[Pharmwaste] Toxics Trade-off - Parts 1, 2 and 3

[DeBiasi,Deborah]

Dec 3, 2006   Part 1:  http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/16155377.htm

Many of the products that make our lives more convenient or safer
contain potentially harmful chemicals that are infiltrating our blood.
Some of these chemicals have been in use for decades, but new technology
now allows scientists to study their impact. Twelve Tarrant County
volunteers agreed to have their blood analyzed, and the tests detected
many different chemicals in the samples.

Dec 4, 2006   Part 2:    http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/16160154.htm

Nowhere is the trade-off between risk and benefit clearer than in the
use of chemical flame retardants. Regulators readily acknowledge that
retardants have saved lives, but more and more experts are asking, At
what cost?

Dec 5, 2006   Part 3:  http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/16167561.htm

Public concern is growing that the chemicals used to make nonstick
cookware are leaching into people and the environment. But scientists
are coming to believe that the bigger culprit is a host of other common
products that use similar substances.

(All three articles are copied below in their entirety)
************* 

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/16155377.htm
 
 Posted on Sun, Dec. 03, 2006  
 
STAR-TELEGRAM SPECIAL REPORT

Toxic trade-off

By SCOTT STREATER
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FIRST OF THREE PARTS 

Kyle Counts slides in his socks across the new hardwood floors of his
North Richland Hills home and jumps into his mom's lap. Kyle, 10, has a
blond Labrador named Titan and a handwritten sign on his bedroom door:
"Keep Out. No girls allowed."

He also has at least 39 toxic chemicals in his body.

His older sister, 16-year-old Kimbra, has a brown Chihuahua, Princess
Tea Cup. The walls of her room are painted pink and orange; clothes are
strewn all over the floor.

She has at least 37 toxic chemicals in her body.

Angelia Counts is home-schooling Kyle. She has a garden out back where
she grows tomatoes, herbs and peppers. Her husband, John, is a
telecommunications manager who works mostly from their quaint
three-bedroom house on a leafy cul-de-sac.

Each parent has at least 47 toxic chemicals coursing through his or her
blood.

And scientists say they're just like you.

The four members of the Counts family are among 12 Tarrant County
residents who volunteered for a Star-Telegram research project in which
their blood was analyzed for more than 80 of the many man-made chemicals
in products widely used in homes and offices.

The goal: Determine how many of those substances are in their blood.

The Star-Telegram study found trace amounts of dozens of the chemicals
in everyone tested.

This is a story about a trade-off: Products that make our everyday lives
convenient, comfortable and safe contain potentially harmful chemicals
that can remain in the body for decades.

It's a story about the flame retardants in many car seat cushions,
computer wires and the dust on your desk.

It's about the pesticides in the imported fruits and vegetables you eat.

It's about the coatings often found in your microwave popcorn bags and
fast-food wrappers, and the stain-resistant fibers in your carpet.

"Everybody in the U.S. has many chemicals in them," said Dr. Arnold
Schecter, a public-health physician and researcher at the University of
Texas School of Public Health in Dallas, who helped guide the paper's
effort.

But what does that mean?

The amount of any given chemical found in the Star-Telegram study was
small. But their presence highlights what health experts fear is an
emerging threat, spurred by an ever-increasing use of chemicals.

In the 12 volunteers, the Star-Telegram study found:

Forty-nine chemicals known to cause or suspected of causing cancer.

At least 50 chemicals known to cause or suspected of causing
developmental and neurological disorders, including birth defects and
behavioral problems.

Trace amounts of 14 dioxins and related compounds. Dioxins are the most
toxic substance regulated by the federal Environmental Protection
Agency.

More than a dozen flame retardants, including one type that's common in
Europe but had never before been found in the blood of anyone living in
the United States.

The overall results mirror those of national studies.

None of the chemicals were at levels considered to be an immediate
health concern. But they build up in the body and the environment.

Health experts aren't sure how each chemical individually affects
people's health, to say nothing of the mixture of the numerous
substances.

"If you knew the answer, you'd be way ahead of the game," said Larry
Needham, a research chemist at the federal Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention's environmental health lab in Atlanta.

But in general, experts believe that the mixture that builds up can
weaken the body's ability to fight off illnesses. At high enough levels,
some of the chemicals have been shown to cause cancer and birth defects.
Some are also known or suspected to cause developmental problems.

