Scientists wonders if flame retardants killed her cat

BERKELEY, Calif. -- Literally and metaphorically, Arlene Blum has climbed virtually every mountain she has set out to conquer – except one.

It's probably only a matter of time before she scales that one, too, given her ferocious tenacity and never-say-die attitude.

Blum, a biophysical chemist by profession with a doctoral degree from U.C. Berkeley, has taught at Stanford University, Wellesley College, and U. C. Berkeley. She is currently a visiting scholar at Berkeley's Department of Chemistry and executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute.

"I want to use my knowledge and love of chemistry to inform people about these potentially toxic chemicals in their homes," the 63-year-old research scientist said recently, just days after she returned from a trip to China and Japan to try to help prevent those countries from suffering the same fate as the United States when it comes to toxins in household products.

read the entire article here

NBC News Video

I just found this NBC news video from years ago talking about all the toxic chemicals that are accumulating inside people. It seems like we've been going in the wrong direction since this broadcast and still people largely are uninformed about these kinds of issues or don't care. Meanwhile we're all getting cancer, but people just accept it because "everything causes cancer". Its too much work to try to care about cancer.

Chemically sensitive people being ignored from "green" computer strategies

http://www.macopinion.com/index.php/site/more/the_road_warrior_mailbag_june_18_2007/

Here's an excellent discussion about chemical sensitivities and computers.

Chemical Sensitivity Evidently Being Ignored In "Green Computing" Strategies

From AC

Well, as a chemistry/philo lecturer who suffers from asthma and sensitivity to various chemicals, I feel qualified to ask some questions.

1) Can we determine what the correlation level is between outgassing of specific chemicals and your reaction to them?

2) What would be the economic effect of ensuring that 99% of all computing machines have no significant effect on people like us?

I'm afraid that the problem is insurmountable, except for the rich, and I'm not rich enough.

___
Hi AC;

1) It would be a challenge. I know empirically, that at some point the level of off-gassing diminishes to the point where I no longer have physical reactions. I presume that using gas chromatography in a controlled environment over a long period of sporadic sampling, it would be possible to establish the "threshold" safe level - for one individual. Not very practiacl though.

A more useful approach would be to determine which circuit board and other plastic materials are more or less problematical for the chemically-sensitive. For example, while the original WallStreet PowerBooks, which were built in Cork, Ireland, did have an odor when they were new, I didn't react to them. I used a demo 233 MHz "MainStreet" for production for a couple of months in late 1998, and experienced no problems, However, the Taiwan-built 233 MHz WallStreet "PDQ" machine that I purchased in January, 1999 had a completely different circuit board odor, that make me quite ill upon even short exposures. My deduction is that a different chemical formulation was used in the circuit boards of the Taiwanese units. It was 3 1/2 years before I could use the WallStreet as a proper laptop without wearing a charcoal respirator....

read the rest here

Woman ordered to tear down bubble house

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/AllergiesNews/wireStory?id=6073143

Ten hours a day, every day, Elizabeth Feudale-Bowes confines herself to a galvanized-steel-and-porcelain shed outside her house. Inside are a toilet, a metal cabinet, a box spring with the metal coils exposed, and a pile of organic cotton blankets. Aluminum foil covers the window. The place is as austere as a prison cell — but it's also her sanctuary from an outside world that she says makes her violently ill.

She and her husband call the structure "the bubble."

This bubble, though, may be about to burst: A judge has ordered it taken down by the end of the month.

Some of the couple's neighbors in suburban South Whitehall Township complained that the 160-square-foot building is unstable and so unsightly it could drag down their property values. The couple also hooked up electrical, water and sewer service without securing permits.

.... read the rest and watch the video at http://abcnews.go.com/Health/AllergiesNews/wireStory?id=6073143

New car smell makes my friend sick

http://action.publicbroadcasting.net/cartalk/posts/list/21/1617409.page

My friend purchased a 2007 Chevy Malibu last year but the toxic fumes that it is generating make her sick and she can't drive it. So far the car has 2,000 miles on it. She asked the dealer to take it back and give her a year older car with more miles but they want to give her the wholesale price for her car and sell her an older car with more miles for retail which will cost her more $. The dealer will come out ahead on this deal even if they made an even swap, yet they want more money for the older car with more miles than they will give her for her newer low milage car. Does anyone have any advise? Is there anything she can use as leverage to get them to make an even swap?

