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PBDE: It's What's For Dinner

Every time you serve your family a meal of fish, meat or dairy products, you’re giving them a small dose of something you never intended: PBDE, a chemical flame retardant.

Though U.S. producers of PBDEs in 2005 voluntarily halted production of most forms of this chemical – which can cause cancer, nervous system damage, reproductive and developmental problems – PBDEs persist for years in animal fats and will likely be present in our food and in our bodies for decades. One type of PBDE is still manufactured and used in the United States.

Several years ago, researchers discovered high levels of PBDEs in the breast milk of American women. How it got there was a mystery, until scientists began to discover the chemical in grocery store foods containing animal fat – particularly in farm-raised fish, meat and dairy products, and also in household dust.

PBDEs are widely used in polyurethane furniture foam and the plastic in computer monitors and televisions. Levels found in the blood samples of U.S. residents are the highest in the world – as much as 70 times higher than those of people living in Germany, Netherlands and Sweden, where the chemicals were phased out in the mid-1990s.

For more information about PBDEs click here or visit OurStolenFuture.org.

For information on how to avoid PBDEs, click here.

For more information on PBDEs in our food, go to CommonDreasm.org or click here.

To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to: www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org, or www.healthandenvironment.org