"There is a difficulty in understanding -- what does the soup of
chemicals mean?" asked Dr. Nachman Brautbar, a medical toxicologist at
the University of Southern California's School of Medicine. "Is it good
for the body? Probably not."

Banned but not gone

Many of the chemicals the Star-Telegram measured have long been banned
from production and use. They include the pesticide DDT, a
cancer-causing agent, as well as an extremely dangerous form of dioxin
that was found in the Vietnam War-era defoliant Agent Orange.

Both were found in the study participants, even in some who hadn't been
born when the chemicals were banned in the United States.

That's because they take many years to break down. PCBs, for example,
were banned in the U.S. in 1977. But "about 70 percent of what was ever
made is still out there," said Linda Birnbaum, an EPA toxicologist at
Research Triangle Park in North Carolina and a leading expert on the
health effects of toxic substances.

That's why, when researchers look at the growing levels of other
persistent toxic chemicals, they fear they'll encounter the same type of
problems they've battled for years with dioxins, PCBs and pesticides.

Other chemicals the Star-Telegram measured aren't subject to much
regulation. They include the controversial compound used to make
DuPont's popular Teflon nonstick cookware, as well as the flame
retardants in many mattresses and television wires.

They were found in study participants.

Questions about the potential health effects of those chemicals have
sparked an increasingly contentious debate over whether the government
should do more to protect people. The outcome could have a huge impact.
Those chemicals are used to make products that generate billions of
dollars a year for U.S. manufacturers. Evidence of harm could force
companies to change how they make many common household items and open
them up to multimillion-dollar lawsuits.

Some chemical manufacturers are taking precautionary measures. In the
last six years, companies including DuPont and 3M have voluntarily
withdrawn or committed to phase out and replace the chemical compounds
used in nonstick pans, stain-resistant carpets and flame retardants.

Industry officials, however, say the concentrations of chemicals
measured by the Star-Telegram study and others are so low that they're
harmless.

An example: perfluorooctanoic acid, used to make Teflon cookware. Of the
study participants, John Counts had the most: 5 parts per billion.

Some of the amounts found are so small that the technology to detect
them did not exist until about 15 years ago.

"These are tiny levels of compounds which now suddenly we can detect,"
said Sarah Brozena, a senior director at the American Chemistry Council,
the industry trade association. "Finding a chemical in our bodies is
merely finding evidence of an exposure. It doesn't tell you anything
about the source of the exposure or how big the exposure was that caused
it. And it especially doesn't tell you anything about what risk it might
pose at that level."

Brozena and others say having low levels of toxic chemicals in your body
is part of the trade-off of being part of such a technologically
advanced society with a standard of living that would have seemed
impossible a century ago.

"Humans have never had it so good," said Roger Meiners, an economics and
law professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, who says the
federal government overregulates environmental pollutants. "I tend to
think we ought to be a little bit careful before we start saying, 'Oh,
everything we ingest is horrible, and it's killing us.' We're living
longer and longer, so overall it seems to be working pretty well."

In many ways, the Counts family agrees.

Angelia Counts said she's not surprised that pesticides were found in
their blood. The family eats tomatoes her father grows, which he sprays
with pesticides.

They also eat a lot of fast food, Angelia says; many of the wrappers for
burgers and chicken sandwiches have a nonstick coating that contains
perfluorooctanoic acid. And this year, the family ripped up the carpet
that had been in the house since they bought it, 11 years ago. John
Counts believes that the stain-resistant chemicals in the carpet could
be the source of the perfluorooctane sulfonate found in him and the rest
of his family.

John also sprays his camping gear and shoes using an old can of
water-repellent spray that contains a chemical found in his blood. He
doesn't regret pulling up the carpet. And he has no plans to stop
spraying his camping gear.

"It keeps my hiking boots from getting soaked while I'm hiking in the
woods," he says. "It's worth it to me to keep my feet dry."

Rising fast

Nowhere is the issue of trade-off more obvious than with polybrominated
diphenyl ethers -- flame retardants -- that are found in virtually every
U.S. resident at levels that are far and away the highest in the world.
This type of flame retardant is commonly found in the air and water, and
has been measured in lake sediments, fish and other wildlife worldwide.

Animal studies have shown that at high-enough levels, the chemicals in
flame retardants harm the nervous system and cause reproductive problems
including spontaneous abortions.

They also save lives.

"Certainly there would be a much higher fire risk without flame
retardants," said Ron Hites, a chemist in the School of Public and
Environmental Affairs at Indiana University who has studied the spread
of flame retardants in the environment.

"On the other hand, you'd rather not eat fish in which these compounds
are in there. So, you know, you're living in a modern world, there's
chemicals all around us. You've got to pick and choose the risks that
you want to take and the risks that you don't want to take."

The problem is that not enough research has been done to know whether
the levels of flame retardants and other persistent toxic chemicals
found in people are safe.

But what health officials do know concerns them.

They know that once those chemicals get into the body, no pill or
treatment can remove them. They can be passed to a fetus in the womb
through the placenta and to a baby through the mother's milk.

They know that levels of flame retardants and nonstick chemicals
measured in people, though low, are rising so quickly that they are now
nearing concentrations that have been shown to cause harm in animals.

What scientists don't know is the exact levels at which health problems
begin in humans.

"If they're causing health effects, they're not low levels," said Dr.
Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health and a former assistant administrator in the EPA's Office
of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances.

That's enough to concern Charlotte Landon, 59, of Fort Worth, in whose
blood 47 toxic chemicals were detected.

"I'm not an environmentalist," Landon said, "but it makes me a little
concerned a lot has been overlooked, and we have not been educated as to
all the hidden chemicals and exposures that are going on around us every
day, and we have no idea it's happening."

Other study participants aren't so concerned.

The study found 39 toxic chemicals in the blood of Lamar Calvert, 35, of
Euless.

Does it bother him?

"Not really, because I wouldn't know any way of getting it out or
getting rid of it," he said. "The only way not to be toxic would be
living in a bubble."

Photography by JOYCE MARSHALL

The series 

Today

Many of the products that make our lives more convenient or safer
contain potentially harmful chemicals that are infiltrating our blood.
Some of these chemicals have been in use for decades, but new technology
now allows scientists to study their impact. Twelve Tarrant County
volunteers agreed to have their blood analyzed, and the tests detected
many different chemicals in the samples.

COMING Monday

Nowhere is the trade-off between risk and benefit clearer than in the
use of chemical flame retardants. Regulators readily acknowledge that
retardants have saved lives, but more and more experts are asking, At
what cost?

COMING Tuesday

Public concern is growing that the chemicals used to make nonstick
cookware are leaching into people and the environment. But scientists
are coming to believe that the bigger culprit is a host of other common
products that use similar substances.

About this project 

National studies indicate that Americans have a chemical "body burden,"
the result of living in a society dependent on products created with a
host of man-made substances. The Star-Telegram wanted to see how some
Tarrant County residents measure up.

With the help of Lone Star Screening of Euless, the Star-Telegram
located 12 volunteers willing to have blood drawn for analysis. Johnette
van Eeden, Lone Star's president, and her staff drew the blood samples.

Dr. Arnold Schecter, an environmental-sciences professor and
public-health physician at the University of Texas School of Public
Health in Dallas, helped the paper outline the project's parameters,
including which chemicals to test. ERGO laboratories in Hamburg,
Germany, analyzed the samples under the supervision of Olaf Papke, the
lab's managing director.

The study was not meant to be comprehensive. A sampling of 12
individuals is not enough to be representative of Tarrant County's 1.7
million residents.

Volunteers received nominal compensation for transportation costs to
have their blood drawn. Money also went to draw and analyze blood. In
return for Schecter's assistance, the Star-Telegram is making a donation
for his future research.

Scott Streater, who wrote the project, is the Star-Telegram's
environmental reporter. Joyce Marshall took the photographs. Also
contributing were designer Jason Crane, graphic artist Jim Atherton,
copy editor Jay Goldin, research assistant Adam Barth and multimedia
producers Jen Friedberg and Alex Russ. Mark Horvit edited the project.

For questions or comments, contact Streater at 817-390-7657 or
sstreater at star- telegram.com, or Horvit at 817-390-7087 or mhorvit at star-
telegram.com
 


*********************

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/16160154.htm

 
 Posted on Mon, Dec. 04, 2006  
 
TOXIC TRADE-OFF

Flame retardant risk stokes debate

By SCOTT STREATER
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

SECOND OF THREE PARTS

Charlotte Landon is meticulous about avoiding toxic chemicals.

The 59-year-old retired Fort Worth nurse has spent hours researching the
issue. She can talk at length about lead in dishes manufactured in
China, and she worries about whether milk contains formaldehyde -- she
says she can detect the chemical aftertaste.

"I'm at the store reading all of the labels closely," she says,
pretending to closely inspect an imaginary can. "Nope, not buying that."

But there's at least one group of chemicals she didn't even realize she
needed to think about.

Landon has numerous chemical flame retardants in her blood, a
Star-Telegram research project found. Those chemicals are used
extensively in a host of household products and are commonly found in
food and dust.

Working with a consultant from the University of Texas School of Public
Health in Dallas, the Star-Telegram paid to have blood samples from 12
Tarrant County residents analyzed. The samples were tested for 83 toxic
chemicals, including 15 of the most common flame retardants, called
polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs. The analysis found low levels
of 14 of them in the study participants.

No one is sure what levels in the body might lead to health problems.
But animal studies have found that the compounds can cause reproductive
and neurological problems, disrupt hormonal balance and increase the
risk of certain types of cancers.

Once in the body, they stay there for years.

Landon had the highest levels among the study participants, though the
concentrations were consistent with results from a growing number of
national studies.

"You think you purchase a product, you think it's safe, and you have no
idea," Landon said. "We haven't been educated enough."

Not staying put

Nowhere are brominated chemical flame retardants more widely used than
in the United States.

They're in the seat cushions of chairs in many homes, cars and
airplanes. They're found in carpet padding, TV and computer wire
insulation, mattress stuffing, waterproof jackets and Styrofoam.

They are put into these products for a good reason: They help prevent
the spread of fires.

"It's important to always remember with flame retardants, they have a
purpose," said Linda Birnbaum, a toxicologist at the federal
Environmental Protection Agency and an expert on toxic chemical effects.
"They're there to prevent fires, and they do that."

But the compounds don't stay in the seat cushions and computer wires.
Instead, they appear to be leaching into the environment.

"They're in everything," said Ron Hites, a chemist at the School of
Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University who has
extensively researched flame retardants. "They're in people, fish,
sediment, polar bears, herring gull eggs. And they're also relatively
stable in the environment. They don't degrade very fast."

Scientists have found that PBDEs can pass from a woman to her baby
through breast milk. One study found PBDEs in the breast milk of 47
women in Dallas and Austin.

It's also been shown that they can travel great distances through the
air and water.

In January, Canadian researchers found flame retardants in the blood and
fatty tissues of polar bears in the Arctic, one of the world's most
desolate places. The PBDEs, according to a study published in the
journal Environmental Science and Technology, were likely carried from
the continental United States by winds and ocean currents.

The Star-Telegram analysis found what may be more evidence of that
migration.

A flame retardant used predominantly in England and Ireland -- but never
before tested for in the blood of U.S. residents -- was found in all 12
volunteers at levels higher than the averages measured in most
Europeans. That flame retardant -- hexabromocyclododecane -- is used in
limited amounts in the United States.

"I'm surprised," said Larry Needham, a research chemist in the federal
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's environmental health
laboratory in Atlanta.

The chemical industry, however, says that just because flame retardants
are being found in people, that does not mean any harm is being done.

"I think that it is overblown," said John Kyte, North American program
director for the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum, an industry
trade group that represents PBDE manufacturers.

"We're evolving toward this detection-equals-danger mentality, when in
science it always has been, and it still is, the dose determines the
danger. And if you don't have the dose at a certain level, you don't
have the danger," Kyte said. "But what we're doing is evolving to sort
of a public perception that the presence of something alone equals a
danger. And that's just not common sense, and it's not good science."

Still, U.S. manufacturers have voluntarily pulled two toxic PBDEs from
production.

And many other companies that sell products containing brominated flame
retardants have found alternatives.

IKEA, the Sweden-based home furnishings chain, has eliminated PBDEs in
furniture, mattresses and carpets, and Volvo has prohibited the use of
several flame retardants in its vehicles. Dell and IBM no longer use
PBDEs in their computers, and Sony has committed to replace them with an
alternative.

But even if all companies stopped manufacturing flame retardants today,
it would be decades before they disappeared.

"The problem is that the stuff is still everywhere," said Tom Webster,
an epidemiologist at the Boston University School of Public Health.
"It's all over the place. It's in your home, and it's in my office. It's
being thrown out into landfills. It's not like this stuff is going to go
away, even though maybe we do not manufacture it anymore. So there's
still a huge reservoir of exposure."

Unexpected difference

It's not uncommon for relatives living under one roof to have very
different levels of flame retardants, and medical researchers don't know
why.

Consider Brianna and Desiree Koehn of Arlington.

