When a chemical called MCHM leaked into the water supply of thousands of West Virginia residents, public health officials wanted to know: Is the chemical dangerous? The answer: Nobody knows. It has hardly been tested. In fact, the majority of chemicals commonly used by industry have had little or no safety testing either.
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/14/262503...-chemicals-law
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Now, the contaminant that leaked into the Elk River was a chemical called MCHM, and officials in West Virginia have promised to investigate how it might affect the public and the environment. That prompted NPR's Daniel Zwerdling to ask why didn't they know that before?
DANIEL ZWERDLING, BYLINE: Scientists do know a few things about MCHM. I went online and got a copy of a manufacturer's safety data sheet. It's says, warning, exclamation mark, harmful if swallowed, causes skin and eye irritation. OK, but now people want to know could there be any long-term effects from the huge spill and here's what the company's safety data sheet says about that.
Mutagenicity. In other words, does the chemical cause mutations? No data available. Carcinogenicity, no data available. Reproductive toxicity, no data available. If we could look at most chemicals and industry storage tanks around the country, have scientists studied most of them to know if they're safe or not?
RICHARD DENISON: The unfortunate answer is no.
ZWERDLING: Richard Denison is a biochemist with the Environmental Defense Fund. He's served on government and industry advisory boards.
DENISON: The vast majority of industrial chemicals have never been required to be tested for safety.
ZWERDLING: And to understand why, you have to look back to the 1970s. Congress passed the first major laws, saying we should crack down on water pollution and protect workers from dangerous chemicals. And then public health specialists said, wait a minute, how can we protect workers and the environment when we hardly know anything about most chemicals used in the industry?
So Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act. It's nicknamed TSCA. Nicholas Ashford(ph) says, this was historic.
NICHOLAS ASHFORD: This would be the first time that industrial chemicals across the board could be subjected to testing rules and placing the burden on industry to undergo the testing for safety.
ZWERDLING: Ashford was chairman back then of federal taskforce that advised the government on toxic chemicals. TSCA basically said, look, industry has already been using more than 60,000 chemicals. Let's let industry keep using them unless the Environmental Protection Agency finds evidence they could be harmful. Richard Denison says, there's a problem.
DENISON: And that sets up a catch-22.
ZWERDLING: The way Congress wrote the law, EPA can order companies to study old chemicals only if EPA has evidence that the chemicals might be dangerous. But it's hard for EPA to get that evidence unless the industry does the studies in the first place.
DENISON: It's kind of like looking for your keys at night in a parking lot and you look only under the lamps because that's where the light is better. But in fact, the vast majority of chemicals are out there in the darkness.
ZWERDLING: Still, some scientists have managed to take a closer look at some old chemicals in the darkness and they found big problems. For instance, practically every sofa in America used to contain a flame re ant called PBDEs. Then, in the 1990s, researchers started finding them in practically every person they tested, in their blood, in their fat, and in breast milk.
And studies show they have powerful impact on hormones. Industry voluntarily phased out the chemicals. Some members of Congress, Republican and Democrats, say it's time to overhaul the TSCA law. And the spokesperson for the chemicals industry agrees.
Anne Womack Kolton is vice president of the American Chemistry Council. She says many chemicals are well-known and safe. But she says it's also true that scientists keep being able to measure chemicals in the environment at lower levels, and finding they can have effects. So she wants Congress to pass a better law.
ANNE WOMACK KOLTON: We can increase transparency. We can give EPA the authority it needs. And we can give all consumers greater confidence that the chemicals in the products they rely on every day are safe for that use.
ZWERDLING: The head of EPA said recently that she hopes Congress will overhaul the TSCA law. Gina McCarthy said the way the law works now, it's broken and ineffective.
Daniel Zwerdling, NPR News.
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We need to raise taxes on the chemical industry for inspections and audits. If that makes things more expensive, then we are simply making the true costs of things more transparent, and making those costs paid for by the people who use this stuff, rather than the people who end up having their property and lives affected, often without even knowing it.
Of the appx 100K chemicals in use now, only about 10% have been tested for toxicity.
