Flame Retardants in Blood Drop after State Ban

A class of flame retardants that has been linked to learning difficulties in children has rapidly declined in pregnant women’s blood since the chemicals were banned in California a decade ago, according to a study led by researchers at UC San Francisco.

Blood levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), tested in patients at the UCSF-affiliated San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center fell by two-thirds since they were last tested three years ago and found to be the highest levels reported among pregnant women anywhere in the world.

Researchers said the dramatic decline was most likely the result of the statewide ban, as well as a voluntary national phase out. But they said the levels fell more quickly than expected, given how persistently these chemicals remain in the environment once they have been introduced.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the extent of the decline,” said Ami R. Zota, ScD, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, and the study’s lead author. Zota conducted the research while she was a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF’s Program on Reproductive Health. “Regulations can have an impact on people’s everyday lives.”

PBDEs were used in foam furniture starting in the 1970s to meet the state’s fire safety regulations, which are now being reviewed. Experiments in animals and also in human cells have shown that PBDEs damage the brain in utero. Researchers have found a strong relationship between an expectant mother’s exposure to the chemicals – even at low levels – and subsequent learning difficulties in her child, including worsened concentration and attention and lower IQ. The chemicals also can disrupt thyroid hormones in adulthood and during development. While much of the data is correlational, the researchers said there is enough evidence to raise serious concern that the chemicals are harmful to people.

PBDEs get into the body in different ways. They easily wear off foam and degrade into household dust, which gets ingested. The chemicals also find their way in through diets rich in fish, meat and dairy products, as PBDEs in the environment are persistent and can accumulate up the food chain. Nursing mothers also pass them to their babies through breast milk.

Previous research has shown that the PBDEs present in California house dust have fallen since the ban. But this is the first time that researchers have shown a decline in PBDEs in people since the chemicals were phased out.

San Francisco General Hospital, the city’s public hospital, serves vulnerable populations, who may be at higher risk for exposure to PBDEs because they are more likely to own older, cheaper furniture and live in poor housing conditions. The researchers compared a group of 25 women who came to the hospital from 2008 to 2009 to 36 women who came between 2011 and 2012. The first group had the highest reported levels of PBDEs of any group of pregnant women tested worldwide. But in just three years, overall levels fell by two-thirds.

Every woman tested from 2008-2009 had all five of the PBDEs measured by the researchers in her blood. But by 2011-2012, only one of the PBDEs was present in every woman tested. The researchers did not test the same women at both time points, but they did find that overall levels of all five PBDE’s were significantly lower in the second group.

Although PBDEs have been banned, furniture makers have substituted other chemicals, which may also be dangerous, as a way of meeting state fire safety standards. Chlorinated Tris, for example, is a suspected carcinogen listed on Proposition 65. Others, such as Firemaster 550, have not adequately been tested.

The findings were published online on Sept. 25 in Environmental Science & Technology.
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Study Finds Flame Retardant Pollutants Even in Remote Areas like Nepal

Chemicals used as flame retardants are present as environmental pollutants at locations around the globe, including remote sites in Indonesia, Nepal and Tasmania, according to a study by researchers from the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

The study, published this month in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, makes use of a novel but highly effective sampling technique: measuring concentrations of the chemicals in the bark of trees, which absorbs airborne chemical compounds in both vapor and particle phases.

"These findings illustrate further that flame retardants are ubiquitous pollutants and are found all around the world, not only in biota and humans but also in plants," said Amina Salamova, a research associate in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IU Bloomington and co-author of the study with Ronald A. Hites, Distinguished Professor in SPEA and in the Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences.

The study measured concentrations of brominated and chlorinated flame retardants collected in tree bark samples at 12 locations around the globe: three sites in Canada and single sites in Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Czech Republic, South Africa, Nepal, Indonesia, Tasmania and American Samoa.

The highest concentrations were found at an urban site: Downsview, Ontario, Canada, near Toronto. However, the second-highest concentration of one type of flame retardant, Dechlorane Plus, was found at a remote site at Bukit Kototabang in Indonesia. Researchers don't know the cause of the relatively high concentrations at the site but suspect it may be near a source.

The study was carried out in cooperation with the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling network, an international monitoring initiative established in 2004 on six continents.

Brominated and chlorinated flame retardants have been used for several decades in consumer products made of plastic, foam, wood and textiles to prevent combustion and slow the spread of fire. They persist in the environment and bio-accumulate in ecosystems and in human tissues. Exposure to the compounds has been associated with thyroid and other endocrine system disruption and with adverse neurological development. As a result, the production and use of certain flame retardants has been restricted in North America and the European Union.

Researchers measured a variety of flame retardants, including widely used polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDE, as well as nonregulated compounds such as Dechlorane Plus and "older" flame retardants that were used in the 1980s. Findings included:

-- Most of the compounds were detected at all the locations, with concentrations varying widely.
-- Concentrations were associated with population density, suggesting the compounds most likely entered the environment through their use in nearby homes and offices.
-- Concentrations found in tree bark are correlated with those measured in previous atmospheric sampling at the sites by the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling network.

Higher concentrations of flame retardants in bark and the atmosphere have been found by Hites and others in previous studies of the Great Lakes region, especially urban areas near Chicago and Cleveland, and also at cities in China. Even higher concentrations were found in southern Arkansas and at Niagara Falls, N.Y., near the sites of manufacturing facilities for PBDE and Dechlorane Plus, respectively.

The study also confirms the effectiveness of using tree bark as a sampling medium, a technique that Hites and colleagues have used in previous studies of persistent organic pollutants such as flame retardants.

Bark makes an effective sampling medium because of its large surface area and high lipid content. The samples are easy and inexpensive to collect, an advantage in developing countries that lack funding for extensive environmental monitoring programs. Tree bark also collects both vapor and particle phase pollutants, while other samplers collect one or the other.

Ominous World Record: Pregnant Californians have the highest levels ever recorded of banned chemical

Despite being outlawed in 2004, scientists have found that polybrominated diphenyl ethers, also known as PBDEs, are showing up at unprecedented levels in pregnant woman in California.

They believe the results may stem from the state's strict flammability regulations.

Before the ban the chemicals were commonly used to treat polyurethane foam to slow the rate the material would burn if it caught fire.

The foam was widely used in couches, chairs, mattresses, baby products and other household items.

It was later discovered that the PBDEs were not bound to the foam and instead scattered easily in the air and could be inhaled through dust. Much of the furniture is still being used today in homes, restaurants and offices making PBDEs present throughout the state.

The UCSF-led research team found high levels of PBDEs, as well as the by-products that result when the flame retardants break down in the body, in 25 second-trimester pregnant women from Northern and Central California seeking care in San Francisco.

“While our study group was small, the higher chemical exposure in pregnant women is particularly concerning and warrants further research. PBDEs can disrupt the thyroid system and have been linked to neurodevelopmental problems in children following prenatal exposure,” said Ami R. Zota, ScD, MS, lead author.

Another UCSF study recently found that the bodies of virtually all U.S. pregnant women carry multiple chemicals, including PBDEs and others banned since the 1970s. 

That research was the first time that the number of chemicals to which pregnant women are exposed has been counted.

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The researchers say there are steps families can take to minimize their exposure to toxic chemicals at home, including buying special air filters.

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