Both participated in the Star-Telegram study. Both are intelligent and
athletic and eat a relatively healthy diet.

That's where the similarities end.

Brianna, 21, is pencil-thin and extremely careful about what she eats.
Her favorite breakfast: organic eggs cooked in flaxseed oil.

Her doctor told her last year that she needed more fiber and less meat.
She estimates that 80 percent of her meals are salads.

"I have to eat right, or I just get sick," she says.

Sister Desiree, 18, isn't nearly as conscientious about what she eats.
She hates the vegetarian dishes her sister cooks, and she likes teasing
her about it.

"I eat what I want," she says. "I never get sick."

"Not yet," Brianna says.

"I never will," Desiree shoots back, laughing.

But the levels of flame retardants measured in their blood don't seem to
reflect their lifestyles.

Brianna's blood has 154 parts per billion of PBDEs.

Desiree's: 42 parts per billion.

How can two sisters less than three years apart in age and living in the
same house have such different levels of flame retardants in their
blood?

Brianna and Desiree Koehn don't know.

Neither does Dr. Arnold Schecter, a public-health physician at the
University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas who has led
groundbreaking research on flame retardant exposures in people.

He said the disparity between the two is "kind of what we've been seeing
on a population-wide basis -- big variations."

It could be due to any number of factors, such as metabolism, how long
people are outside the home and where they work, he said.

What is clear is that levels of chemical flame retardants in people are
rising sharply. They have been since widespread use began, in the 1970s.

Schecter led a 2005 study that analyzed archived blood samples and found
that levels of PBDEs increased dramatically between 1973 and 2003.

Schecter is working with the CDC on a much broader survey of flame
retardant levels in Americans, with the results expected to be released
early next year.

But studies by Schecter and others have already found that brominated
flame retardant levels in U.S. residents are far and away the highest
recorded.

"We in America have managed to pollute ourselves with these types of
flame retardants worse than anywhere in the world," Schecter said.

Food and dust

A growing body of evidence indicates that flame retardants are getting
into the environment from a number of common household products.

The bigger mystery: How do they get into people?

Some obvious suspects have started to emerge.

Food is one. Schecter led a 2004 study in which researchers found flame
retardants in the fatty tissues of fish, meat and dairy products being
sold by three major supermarket chains in Dallas. Retardants were also
measured in ice cream, eggs, milk and butter.

But the concentrations in food alone cannot explain the widespread level
of flame retardants in people, Schecter and Birnbaum, the EPA
toxicologist, concluded in a study published in October.

They pointed to another major source: dust.

In early 2005, Schecter found PBDEs in dust samples from computer
monitors and carpets.

Other researchers like Webster, the Boston University epidemiologist,
have reported similar results, pointing to a strong relationship between
the levels of PBDEs in people and the levels in house and office dust.

"It could be you're breathing it in," Webster said. "It could be the
dust is getting on your skin and you're absorbing it that way, or you're
eating the dust by accident. You know, you don't wash your hands before
eating."

Health experts fear that children are the most susceptible.

"Kids have a much higher exposure than adults because they're down in
the dust a lot more," Webster said. "If you have little kids, you know
how they stick everything in their mouths."

The state of Washington is so concerned about flame retardants that its
Health Department has advised residents to vacuum their homes and
offices frequently and wash their hands after cleaning to avoid exposure
to dust laced with PBDEs.

In the Star-Telegram study, Lamar Calvert of Euless had some of the
highest levels of flame retardants in his blood.

Calvert, 35, said he believes he was exposed while working in dusty
environments as a hotel clerk. He said it also has something to do with
his favorite pastime -- watching TV.

"When I have some spare time that's where I am," he said. "Lounging
around the house."

A solution -- or not

Government regulators thought they'd found the solution to the problem.

In December 2004, Great Lakes Chemical Corp., now Chemtura Corp.,
voluntarily agreed to withdraw two of the three most widely used PBDEs.

In the first, designated penta, most molecules have five atoms of
bromine each; in the second, designated octa, most molecules have eight
atoms of bromine each.

Great Lakes was the only U.S. company that made them. The European Union
has already banned them.

Of lesser concern was deca PBDE, which is in wide-scale use in the
United States. Though deca, in which most molecules have 10 atoms of
bromine each, has been found to cause cancer in laboratory rats exposed
to very high levels, it is believed to be less toxic and less persistent
than the other two.

But banning the two more toxic mixtures may not work out as planned.

