that manufacturers are simply replacing PBDEs with just-as-toxic, structurally similar chemicals.

Now, a diverse group of organizations—including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the International Association of Fire Fighters, and the Consumer Federation of America—is calling for the ban of any children’s products, furniture, mattresses and electronics that have traces of any of the chemicals associated with flame retardants.

“It’s time to stop moving from one harmful flame retardant to its chemical cousin,” said Arlene Blum, founder and executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute, in a statement about the petition that she and nine other organizations filed with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

If the ban catches on, it will come as a major blow to the chemical manufacturers, who, for decades, have been downplaying concerns about flame retardants’ toxicity. The companies’ strategies have been compared to those used by Big Tobacco: They cleverly confuse the public into believing scientific findings are a matter of opinion and up for debate.

Another problem with flame retardants: It’s not even clear that they work.

The similarities between the two industries shouldn’t come as a surprise, given their interconnected past. In an explosive 2012 investigative series, the Chicago Tribune reported that tobacco companies played a major role in the promotion of flame retardants. After a slew of apartment fires caused by lit cigarettes, the tobacco companies looked for a scapegoat and found one in furniture. Suddenly the media was focusing on flammable dangers we live around everyday—instead of the actual cause of many of these household fires: cigarettes.

The chemical companies, too, quickly realized how lucrative fire retardants could be—in 2012, the value of the market for the chemicals was estimated at $5.1 billion. Part of the reason for the companies’ success was a subtle astroturf campaign: In 2007, Albemarle Corporation, a leading flame retardant manufacturer, teamed up with two other chemical conglomerates to create Citizens for Fire Safety, an organization that advocates for increased use of flame retardants. The organization, which marketed itself as a neutral source of information for consumers, folded in 2012 after the Tribune exposed the real players involved.

Another problem with flame retardants: It’s not even clear that they work. According to the Tribune, in 2009 government scientists lit two couches on fire, one with fire retardant chemicals in its foam and one with out them. Within four minutes “both were engulfed in flames.”

“We did not find flame retardants in foam to provide any significant protection,” Dale Ray, a project manager with the Consumer Product Safety Commission and overseer of the study told the Tribune.

Despite this finding, flame retardants have stuck around—in products, and in people’s bodies. The chemicals, considered persistent organic pollutants, show up in dust particles, which we (and our food) absorb. Particularly vulnerable groups are firefighters, who are exposed to immense doses when extinguishing fires in products that are covered in the chemicals, and children, who are exposed when they play on the floor near dust and stick their hands in their mouths.

Last year, scientists from Duke University and the Environmental Working Group tested the urine of 22 mothers and 26 children. All the samples came back positive for exposure to Tris(1,3-dichloroisopropyl)phosphate (TDCIPP), one of the fire retardant chemicals that was developed to replace PBDEs. The children’s average TDCIPP concentration levels were fives times that of the mothers. TDCIPP caused the growth of tumors when tested on animals and has been labeled as carcinogenic by the state of California under Proposition 65.

“The science is in on this class of flame retardant chemicals,” said Nancie Payne, president of the Learning Disabilities Association of America, which also signed the Consumer Product Safety Commission petition. “They harm brain development, and have no business being in consumer goods.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate