l, if the law does not require their use and they may be harmful? "Part of the reason to use these chemicals came from the old days, when people smoked a lot," said Birnbaum. Smoking has decreased in recent years, but these chemicals still continue to be used.
So how do parents avoid buying products with flame retardants? Unfortunately, they can't. "The consumer is unable to determine whether a product contains flame retardants or not, as labeling is not required. However, if a baby product contains polyurethane foam, AND a label indicating it meets CA TB 117, there is a very high probability that it will contain halogenated flame retardant chemicals," said Stapleton.
In the meantime, Stapleton urged parents with concerns about their children's exposure to these chemicals to write to legislators, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (http://www.cpsc.gov/) , requesting more testing to determine the extent of exposure to these chemicals and to determine if there are any health effects.
(Archana Dhasarathy, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow in the Eukaryotic Transcriptional Regulation Group in the NIEHS Laboratory of Molecular Carcinogenesis.)
Banned flame retardants resurface
Many flame retardants were used in the 1970s in a variety of children's products, such as child car seats, mattresses, and clothing to reduce deaths from fire. Some of these were subsequently banned due to health concerns. For instance, brominated tris (tris [2,3-dibromopropyl] phosphate] was banned from children's pajamas after it was found to be mutagenic and was shown to be absorbed into children's bodies.
The fire retardant pentabromodiphenyl ether (pentaBDE) can accumulate in humans, animals and the environment and has the potential to cause adverse health effects. In 2003, legislation banning the use of pentaBDE came into existence in the European Union and several states in the U.S.
In Stapleton's study, the researchers found several compounds, similar to those that were banned in pajamas, still present in the products they studied.