Mac user complains of chemical poisoning

from the Mac fix it forums

http://www.macfixitforums.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/455671/1

History:
Lost my voice at a wedding in May 2008 and was without voice for four to five weeks.
Do date, I have never regained 100% of my voice.
Around September 1, I first started to notice smoke smell in my office that I could not identify the source of. My wife could never smell it. As the weeks passed the smell started to cause sinus burning and eventually grew worse followed by other syptoms below.

Reaction:
Chest burning and pressure
Throat burning and Tightness
Nasal burning
Eye burning
Hoarseness
Sinus headaches
General fogginess
Extended exposure:
Lung spasming
sore throat
voice loss

It took me weeks to narrow down where the fumes were coming from. I isolated to to my new Imac that I have owned since August of 07.

Installation of over $1800 in purification systems has not helped and my condition is worsening.

I have contacted Apple about the problem, but no response.

I think I am suffering from toxic poisoning and am considering paying another few hundred dollars to a testing company to find out exactly what toxin I have been exposed too so that I know which toxin to detox for.

I understand the the detox procedure is expensive and lengthly if I don't already have cancer from the toxin.

Is anyone else noticing a smokey smell like wood burning around their Imac or other mac computers?

If so, do you also notice a metal taste in your mouth?

Anyone else had a similar problem?

European "Oeko-Tek" textile standard gets tough on flame retardants

http://www.ecotextile.com/news_details.php?id=889

eko-Tex gets tough on flame retardants

ZURICH – [14.11.08] New criteria announced by the Oeko-Tex 100 standard has banned the use of two common types of fabric flame retardants and also tightened up on the use of certain phthalates in interior textiles and outerwear.

Included for the first time in the new test parameters are the commonly used brominated flame retardants decaBDE (decabromodiphenyl ether) and HBCDD (hexabromocyclododecane), which will be inventoried as banned under new Oeko-Tex 100 criteria.

The new revisions to the existing criteria will also control more tightly the use of phthalates in textiles. Phthalates have been used in the T-shirt printing business as a plasticizer for many years and are required to make PVC printed images soft and bendy especially if there are lots of colours layered onto the garment. Typically, this means in children’s wear, for example, where bright, garish large character prints are very common.

However, some phthalates have been classified as toxic by the EU and have been banned in clothing where there could be prolonged contact with the skin, especially in kids clothing. These include the use of the phthalates DEHP (di-(2-ethylhexyl)-phthalate), BBP (butyl benzyl phthalate) and DBP (dibutyl phthalate). Now however, Oeko-Tex has restricted these same substances in outerwear and other textiles mainly because these are counted among the ‘Substances of Very High Concern’ (SVHC) on the official REACh-candidate list.

“In 2009 we will also restrict the use of these chemicals on product classes three and four which include textiles that do not come into direct contact with the skin as well as interior textiles,” Helmut Müller of Oeko-Tex confirmed to Ecotextile News.

Also new are the additional full disintegration of lead and cadmium within the framework of the Oeko-Tex heavy metals tests and the inclusion of perfluorooctane sulphonates (PFOS) and perfluorooctanic acid (PFOA) in the criteria catalogue. This means that the Oeko-Tex 100 product standards go beyond the legal requirements for these substances.

Oeko-Tex is the largest product safety standard for textiles and this year alone it has issued 9,000 certificates. The International Oeko-Tex Association recently held its annual conference of directors of the Oeko-Tex member institutes from 41 countries in South Africa.

Oh yeah, you can trust chemical companies... everything is totally safe, chemical sensitivities are in your head

read article here


Flame-retardants such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are used because they are inexpensive. They are manufactured in huge quantities and are put into furniture and electronic casings, but leach out into the environment and into human bodies. These chemicals have been shown to cause a multitude of toxic effects in human and other animals -- do safer alternatives exist?

A different chemical flame-retardant touted as a safe replacement by its manufacturer Chemtura is Firemaster 550. FM550 is a mixture of chemicals, most of which are trade secrets. Limited toxicological testing has been done on FM550 and it is difficult for non-industry researchers to do independent research. Not all scientists or laypeople are convinced FM550 is safe to use. Furthermore, Chemtura made donations to four California legislators in the year before those legislators changed their votes and vetoed bill AB706, which would have made flame-retardant laws in California stricter.

Another chemical alternative to PBDE flame-retardants is brominated or chlorinated tris, both of which were shown to be potent carcinogens. These chemicals migrate from children’s sleepwear into children’s bodies and were banned from sleepwear in 1977. However, they are still used as flame-retardants in furniture.

