Breast Milk In 100% Of NW Women Screened Contains Flame Retardant

"A toxin found in widely used flame retardants has turned up in 100 percent of nursing mothers tested in Washington and other Northwest states.

The study, released yesterday by Seattle-based Northwest Environment Watch, found PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) in all 40 breast-milk samples taken from women in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Montana. PBDEs are found in foam furniture padding and other textiles, as well as the hard plastics used to house electronic equipment, including computers.

"It's troubling that we found it in every sample we tested," said Clark Williams-Derry, research director for Northwest Environment Watch, a non-profit environmental watchdog group. The findings match other studies that show similar levels in women's breast milk nationwide.


EDIT

Researchers are not sure what the health effects of exposure to the chemicals might be. Animal studies suggest they may impair learning and memory, as well as affect fertility, he said. Williams-Derry and others emphasized, however, that the health benefits of breastfeeding for both infants and mothers still outweighed potential risks from exposure to PBDEs in breast milk. "This does not mean women should stop breastfeeding," he said. Environmental activists said the findings supported the need to reduce or ban use of PBDEs in consumer products."

EDIT

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/192899_toxins29.html

it's safe to feed babies chili peppers. :evilgrin:

You all realize, this list is going to grow, don't you?

and I searched garage sales to buy up all the cotton baby stuff I could find.. I even made pajamas for them as they grew out of the baby stuff..

I worried less about my toddlers smoking in bed, than I did about them absorbing chemicals..

This whole thing probably started when some chem producer had a bunch of toxic sludge left over...tried to burn it, and when it wouldn't burn, he decided to soak cloth in it and market it as "safety" baby clothes :(

Sounds bad, but that's actually much lower than the 950,000,000 parts per billion (or so) of another Flame Retardant, DHMO, found in Breast Milk (btw, go to www.dhmo.org to sign a petition to get this deadly compound banned).

Also, are PBDE's really toxins? Anyone? Bueller? UKLabLib? (sp?)

Apparently they haven't been terribly well studied for toxicological effects.

I disapprove of chemophobia as much as the next chemist, but I wish people would stop dismissing potentially valid concerns with dihydrogen monoxide jokes.

With the point being that they're widely known to be ubiquitously distributed throughout the environment - for example the first 20 papers returned from a PUBMED search shows separate studies where they're found in:

Japanese Fur Seals

Biota from East Greenland

Pearl River Sediment

Snow

Adipose Tissue

Killer Whales

Zebra Mussels

Juvenile Carp

Lower Manhattan Window Seals

Breast Milk

It seems like a safe bet that if you want a publication - test something fatty/lipophilic and these compounds are sure to Turn Up (so what's the big deal about the lead article in this thread? it seem to be much ado about nothing and making fun of it was basically like Shooting a Dead Fish in a Barrel - or a moral prerogative, depending on one's perspective).

"Also, are PBDE's really toxins? Anyone? Bueller? UKLabLib? (sp?)"



Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (C₁₂H_(10-n)Br_nO, where n = 1-10).

Chemical poisons... yes.

Toxins.... no. They are too small, and not produced by bacteria, fungi, higher plants or animals.

sorry, but you are SO wrong.

you are correct that they are not produce by bacteria or other animals...so what?

They are anthropomorthic chemicals that are deadly to virtually all forms of life, to various degrees.


s_m

"sorry, but you are SO wrong."

Prove it.

"you are correct that they are not produce by bacteria or other animals...so what?"

The very definition of toxin is:

A protein produced by fungi, bacteria, higher plants and animals that:

1. Has a high molecular weight (several kDa).

2. Is antigenic (it stimulates an immune response).

3. Is poisonous to other organisms.

Unless a substance fulfills all those criteria, it is not a toxin.

Cyanide, Arsenic and PDBE's are all poisonous, but they are not toxins. They are called 'Chemical Poisons'. They are not proteins and they are relatively small and light chemicals (certainly not kDa in weight). Therefore they only fulfill one of the three criteria for being a toxin.

There is also something else to bear in mind when talking about poisons and toxins. Dose. Almost everything is poisonous given the right dosage, this includes water and oxygen, two chemicals which are absolutely necessary for our existence.

"They are anthropomorthic chemicals that are deadly to virtually all forms of life, to various degrees. "

Okay, this is a really weird sentence.

You use the "word" 'anthropomorthic', but that's not listed in merriam-webster or my scientific dictionary. I can only guess that you mean 'anthropomorphic', which makes no sense what so ever as that means 'having the characteristics of a man'.

You also say 'deadly to virtually all forms of life to various degrees'... what exactly are the various degrees of death?

The brominated chemicals in this new study are real. Please don't propogate that urban unreal joke about water (DMHO).

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_ban_dhmo.htm

PBDEs are a very real threat to us. We need to encourage the federal agencies to study this in incinerator emissions (hazardous and solid waste).

s_m

Specifically, do the parts per billion levels detected have any adverse Biological Effects?

Or is the article just another example of Fear Mongering Run AMOK?