New evidence suggests that in the body and environment, the deca PBDE
degrades into the more toxic penta and octa forms.

If so, withdrawing the octa and penta forms may not help much.

The issue is "one of the big controversies in the field right now,"
Webster said.

Low levels of penta and octa PBDEs were found in the blood of all
Star-Telegram study participants.

"The industry had been saying for a long time that deca was stable, it
didn't break down, it didn't bioaccumulate, it didn't do anything,"
Webster said. "And that's all turned out to be wrong."

So what can be done?

Few dispute that some type of flame retardant is needed. And there are
alternatives to the ones in widespread use today.

They include flame retardants that use chlorine instead of bromine to
impede the chemical reaction that produces fire. They are already used
in some plastics but are more costly.

The health and environmental effects of such flame retardants have not
been studied nearly as much as the effects of PBDEs.

Kyte, the bromine trade industry official, says the deca mixture in
widespread use today "is the most studied flame retardant available."

The fact that the alternatives have not been studied extensively "raises
issues about their potential environmental or health impacts," he said.

"We would prefer that our product not be found in the environment," he
said. "But it's got to be kept in perspective."

POLYBROMINATED DIPHENYL ETHERS

What are they? Synthetic chemicals that help prevent the spread of fire
by impeding the chemical reaction that causes it. PBDEs are commonly
found in polyurethane foam products, such as the padding in furniture,
as well as in textiles, televisions and computers. But they can also be
found in food and household dust. They have been measured in virtually
every American who has been tested.

What are the possible health effects? The main concern is that PBDEs
build up in the body for long periods of time. Data on how PBDEs affect
humans are scarce, and no one knows what levels trigger health problems.
But animal studies have shown that PBDEs harm the nervous system and
alter hormonal functions and the development of reproductive organs.
Industry officials say the levels in people and the environment are too
low to cause problems.

SOURCES: Bromine Science and Environmental Forum, federal Agency for
Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

PHASEOUT

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers used in chemical flame retardants are
subject to little federal regulation. But a number of companies are
still removing or committing to remove those substances from their
products in favor of others that are not suspected of causing harm.
Those companies include makers of furniture, electronics, automobiles
and mattresses. Clean Production Action, a Spring Brook, N.Y.-based
nonprofit group that seeks to eliminate the use of toxic chemicals from
common products, has compiled a list of companies that have stopped
using or committed to phase out brominated flame retardants. The full
list is on the group's Web site, http://safer-products.org Among the
companies:

Shaw Inc.: The world's largest carpet manufacturer is replacing all
persistent toxins used in its products, including flame retardants.

Sony Corp.: The Tokyo-based electronics manufacturer has committed to
replacing brominated flame retardants used in televisions and other
electronic equipment.

Ford Motor Co.: The automobile giant has replaced all flame retardants
in vehicle interiors, where most people would come into contact with
them. So has Volvo.

Dell: The Austin-based computer maker has replaced brominated flame
retardants in its desktop computers and other products that use plastic.

Serta: The mattress maker has replaced brominated flame retardants in
its mattresses.

Herman Miller: The furniture giant has replaced brominated flame
retardants in its residential and commercial furniture.

IKEA: The Sweden-based home furnishing chain no longer sells furniture,
mattresses or carpet that contains brominated flame retardants.

LAMAR CALVERT

Lamar Calvert pounds the keyboard. The tiny chapel in the middle of a
modest Dallas neighborhood next to Love Field erupts in an explosion of
music, loud enough to vibrate the church programs in the first few rows.

"Mag-ni-fy the Lord," Calvert belts out, lifting himself off the seat
cushion as the choir members, recognizing the song, repeat the chorus in
unison. Most of the 30 or so people in the chapel stand up, clap their
hands and sing, "Bless-ed be, the rock."

Calvert, 35, of Euless, is passionate about music. After the New
Jerusalem service, which runs two hours, he'll drive around the corner
to the Greater North Park Church of God and Christ to help with its
music ministry. He's not paid to do it; he just likes it.

Calvert believes that the chemicals that the Star-Telegram study found
in his bloodstream are part of the price he pays for living and working
in his community. He doesn't think there's anything he can do to avoid
them. His focus is not on his health but on his music.

"This is my ministry," he says. "This is what I was called to do."

