Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The fight over a bill that would ban a common flame-retarding chemical found to be accumulating in people and wildlife is heating up.
Maine banned two other types of polybrominated diphenyl ethers two years ago, without any apparent threat to public safety. But a bill sponsored by Rep. Hannah Pingree, D-North Haven, that would phase out the most common type of PBDE, decaBDE, or Deca for short, has elicited a round of scaremongering by its manufacturers.
In television ads running across the state, the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum uses a conflagration to frame their message that banning "Deca" is a dangerous gamble.
Yet there's reason to worry that not banning Deca may pose the real risk. Scientists are finding the chemical and its breakdown products in peregrine falcons, Casco Bay seals and people. A 2004 study from the Pacific Northwest found PBDE traces in the breast milk of all 40 women in the sampling group, at 20 to 40 times the levels found in European and Japanese women.
Research at the University of Southern Maine has shown that newborn lab mice exposed to Deca exhibited developmental abnormalities and learning problems.
Manufacturers that use Deca in plastics, electronics, furniture and mattresses are already shifting to phosphorus-based flame retardants.
At an April 5 legislative hearing, the Maine Fire Chiefs and the State Fire Marshal's Office testified that nontoxic alternatives were effective.
Maine's too small to enact a Deca ban by itself But Washington State is poised to pass a bill phasing out Deca. New York, Massachusetts, California, Michigan, and Illinois are also considering bans. The Maine bill ought to be contingent on Deca bans being the national, or at least regional, standard.
Pingree's bill would phase it out by 2012. That 's plenty of time for product manufacturers to adapt.
Reader comments
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Why are we wasting our time with this mamby pamby little substance when there exists the biggest killer pollution EVER! I'm talking about the substance that the US Supreme Court recently ruled was a pollutant, Carbon Dioxide, the stuff we humans exhale.
Did you know it leaves footprints? Just the other day I heard Al Gore bragging about how small his footprints were because he "off-sets" them with trees! Gosh, imagine that! I would think that a man as grossly overweight as he would leave massive footprints, and I haven't yet figured out how trees make him any lighter unless he's swinging from them, which may very well be true.
So, in conclusion, I suggest that everybody in the world just hold their breath. The world will be better place for having done so.
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The state of Washington just passed legislation to phase out Deca. Government and university studies in Maine, Washington, Massachusetts and elsewhere have all concluded that safer alternatives to Deca are widely available, affordable, and equally effective to protect fire safety.
We don't need a poison like Deca to prevent fires. That's why Maine's fire safety organizations support the phase out, and why no manufacturers of products (like TVs or mattresses) are opposing the bill. They can all make fire-safe products without Deca.report abuse
Given the skyrocketing amount of synthetic hormone mimics in our air, water and ground, and the fact that we are downwind from the rest of the nation, the proponents may evolve a mutagen-resistant strain of mutants in every species. Then again, they may not.report abuse
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