“Greener” flame-retardant alternatives exist, too, such as those espoused by proponents of AB706 -- boric salts as additives, for example, or the use of less-flammable materials. However, certain green flame-retardants are very toxic -- hexabromocyclododecane and 1-bromopropane, which are added to “green” building insulator polystyrene, have been shown to cause reproductive toxicity and exert toxic effects on the liver.

warmer house temps mean more pbde exposure, flame retardant halloween costumes dangerous to kids

Fire retardant costumes may pose Halloween danger

Story By: Jamie Smith

Halloween costume shopping is now a bit trickier for parents who are worried about flame retardants.

Nearly all Americans tested have trace levels of the chemicals in their blood, but what impact the compounds has on human health is a question that may not be answered for some time.

So what's a concerned consumer to do in the meantime? For years it has been a Halloween costume safety seal of approval, but now the flame retardant label is triggering concern and confusion amid ongoing research. There is concern over mixed messages about the safety of p-b-d-e's, the chemicals used to treat fabrics and a menu of other consumer products everything from mattresses to cell phones.

"I think caution not alarm what we're really looking for here," said Dr. Randy Wexler of Ohio State Medical Center. Randy Wexler said while it is nearly impossible to completely avoid p-b-d-e's, eating a low-fat, high fiber diet is one way to help reduce exposure. "One of the benefits of the low fat diet is the p-b-d-e's tend to accumulate in animal fat," said Wexler.

Housecleaning, regular vacuuming and dusting can lower the amount of p-b-d-e residue in the home, says Wexler who also recommends keeping an eye on the thermostat in the winter. "Higher heat actually releases these chemicals and increases their concentration," Wexler said.

read the rest of the article here

Is this why Californians are so wacky?

Californians Found to Have High Levels of PBDE Flame-retardants in Bloodstream, House Dust
Leona Scanlan -


PBDE dust concentrations (Source: ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY)
Chemicals and their combustion products cause disease, but legislators still change votes after receiving campaign contributions.

Recent scientific research discovered that people in California have significantly higher levels of brominated flame-retardants in their blood than people who live in other areas of the United States or in Europe. The work published by Dr. Ami R. Zota et al on October 1, 2008 shows that the levels of dangerous polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) chemicals are twice as high in the blood of Californians than in people living in other parts of the United States.

Furthermore, household dust from different American cites and states, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada was also analyzed for PBDE content. The dust in California households had four to ten times more PBDE flame-retardants than other states and 200 times more PBDEs than European dust. California has a unique law that requires furniture to be able to resist fire caused by an open flame for 12 seconds. In order to accomplish this resistance to burning, furniture foam and fabric is treated up to 30% by weight with chemical flame-retardants such as PBDE -- millions of pounds of PBDEs have been used since the California law was enacted in 1975.

Legislation in California that would have replaced Technical Bulletin 117, a 30 year-old state flammability standard for foam in furniture and baby products, failed in August by four votes after three Californian Senators changed their votes from a yes to a no and one Senator went from abstaining to voting no. In the year prior to the vote, these four Democratic Senators -- Leland Yee, Dean Florez, Gloria Negrete McLeod and Ron Calderon -- all received campaign contributions from Chemtura and/or Albemarle, which are flame-retardant and chemical manufacturing companies.

REad the rest of the article here

PBDEs such as octa and deca, used in plastic electronics casings such as for televisions, volatilize out of the plastic and into the air!!!

The Case Against Chemical Flame Retardants
Leona Scanlan - October 31, 2008 8:36 AM


Not needed and highly toxic

Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame-retardants were recently shown to be present at very high levels in the blood and house dust of Californians, possibly because of a unique Californian law that requires furniture to be flame-resistant. These chemicals are garnering much interest as of late because of their potential toxic health effects on humans. What are PBDEs, and why might they be toxic?

There are 209 different PBDE varieties, also called congeners. They are identical in molecular structure except that the number and/or position of bromine atoms in each congener vary. One of these congeners, pentabrominated diphenyl ether (penta), is a mixture containing congeners with four, five, and six bromine atoms. It was used extensively in polyurethane foam.

The manufacture of penta was banned by the European Union in 2003 and by the U.S. in 2004 because of increasing evidence of the congener’s toxicity in humans and other organisms. However, no import restrictions exist on products containing penta. Other countries can manufacture penta, add it to consumer products and sell those products in America.