Q&A | EPA TOXICOLOGIST

Linda Birnbaum, a toxicologist at the federal Environmental Protection
Agency, has been involved in research on dioxins, pesticides and many
other toxic chemicals. She is an expert on polybrominated diphenyl
ethers, or PBDEs, the most commonly used chemical flame retardants. She
has extensively researched, mostly using animal testing, the possible
health effects of flame retardants.

The following is an edited version of an interview with Birnbaum.

Many say flame retardants are ubiquitous in our environment. How
widespread are they?

Very, very. It's important to always remember with flame retardants they
have a purpose. They're there to prevent fires, and they do that, so
that there's a real issue of what's the risk-benefit kind of ratio here.
But what we're finding with these brominated flame retardants -- whose
use has increased dramatically over the past 20 years -- what we're
finding is that they are escaping from their products. Either at the
point of making the product or during the product's lifetime or at the
end of its lifetime, when it's recycled. And we're finding it throughout
the world. So that we're finding many of these flame retardants in the
Arctic, in totally pristine areas. In polar bears and in fish and in
ice. So it's traveling.

Two forms of PBDEs have voluntarily been withdrawn, but because they're
so persistent in the environment, we're still going to see them for
years to come, right?

That's correct. Now there is some encouragement, like in Sweden. When
they stopped using [PBDEs] in about 1990 ... levels continued to rise
for a number of years. But then they appeared to have peaked and are now
declining. In time, the levels will decline.

What's the main route of exposure? Food? Seat cushions? Dust? All of the
above?

The answer is, we're not sure. We don't think food is the major route.
We think it is a route, but not the major route. I just published a
paper that if you estimate what's in food and how much food people eat
and what kinds of food, it can't explain the levels we're finding in the
American population. We think that dust is a major source. House dust
and office dust. But how it's getting into house dust and office dust,
we're not sure. If you take a piece of tissue paper and you wipe your
computer screen, and it's a computer screen or a computer that was made
and had these chemicals in them, and you had it analyzed, you'll find it
coming out in the wipes. So these things are getting out of our consumer
products. We don't understand yet, and part of it is we just don't have
enough studies that have been done carefully, to understand why your
dust is not as contaminated as my dust. People have tried to say, "Well
how many computers or how many hair dryers or how many television sets
and how many mattresses and how many sofas do you have?" And we haven't
been able to come up with any kind of relationship yet. Now the state of
Washington has actually gone ahead and suggested to people that in order
to reduce their exposure they should vacuum frequently. Whether that's
actually helpful or not, we don't really know.

There's this whole issue of chemical body burden. Some say this mixture
of chemicals we carry in our bodies is probably causing adverse health
effects. Some say there's no proof of that. Is this a legitimate issue,
a legitimate concern?

Yes, it's a legitimate issue. We don't know what it means. Yes, there
are many chemicals that can be measured in people's bodies. Whether this
is a problem or not we really don't know. So therefore, it is a
legitimate issue.

Exposure to these chemicals, then, could affect one person but not the
next, depending on sensitivity?

There can certainly be differences in sensitivity or susceptibility. But
in many cases we don't know what levels would be a problem. ... It's not
just one chemical you have. You might have hundreds of chemicals. And of
course those chemicals are superimposed upon your own natural physiology
and hormonal profile and everything else.

-- Scott Streater

ABOUT THIS PROJECT 

Twelve Tarrant County residents volunteered to have their blood tested
for 83 toxic chemicals, many of which are used in common household and
office products.

The Star-Telegram worked with Dr. Arnold Schecter, an
environmental-sciences professor and public-health physician at the
University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas. Blood samples
were drawn at Lone Star Screening in Euless and sent to ERGO
laboratories in Hamburg, Germany.

For questions or comments, contact Scott Streater at 817-390-7657 or
sstreater at star-telegram.com, or Mark Horvit at 817-390-7087 or
mhorvit at star-telegram.com.

Coming Tuesday: Public concern is growing that the chemicals used to
make nonstick cookware are leaching into people and the environment. But
scientists are coming to believe that the bigger culprit is a host of
other common products that use similar substances.

On the Web: For all the stories and additional graphics and video, go to
www.star-telegram.com.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
Scott Streater, 817-390-7657 sstreater at star-telegram.com  

***************
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/16167561.htm
Posted on Tue, Dec. 05, 2006  
 
TOXIC TRADE-OFF

Nonstick chemicals may pose a threat

LAST OF THREE PARTS

By SCOTT STREATER
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

They're found in floor waxes and shampoos. They're used in many
fast-food wrappers and microwave popcorn bags. They coat pizza boxes,
carpets and frying pans.