Even worse, those chemicals retained, stored by confused human biology, and combined with other toxic chemicals could be, and probably are, much worse than any single chemical in isolation.
not studied, therefore, no demonstrated risk to human health
Remember the 3M flame re ant. Found it ALL placentas, breast milk, in seals, arctic animals, everywhere. THEN they ban it.
Environmental prevalence[edit]
In 2009, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a report on polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and found that, in contrast to earlier reports, they were found throughout the U.S. coastal zone.[20]This nationwide survey found that New York’s Hudson Raritan Estuary had the highest overall concentrations of PBDEs, both in sediments and s fish. Individual sites with the highest PBDE measurements were found in s fish taken from Anaheim Bay, California, and four sites in the Hudson Raritan Estuary. Watersheds that include the Southern California Bight, Puget Sound, the central and eastern Gulf of Mexico off the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla. coast, and Lake Michigan waters near Chicago and Gary, Ind. also were found to have high PBDE concentrations.
Health concerns[edit]
The earliest flame re ants, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were banned in the U.S. in 1977 when it was discovered that they are toxic.[21] Industries shifted to using brominated flame re ants instead, but these are now receiving closer scrutiny. The EU has banned several types of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) as of 2008, 10 years after Sweden discovered that they were ac ulating in breast milk.[22] As of December 2009, negotiations between EPA and the two U.S. producers of DecaBDE (a flame re ant that has been used in electronics, wire and cable insulation, textiles, automobiles and airplanes, and other applications), Albemarle Corporation and Chemtura Corporation, and the largest U.S. importer, ICL Industrial Products, Inc., resulted in commitments by these companies to phase out decaBDE for most uses in the United States by December 31, 2012, and to end all uses by the end of 2013.[23] The state of California has listed the flame re ant chemical chlorinated Tris (tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate or TDCPP) as a chemical known to cause cancer. In December 2012, the California nonprofit Center for Environmental Health filed notices of intent to sue several leading retailers and producers of baby products for violating California law for failing to label products containing this cancer-causing flame re ant. While the demand for brominated and chlorinated flame re ants in North America and Western Europe is declining, it is rising in all other regions.[2]
Nearly all Americans tested have trace levels of flame re ants in their body. Recent research links some of this exposure to dust on television sets, which may have been generated from the heating of the flame re ants in the TV. Careless disposal of TVs and other appliances such as microwaves or old computers may greatly increase the amount of environmental contamination.[24] A recent study conducted by Harley et al. 2010[25] on pregnant women, living in a low-income, predominantly Mexican-immigrant community in California showed a significant decrease in fecundity associated with PBDE exposure in women.
Another study conducted by Chevrier et al. 2010[26] measured the concentration of 10 PBDE congeners, free thyroxine (T4), total T4, and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) in 270 pregnant women around the 27th week of gestation. Associations between PBDEs and free and total T4 were found to be statistically insignificant. However, authors did find a significant association amongst exposure to PBDEs and lower TSH during pregnancy, which may have implications for maternal health and fetal development.
A prospective, longitudinal cohort study initiated after 11 September 2001, including 329 mothers who delivered in one of three hospitals in lower Manhattan, New York, was conducted by Herbstman et al. 2010.[27] Authors of this study analyzed 210 cord blood specimens for selected PBDE congeners and assessed neurodevelopmental effects in the children at 12–48 and 72 months of age. Results showed that children who had higher cord blood concentrations of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) scored lower on tests of mental and motor development at 1–4 and 6 years of age. This was the first study to report any such associations in humans.
A similar study was conducted by Roze et al. 2009[28] in Netherlands on 62 mothers and children to estimate associations between 12 Organohalogen compounds (OHCs), including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and brominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame re ants, measured in maternal serum during the 35th week of pregnancy and motor performance (coordination, fine motor skills), cognition (intelligence, visual perception, visuomotor integration, inhibitory control, verbal memory, and attention), and behavior scores at 5–6 years of age. Authors demonstrated for the first time that transplacental transfer of polybrominated flame re ants was associated with the development of children at school age.