Penta and other PBDEs accumulate in fatty tissues in animals of all kinds and can be passed from mother to child via breast milk. Even though penta was banned in the U.S, it is still present in homes, animals, humans and the environment because of its prevalence in furniture bought before the ban; its use in imported furniture and its apparent resistance to degradation. Other PBDE varieties such as octa and deca, used in plastic electronics casings such as for televisions, volatilize out of the plastic and into the air. They are banned in several states because they have been shown to cause liver toxicity, disrupt reproductive systems and cause endocrine disruption.

PBDEs sound like bad actors, but once upon a time they were the good guys. They replaced polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) flame-retardants, which were banned by the United States Congress in 1976. PCBs, like PBDEs, are incredibly persistent: 30 years after the ban, PCBs are still found ubiquitously in mammals, human blood and umbilical cords, fish, birds, air, soil, lakes, rivers, house dust, sewage and wastewater sludge.


Read the rest of the article here:

PBDEs mess up hormones

The Chemical Threat at Home
BU researchers track PBDEs from our living rooms to our hormones
By Art Jahnke

read the report here

A report last week that California residents have twice the blood levels of a dangerous chemical cousin of PCBs as do people living in other states and in Europe is the latest revelation in a growing body of evidence of a serious threat to public health.

The report, published in Environmental Science & Technology, found that residents of two California communities had extraordinarily high concentrations of PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), which have been used for 20 years as a fire retardant in items from furniture to televisions to children’s pajamas.

Such findings have been worrying environmental scientists — including those at BU — for years.

Thomas Webster, a School of Public Health associate professor and associate chair of the environmental health department and a nationally recognized expert on PBDEs, remembers learning a decade ago of a Swedish finding that the concentrations of PBDEs in the breast milk of Swedish women were doubling every five years.

“For those of us who follow these things,” Webster says, “it was stunning.”

The Swedish findings were so alarming, he says, that they were the talk of environmental conferences for years. Within weeks, hundreds of scientists in labs all over the world had resolved to figure out exactly what kind of trouble we were in.

Read the rest of the article at BU

Children accumulate PBDEs way more than adults do

Flame Retardant Levels 3 Times Higher in Young Children
Monday, 15 September 2008


It appears that our youngest children - the children most susceptible to harm from pollutants - are more heavily contaminated with flame retardants than we are. According to testing performed by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), toddlers and preschoolers had flame retardant levels on the average three times higher than their mothers.

It was a little frightening to find out the EWG's laboratory analyses of blood samples collected from 20 children and their mothers revelead that the children - between the ages of 18 montsh and 4 years - were an average of 3.2 times higher than their mothers. In total, the EWG reports that 11 different flame retardants were found in the children, and 86% of the thime the flame retardants were present at levels higher in the children than their mothers.

So what are these chemicals?

The chemicals are polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). PBDEs are a class of chemicals that have been and are used as flame retardants. They are added to various consumer products to make them less flammable.

Read the rest of the article here at Smart Mama blog

Ways to decrease PBDE exposure

7 ways to reduce your exposure to PBDE flame retardants

By Amanda
September 18, 2007

PBDEs are everywhere, and there's some evidence connecting them to brain and developmental problems in animals, and possibly even cancer. Exposure to flame retardant chemicals is ubiquitous, but there are things you can do to keep the concentration of PBDEs in your body as low as possible. Here are some ideas pulled from the EWG research archives:


1. Whenever possible choose PBDE-free electronics and furniture. PBDEs should not be in mattresses, couches and other foam products sold in 2005 or later. However they are still put in some new televisions and computer monitors. Our 2006 PBDE-free manufacturer and product list is a good place to start looking for electronics with out them.
2. Avoid contact with decaying or crumbling foam that might contain fire retardants. This includes older vehicle seats, upholstered furniture, foam mattress pads, carpet padding, and kid’s products made of foam.
3. Use a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter vacuum cleaner. These vacuums capture the widest range of particles and are good for reducing lead or allergens in house dust too.
4. Replace couches, stuffed chairs, automobile seats and the like that have exposed foam. If you can't afford to replace them, cover them with sturdy cloth and vacuum around them frequently.
5. Do not reupholster your older foam furniture, especially in homes where children or pregnant women live.
6. Be careful when removing or replacing old carpet, since PBDEs are found in the foam padding beneath carpets. Isolate the work area with plastics and avoid tracking construction dust into the rest of your house. Pull out a HEPA vacuum to clean up when you're finished.
7. The replacement chemicals for PBDEs in foam are not fully tested for their health effects. Buy products made with natural fibers (like cotton and wool) that are naturally fire resistant and may contain fewer chemicals.


