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by Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, CEO/Executive Director, Healthy Child Healthy World

The world may wish we all could be California girls, but when it comes to flame retardants, they could have stopped at Arizona. That’s because California, with its strict standards for flammability, has set the bar high—12 seconds, to be exact—in determining exactly what makes a product safe.

If furniture and baby products (such as car seats and nursing pillows) are intended for sale in California, they must resist igniting when exposed to an open flame for 12 seconds. Because the market in California is so large, companies tend to adhere to these standards when manufacturing products that are sold anywhere in the United States. Adhering to California’s standards means applying toxic chemical flame retardants called polybrominated diphenyl ether compounds, or PBDEs.

Lots of them.

Case in point? The flame retardant TDCPP, also known as chlorinated Tris, was banned from baby’s pajamas nearly 40 years ago because of links to pediatric cancer, but is still showing up in products that we use in our homes—alarmingly, even in those we use with our babies.

In a recent study of 101 baby products containing polyurethane foam, 80 percent contained toxic or untested halogenated flame retardants, and 36 percent tested positive for Tris, UC Berkeley News reported in May.

According to a new study by the Center for Environmental Research and Children's Health at the University of California, Berkeley that was published recently in Environmental Science & Technology, because of this policy:

• Americans have 20 times higher blood levels of PBDEs than in Europe.
• The chemicals are transferred from hand to mouth through dust.
• These chemicals are linked to cancer, thyroid disruption, lower testosterone in men, neurological disorders in children and reduced fertility in women.

In addition to health implications, there are also new questions being raised about the chemicals’ efficacy. Consumer Reports recently concluded that flame retardants in baby products “may be ineffective and harmful” and reported:

“In a new peer-reviewed study presented at the 10th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science at the University of Maryland on June 21, researchers presented evidence that California's furniture flammability standard actually does not provide a measurable fire safety benefit and has led to the unnecessary use of flame retardant chemicals at high levels in both baby products and furniture, posing possible harm to human health and the environment.”

The sad news is, even as evidence mounts against the safety and efficacy of flame retardants, manufacturers are lobbying for new ways to make sure we don’t stop using them. According to Arlene Blum of the Green Science Policy Institute, who was behind the original Tris ban in the 1970s, lobbyists recently pushed through legislation for severe flammability standards on school bus seats in Maryland and Nevada, which forces manufacturers in those states to treat school bus seats with chemical levels that are 40% higher.

But concerned citizens are fighting back. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently vowed to sign a ban the sale of children’s products treated with flame retardants treated with carcinogenic flame retardants.

And organizations with children’s health on their agenda continue to provide ammunition for their fight. This Wednesday, in conjunction with the Healthy Stuff website, the non-profit Ecology Center will release its’ fourth report on toxic chemicals in children’s car seats.

Wondering whether your Britax is safe? The Ecology Center tested more than 150 models for bromine, chlorine, lead and heavy metal allergens. On Wednesday, visit Healthy Stuff to search by model and comparison shop between different models or years.

And if you’re worried about flame retardants in your furniture, have it tested! The Green Science Policy Institute is accepting foam samples from couches and other products for flame retardant testing.

Finally, here’s some good news: One of the best ways to prevent toxic flame retardant exposure is also one of the easiest. Wash your hands. According to Discovery, a recent study showed that “workers who washed their hands more than four times a day had a threefold reduction in blood levels of certain PBDE flame retardants.”

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Editor's Update: We received a lot of questions from parents worried about toxics in car seats and we'd like to offer some practical advice to reduce this exposure:

-- Keep dust levels down in the car to keep babies from being exposed to flame retardants/other potentially dangerous toxics. You should not only dust out the car regularly, but also wash the padding in the car seat regularly, too.

-- HealthyStuff.org also recommends that car seats with high toxicity levels be kept out of direct sunlight and heat as much as possible, as UV ray exposure/high heat can accelerate the breakdown of some of the chemicals found, possible increasing their toxicity and a child's risk of exposure.

-- HealthyStuff.org also recommends that if parents have a highly contaminated car seat, you simply limit your child's use of the car seat to the car (rather than letting your child sleep in it for hours after the car ride for example).

-- Finally, they say while it is worrisome that some of these car seats have high levels of potentially dangerous chemicals, it is absolutely essential for children to ride in car seats, regardless of the ranking a particular seat received at HealthyStuff.org.

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