Another interesting study was conducted by Rose et al. 2010[29] to measure circulating PBDE levels in 100 children between 2 to 5 years of age from California. The PBDE levels according to this study, in 2- to 5-year-old California children was 10 to 1,000 fold higher than European children, 5 times higher than other U.S. children and 2 to 10 times higher than U.S. adults. They also found that diet, indoor environment, and social factors influenced children’s body burden levels. Eating poultry and pork contributed to elevated body burdens for nearly all types of flame re ants. Study also found that lower maternal education was independently and significantly associated with higher levels of most flame re ant congeners in the children.
San Antonio Statement on Brominated and Chlorinated Flame Re ants 2010:[30] A group of 145 prominent scientists from 22 countries signed the first-ever consensus statement do enting health hazards from flame re ant chemicals found at high levels in home furniture, electronics, insulation, and other products. This statement do ents that, with limited fire safety benefit, these flame re ants can cause serious health issues, and, as types of flame re ants are banned, the alternatives should be proven safe before being used. The group also wants to change widespread policies that require use of flame re ants.
A number of recent studies suggest that dietary intake is one of the main routes to human exposure to PBDEs. In recent years, PBDEs have become widespread environmental pollutants, while body burden in the general population has been increasing. The results do show notable coincidences between the China, Europe, Japan, and United States such as dairy products, fish, and seafood being a cause of human exposure to PBDEs due to the environmental pollutant.
A February 2012 study genetically engineered female mice to have mutations in the x-chromosome MECP2 gene, linked to Rett syndrome, a disorder in humans similar to autism. After exposure to BDE-47 (a PDBE) their offspring, who were also exposed, had lower birth weights and survivability and showed sociability and learning deficits.[31]
A January 2013 study of mice showed brain damage from BDP-49, via inhibiting of the mitochondrial ATP production process necessary for brain cells to get energy. Toxicity was at very low levels. The study offers a possible pathway by which PDBEs lead to autism.[32]
ChecklistThe following checklist is from the Washington State Department of Health, a state health agency:[citation needed]
- Cleaning - PBDEs in indoor dust is one of the primary sources of people's exposure. Reduce your exposure to indoor dust. Use a damp cloth to dust indoor living and working areas. Avoid stirring the dust into the air. Use a vacuum with a HEPA filter. Open windows and doors while you clean. Wash hands after dusting and cleaning.
- Foam products - New foam items that you purchase today are unlikely to contain PBDEs.[citation needed] However, mattresses, mattress pads, couches, easy chairs, foam pillows, carpet padding, and other foam products purchased before 2005 likely contain PBDEs. Replace older foam products that have ripped covers or foam that is misshapen or breaking down. If you can't replace the item, try to keep the covers intact. When removing old carpet foam, keep the work area sealed from other areas of the house, avoid breathing in the dust, and use a HEPA-filter vacuum for cleanup.
- Electronics - Deca-BDE has been used in electronics for years but is now being phased out of most electronics. When purchasing electronics, request products that contain no Deca-BDE or other bromine-containing fire re ants.
- Foods - PBDEs can concentrate in the fat of poultry, red meat, fish and other fatty meats. See how to reduce the fat when preparing and cooking fish (these tips can be applied to other meats). Wash hands before preparing and eating food.
- Disposal and recycling - PBDEs will continue to pollute the environment unless flame re ant products are disposed of properly. To keep PBDEs out of the environment, dispose of foam containing products and electronics such as TVs and computers at your nearest hazardous waste collection site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_re ant
and then there's atrazine (already banned in Europe), glysphosate, neonicotinoids (bee killers), BPA (endocrine disruptor; feminizer of male fetus; softener), hexavalent chromium, lead in paint (google "lead violence") and gasoline, etc, etc, for 100K chemicals.
Where the Amazon flows into the Atlantic, the sea life is fantastic. When that BigChem's Mississippi river into the Gulf, a huge dead zone.
I remember when baby clothing mfrs got stuck with an inventory of banned flamed-re ant items, they, in a praise-worthy show of ethics over profits, simply shipped it all to (poor) countries with "small govt" regulations.
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