For example, the LD50 values for some halogenated are about one thousand times higher than those reported for the breast milk:

Brominated, (inhalation) 2.49-200 mg/L
Chlorinated, (inhalation) 2.25-203 mg/L

http://www.magspecialties.com/magshield-overview.htm

(Note that this information is not from a peer-reviewed study, but is presented by a company developing an alternative to halogenated flame retardants - therefore if anything, they may have an incentive to OVERSTATE their toxicity to make their own product look better in comparison).

Anyhow, according to this website:

http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm

The average person has a steady-state intake and excretion of ~ 1.9 micrograms of uranium per day - I'm sure that's easily detected so I would urge Aspiring Sensationalism-Mongering researchers to start looking for it, publishing peer-reviewed papers, and then hyping their findings to The Media (well, at least here at DU (Democratic Underground) stories about DU (Depleted Uranium) find a willing and gullible reception). Of course, the Health Effects (or complete lack thereof) can be Conveniently Ignored.

especially a little of everything everything lipophilic. thing is, we're making great progress in recent years in being able to detect extremely small quantities of many substances, sometimes down to the parts per trillion level. and if it's out there in your environment, you probably have *some* of it in you.

animal studies have shown that PBB's and PBDE's can have effects on the thyroid hormone levels of developing mammals. however, in a michigan case where a number of people had eaten some PBB and PBDE contaminated food for several months, no such effects were noted, including in children and developing fetuses. in fact, the only health effects noted at all were minor, various, and look a lot like the sorts of complaints you see from placebos. (and every drug ever tested.) nausea, joint pain, etc. none of it able to be attributed to the contaminated food with any certainty, and none of it seems to have had any lasting effect in any case. the one thing that actually stood out, though, is that they may have caused some skin conditions in some people, possibly similar to the chloracne known to be caused by a number of polychlorinated carbon compounds.

they are, however, classified as possible human carcinogens. they are known to lead to an increase in liver tumors in both rats and mice in a two-year feeding study. so they're actually pretty likely to be carcinogenic to some degree.

they're a lot like PCB's in a number of respects, and i wouldn't like the idea of having a lot of it around me. however, PCB's, PBB's, and PBDE's have been banned for a while now (decades) and there are still easily detectable levels in every man, woman, and child on the planet. in other words, this isn't really news. whether that makes you feel better, or worse, is debatable i suppose. i should note that i don't have data handy as to *how much* contamination was in the food in the michigan cases, and that there have been a number of cases of PCB contaminated food causing some pretty serious problems in the past.

the multibillion dollar question, really, is what sort of additive/synergistic effects all these little buggers might have when you add the small quantities of them all up. that's the itch toxicology hasn't even yet begun to scratch.

as anti-inflammatory, anti-asthmatics, and anti-cancer compounds. (Note: It sounds weird, but many cancer drugs are themselves carcinogens in the long term, so the PBDE's are not off the hook on this score.)

For those with access to the scientific literature, a recent paper covers this subject.

J. Med. Chem. 2004, 47, 4060-4065 "Probing the Activity Differences of Simple and Complex Brominated Aryl
Compounds against 15-Soybean, 15-Human, and 12-Human Lipoxygenase"

Those posters who have noted that modern LC/MS/MS (tandem mass spec) makes almost anything detectable (if you're looking for it) puts some perspective on the matter.

Properties of halogenated flame retardants.

Based on knowledge I obtained from previous threads in this DU Forum that radical-inhibiting agents have anti-viral activity, combined with informaton from This Site:

http://www.magspecialties.com/magshield-overview.htm

That describes how these flame retardants act by an anti-radical mechanism, I am working on a copy-written manuscript - to be Freely Distributed on The Internet - that they may offer a Cure for AIDS. I don't have the exact Molecular Mechanism worked out yet, But I'm Pretty Sure that Tertiary Hydrogens will be involved in One Way or Another.

hydrogens. I was referring to 2,2-bis-(3,5-dibromo-4-hydroxyphenyl)propane, and it mono-des-5-bromophenyl analog.

Other halogenated flame retardants, with which I am unfamiliar, may have tertiary hydrogens, but not these two, to which, I think, the original post was referring.

BTW the contamination of foods in the US with PBDE's is discussed in this month's issue of Env. Sci Tech. In this article detection limits are given for food samples at in the 1-2000 pg/g level. The lower range is almost vanishingly small. The primary mode of ingestion seems to be meat and fish products.

The analytical method for the determination of PBDE's in breast milk is given in Anal. Chem., 76 (15), 4508 -4514, 2004.

Were not to be taken literally in any real sense, they were just a vague allusion to this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x9796

Which I spent Much Too Much time reading (some type of Morbid Fascination) - and to convince myself I didn't totally waste my time, I like to may vague references to it from time to time.

(

:-)

Do you think he just meant methyl protons?

methyl protons. The guy was amazing in how he misinterpreted scientific terminology. I'm still not sure if he was putting us on; for a while it was very, very funny.

However, as I'm sure you know, but others may not, there is a profound difference in the reactivity of the third degree proton in isobutane (2-methyl propane) and the primary hydrogens in the methyl groups of the same molecule. Similarly the methylene protons in n-butane have different reactivity than the primary methyl protons in the terminal carbons. If he wasn't putting us on, he may have derived his confusion from this concept.

Looks like we've solved that widespread problem of spontaneously combusting babies that has plagued our nation for so long.