the original blog article here

toxic dust on every computer sampled...don't go licking your electronic device

Brominated Flame Retardants in Dust on Computers:
The Case for Safer Chemicals and Better Computer Design

Download Full Report (pdf)
Dowload a High Resolution Version (3.2 MB)


In the first nationwide tests for brominated flame retardants in dust swiped from computers, the Computer Take-Back Campaign (CTBC) and Clean Production Action (CPA) found these neurotoxic chemicals on every computer sampled. The highest levels found were a form of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) called deca-BDE— one of the most widely used fire retardant chemicals in the electronics industry.

These results indicate that there is exposure to certain brominated flame retardants and that computers are likely to be a significant source of deca-BDE exposure in the dust of homes, offices, schools, and businesses. There is evidence that these chemicals could be hazardous to human health. All exposures, no matter how small, are of concern because deca-BDE is a bioaccumulative substance. This means that multiple exposures to low levels of deca-BDE add up over time and build up in the body. There is no safe dose associated with these chemicals. Fortunately, this report finds that computer manufacturers can prevent unnecessary risks by using safer alternatives that meet stringent fire standards in the United States and are less harmful to human health and the environment.

Read the rest of the study here

Do Macs give off Benzene?

Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Computer Chemical Emissions Worse Than Ever In The MacIntel Era
Apple has been under attack for the past several months from the environmental activist group Greenpeace for allegedly being a laggard compared with some of its competitors at getting toxic substances out of its products and implementing "green" manufacture, marketing, and post-sale policies. I'm inclined to think that Apple is being unfairly singled out, but there is one area of environmental concern where they, along with other computer manufacturers are definitely not doing very well at all, and perhaps arguably worse than the were a decade ago.

I'm referring to chemical vapor emissions from computer systems, which have always been a problematical issue for persons like myself and an unfortunately growing cohort of others afflicted with a syndrome known as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), which makes one's relationship with computers a bittersweet affair to say the least. On the one hand, a computer connected to the Internet is a welcome, even indispensable means of communication and a tool for interaction with a chemically-polluted world that many of us are obliged to keep at arm's length.

The other side of the coin for some of us struggling with this illness is that computers contain a lot of plastics, and plastics tend to gas off chemical vapors. Newer computers also tend to run significantly hotter, which amplifies their chemical emissions profile. For example, my PowerBook 5300, which I bought new in 1996 and which was built in Mountain View, California, never gave me any problem in this context from the time I first unpacked it from its box. Nor did the first generation, cacheless PowerBook G3 Series 233 MHz unit I used for a couple of months in end of 1998. That machine was built in Cork, Ireland, but the landscape shifted radically when Apple shifted PowerBook production from Ireland to Taiwan in the late summer of '98. While the second generation G3 Series PowerBooks looked the same, and had only a modest speed bump along with a few engineering changes, the Taiwanese-built WallStreets definitely smelled a lot different, and I soon discovered that the 233 MHz model I bought in January, 1998 made me very ill when I shared airspace with it, a problem that has afflicted every subsequent Apple notebook I've encountered, and the current stable of MacBook Pros and MacBooks are the worst yet, almost certainly due to their torrid operating temperatures.

Indeed, while I strongly suspect that the chemical formulation of materials used in internal circuit boards is a key factor, heat is also a biggie. That delightfully non-smelly old 5300 would barely get lukewarm to the touch even under hard use (and that anaemic 100 MHz 603e CPU always seemed to be hard pressed). The Irish-built "MainStreet" I used had no cache and was a relatively cool runner as well, while my Taiwanese 233 MHz PDQ had 512Kb of L2 cache and ran considerably hotter, although it did have an entirely different smell. My nephew bought an identical machine at the same time, and his father said it would make his eyes water when it was new. The Irish WallStreets did have an odor, but it was very different from the smell of the Taiwanese WallStreets, and I can only surmise that the chemical composition of the case plastics and circuit board phenolics used respectively must have been different.

Read the rest of the article here

being in cars means inhaling flame retardants

Original article here


Science News
March 26, 2008
Spending time in vehicles can increase PBDE exposure
Air inside automobiles made by European, Japanese, and U.S. manufacturers can contain high concentrations of PBDEs.

