High chemical levels found in breast milk

Flame retardants used in furniture and electronic products are ending up in Oregonians' bodies, according to a study released today by Northwest Environment Watch.

Flame retardants used in furniture and electronic products are ending up in Oregonians’ bodies, according to a study released today by Northwest Environment Watch.

Breast milk from 10 mothers in Oregon — as well as 30 other mothers in Montana, Washington and British Columbia — was found to contain high levels of a kind of flame retardant known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers.

“It is really shocking to me,” said Tammi Keller, a Portland mother whose milk was tested. “The fire retardant on me came up really high, which is really shocking because I am only 24 years old.”

Keller and a Beaverton mother, Laura Mittelstadt, noted that the study doesn’t change how they feel about breast-feeding. “Breast milk is by far the healthiest way to go,” Mittelstadt said.

And study authors, as well as health officials, agree. However, the federal government has not set a safe dose level for the flame retardant, and not much is known about the health effects in people.

The chemicals might cause neurobehavioral alterations and affect the immune system in animals, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Brominated flame retardants are similar to PCBs or polychlorinated biphenyls, which have been banned nationally.

Since the late 1990s, researchers have found that levels of the chemicals are rising quickly in people’s bodies; flame-retardant concentrations rose tenfold in samples of human breast milk from British Columbia between 1992 and 2002.“This study confirms the results of several other studies that have been reported within the last year,” said Linda Birnbaum, director of the experimental toxicology division at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and president of the Society of Toxicology. “The levels in breast milk in women in the U.S are … so much higher than women in Europe.”

The study released today showed levels that are 20 to 40 times higher than levels found in Sweden and Japan.“We are concerned — like many others — about the buildup of chemicals in our bodies,” said Laura Weiss of the Oregon Environmental Council. “In other places, when there’s been a ban on the chemicals, the levels have gone down.”Weiss said the council wants Oregon to phase out the use of brominated flame retardants.

California, New York and Hawaii have passed legislation that bans the sale of products with the chemicals.Some manufacturers already have responded; Great Lakes Chemical Corp. of Indiana is voluntarily withdrawing two types of brominated flame retardants by the end of the year.

The retardants are used to make consumer products difficult to burn, and, according to an industry evaluation, saved almost 300 lives in the United States in 2000.

Mattress and bedding fires cause an average of 470 deaths annually, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Upholstered furniture fires cause an average of 580 deaths annually.

Ken Giles, spokesman for the commission, said federal officials are working toward a federally mandated flammability standard for mattresses and upholstered furniture. These standards do not rely on the use of brominated flame retardants, he said.

A recent test by the commission and the National Academy of Science found alternatives that did not raise health questions, Giles said.

Environmentalists say that alternatives are available and should be used and that in the meantime, more studies should be done.

“We don’t know how they get into bodies,” said Leigh Sims of the Seattle-based Northwest Environment Watch. “We recommend more testing to find out how we are getting exposed to these chemicals.”

Copyright, 2004, Salem Statesman-Journal