[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Skip to Main Content

Latest News

Advertisement
Advertise Here
June 21, 2010
DOI: 10.1021/cen062410153555

Children's Blood Contains High Levels Of PBDE Fire Retardants

Toxic Substances: Children's levels are higher than their mothers'

Kellyn Betts

  • Print this article
  • Email the editor

Latest News



October 28, 2011

Speedy Homemade-Explosive Detector

Forensic Chemistry: A new method could increase the number of explosives detected by airport screeners.

Solar Panel Makers Cry Foul

Trade: U.S. companies complain of market dumping by China.

Novartis To Cut 2,000 Jobs

Layoffs follow similar moves by Amgen, AstraZeneca.

Nations Break Impasse On Waste

Environment: Ban to halt export of hazardous waste to developing world.

New Leader For Lawrence Livermore

Penrose (Parney) Albright will direct DOE national lab.

Hair Reveals Source Of People's Exposure To Mercury

Toxic Exposure: Mercury isotopes in human hair illuminate dietary and industrial sources.

Why The Long Fat?

Cancer Biochemistry: Mass spectrometry follows the metabolism of very long fatty acids in cancer cells.

Text Size A A

U.S. house dust can expose residents to compounds that may impair fertility and harm neurodevelopment. iStockphoto
Generation Gap Children's PBDE levels — and exposure to dust — tend to be higher than their mothers'.

Confirming a long-held supposition, new research shows that children bear high burdens of polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants in their bodies. In the first study to compare children's uptake with that of their mothers, researchers found that children's PBDE levels are around 2.8 times higher (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es1009357).

For decades, the retardants featured in a wide variety of U.S. consumer goods, including automobiles, airplanes, electronics, and furniture. Adding to concerns about health effects, two recent studies linked elevated PBDEs in children to decreased IQ and other neurodevelopmental impairments (Environ. Health Perspect., DOI: 10.1289/ehp.0901340 and 10.1289/ehp.0901015).

The new study's findings echo the results of the largest study of PBDE uptake in U.S. boys and girls under the age of 12,  which was published in March (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es903240g). That study found PBDE levels in the blood plasma of 94 children to be between 2 and 10 times higher than levels previously found for U.S. adults (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es702451p).

In the new study, 20 children between 18 months and 4 years and their mothers, living in 11 U.S states, provided blood samples for analysis. Coauthor Sonya Lunder, senior analyst for the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, explains that testing mother-child pairs can control for variability between households, diets, and perhaps even genetics.  

Åke Bergman, of Stockholm University's Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, led the team that conducted the analyses for both studies, using gas chromatography with mass spectrometry. He is shocked by one of the March study's findings: that some U.S. children's PBDE levels exceed the concentrations documented in adults with high occupational exposure to PBDEs, including recycling workers and carpet installers.

The median PBDE levels of the children in the March study were more than double the concentrations from the new study's children. The March study involved children living in California, which has the nation's strictest fire retardant laws, explains coauthor Deborah Bennett, of the University of California at Davis' Department of Public Health Sciences. Her study also linked higher PBDE levels with lower maternal education, and the new study's participants tended to have more education.

Although recent findings correlated the PBDE levels of men and women living in the same homes (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es100697q), the children in the new study did not have uptake patterns similar to their mothers'. Children's higher exposure to household dust is likely the basis of their higher PBDE levels, Lunder says.

Bennett's study also linked elevated PBDEs with having been fed infant formula rather than breast milk, with consuming pork and poultry, and with recent purchases of upholstered furniture and mattresses. Although U.S. manufacturers discontinued two PBDE formulations in 2004 and will phase out the third by 2013, PBDE researcher Heather Stapleton of Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment estimates that more than 90% of the U.S. population has PBDE-containing products in their homes.

Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, says that both studies are important for confirming that U.S. children have higher exposure and different exposure routes than adults do. "Newer data showing that PBDE replacements also make their way into household raises the question: do we really need these flame retardants in all of the products where they're being used, like nursing pillows?" she says.

Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2011 American Chemical Society
  • Print this article
  • Email the editor

Services & Tools

ACS Resources

ACS is the leading employment source for recruiting scientific professionals. ACS Careers and C&EN Classifieds provide employers direct access to scientific talent both in print and online. Jobseekers | Employers

» Join ACS

Join more than 161,000 professionals in the chemical sciences world-wide, as a member of the American Chemical Society.
» Join Now!