The air inside automobiles can have very high concentrations of PBDE flame retardants, according to new research in ES&T (DOI: 10.1021/es7030533). The study documents that some cars manufactured as recently as January 2006 contain compounds, or congeners, associated with the lighter-weight Penta-BDE and Octa-BDE formulations, which have been banned from use in Europe since 2004.
To capture air samples from inside automobile passenger cabins, Manolis Mandalakis of the University of Crete constructed a custom-made sampler powered with a large battery (stored in the vehicle's trunk)
EURIPIDES STEPHANOU
To capture air samples from inside automobile passenger cabins, Manolis Mandalakis of the University of Crete constructed a custom-made sampler powered with a large battery (stored in the vehicle's trunk).

Air samples were taken from 33 cars owned by residents of Heraklion, Greece, including vehicles from 15 different European, Japanese, and U.S. manufacturers. Twenty of the cars were made after 2005, and the researchers collected air samples from inside the vehicles from February 2006 to July 2007. The concentrations of PBDEs in the tested cars ranged from 0.4 to 2644 picograms per cubic meter of air (pg/m3), with a median concentration of 201 pg/m3.

Some of the cars manufactured after the ban was in place had measurable or even elevated concentrations of the lighter-weight congeners associated with the banned formulations, says the paper's corresponding author, Euripides Stephanou of the Environmental Chemical Processes Laboratory at the University of Crete (Greece). He and his colleagues conducted additional tests with two cars purchased in January 2006; these tests "clearly indicat[ed] the presence of Penta-BDE in car interiors," according to the paper.

Stephanou's explanation for these findings is that "it is possible that there is a large inventory of PBDE-treated materials manufactured before 2004 that will continue to be used in the construction of vehicles until the end of stock. Alternatively, it is possible that the legislation for the ban of PBDEs has not been activated from all industries yet."

The authors argue that changes in the levels of two key molecules associated with Penta-BDE (BDE-47 and BDE-99) in some cars "could be attributed to the debromination of the highly brominated congeners, including [the main congener in Deca-BDE], BDE-209, to less brominated compounds." Deca-BDE is the only PBDE formulation still in widespread use, and PBDE experts agree that if it is conclusively shown to produce molecules associated with Penta-BDE, nongovernmental organizations are likely to call for it to be banned.

The new research documents significant variations among cars from the same manufacturer. For example, the PBDE concentrations recorded in three Fords ranged from 126 to 2644 pg/m3. Stuart Harrad of the University of Birmingham (U.K.), who also has measured PBDEs in automobile air and found widely varying concentrations, points out that the results highlight the complexity of modern automotive manufacturing. "Changes in market use of brominated flame retardants over time, different manufacturing origins of vehicles, and the impact of other goods, hi-fi, navigation systems, cushions, child seats," are just some of the factors that can affect automobiles' PBDE emissions, he says.

"The main factors governing the PBDE concentrations inside cars are vehicle age and car interior temperature," says the study's first author, Manolis Mandalakis, also of the University of Crete's Environmental Chemical Processes Laboratory. The ages of the vehicles tested varied from 1 month to 5.6 years, and the results suggest "significant outgassing of PBDEs from the interior surfaces of newer cars," Stephanou says.

The Greek researchers probably underestimated the presence of the Deca-BDE congener—which was found at high levels in some cars—because they did not analyze the dust inside the cars, says Myrto Petreas, chief of the environmental chemistry laboratory at the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. Deca-BDE is mainly associated with dust particles. As research recently published in ES&T makes clear, people may take up high concentrations of PBDEs from dust on their hands.

The new paper is the first to document the presence of polybrominated dibenzo-furans (PBDFs) (PDF Size: 47 KB) in automotive air. Mandalakis says that they decided to look for PBDFs and polybrominated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PBDDs) in cars because previous studies have shown that PBDEs can be photooxidized to produce PBDFs and commercial PBDE mixtures are known to contain PBDFs as impurities at microgram per gram levels. Although the researchers expected to find PBDFs in most of the samples, they found detectable PBDFs (61 pg/m3) in only one vehicle. The results suggest that PBDFs and PBDDs "are not important constituents of air in car interiors." However, Mandalakis says, further research is needed to explore the possible photodegradation of PBDEs to PBDFs and PBDDs, as well as the outgassing of PBDF impurities from interior surfaces. —KELLYN BETTS