And they're in people.

They're perfluorochemicals. While you may not recognize the word, you
probably know the brand names: Teflon, Stainmaster, Gore-Tex.

You are exposed to those compounds every day, and there is mounting
concern that they may cause a variety of health problems. A panel of
scientists selected by the Environmental Protection Agency concluded
this year that a perfluorochemical used in nonstick cookware is a likely
cancer-causing agent.

As is the case with many of the 82,000 chemicals in commercial use
today, health officials aren't sure what levels of perfluorochemicals in
the body can cause health problems. Researchers aren't even sure of the
main source of human exposure: household products or manufacturing
plants.

They know only that perfluorochemicals remain in the environment and the
body for a long time.

"These compounds are used in an unbelievable number of products that we
come in contact with every day," said Kurunthachalam Kannan, a research
scientist at the New York State Department of Health, in Albany, who has
extensively researched the compounds.

Scientists have found that U.S. residents have the world's highest
levels of perfluorochemicals in their bodies.

Kannan says it takes the body at least eight years to rid itself of the
chemicals.

That's one reason 3M agreed six years ago to stop making and using
perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, to make Scotchgard. The company's
own research found that the compound was showing up in low doses in
people and wildlife worldwide.

Today, a different chemical is used in the popular stain- and water
repellent.

"We didn't want to be a contributing source of these materials in the
environment," said Bill Nelson, a 3M spokesman. He said the company's
decision does not mean that there is evidence that the chemicals in the
products cause harm.

In January, DuPont and other companies volunteered to phase out the use
of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, used in Teflon nonstick cookware and
some microwave popcorn bags.

But researchers say there's evidence that both compounds persist in the
environment -- perhaps forever. That means people could be exposed for
an untold amount of time.

A Star-Telegram research project tested the blood of 12 volunteers for a
host of chemicals, and PFOS was found in all 12; PFOA was found in six.

The concentrations were tiny -- in the parts-per-billion range. One part
per billion is equivalent to one kernel of corn in a 45-foot silo filled
to the brim. Yet one study published last year in the peer-reviewed
journal Toxicological Sciences found that PFOA hurt the livers of
laboratory rats at low levels.

The highest level of PFOA found in any of the Star-Telegram study
participants was 5 parts per billion.

Zoraida Rodriguez, 33, had one of the lowest levels of
perfluorochemicals. And she had no measured level of PFOA.

One possible reason, says Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican native, is that she
has never used nonstick cookware. Her mother always cooked with
stainless steel pans, which were common where she grew up.

But not here. Rodriguez, who lives in Burleson, said that she's seen
news reports about Teflon products and the health concerns associated
with them and that she tries to avoid them. She's just not sure that's
possible.

"You go to a restaurant, and they may cook with it," she said. "I go to
eat at my sister-in-law's. I go out of town. I eat out. You never know."

DuPont's troubles

The chemical that makes nonstick cookware slick is in the national
spotlight now.

DuPont, based in Wilmington, Del., is North America's only producer of
PFOA and faces numerous lawsuits tied to plants that produce the
compound.

In 2004, DuPont agreed to pay up to $343 million to settle a
class-action suit filed by Ohio and West Virginia residents who said
their water supplies had been contaminated with PFOA from DuPont's
Parkersburg, W.Va., plant. The settlement requires the company to spend
up to $70 million for medical evaluations for tens of thousands of
people who drank contaminated water.

A similar federal lawsuit was filed in April by New Jersey residents who
claim that DuPont's plant in Salem County, N.J., contaminated drinking
water supplies there and that the company knew of the contamination for
years. The PFOA levels in those cases are much higher than what would be
expected from products.

Texas has no industrial plants that are known to emit PFOA.

DuPont faces a federal class-action lawsuit brought by residents in 20
states and the District of Columbia who say the company failed to make
public possible health risks associated with the use of its nonstick
pots and pans. The lawsuit, filed in May in Iowa, alleges DuPont knew
its Teflon cookware releases PFOA and other toxic gases into the air
when heated.

DuPont denies the allegation.

Last year, the EPA fined DuPont $10.25 million -- the largest civil
penalty in the agency's 36-year history -- for failing to report that it
had learned as early as 1981 that PFOA could pass from a woman's blood
to her fetus.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore said in February that
in blood samples from the umbilical cords of 300 newborns, 298 contained
trace levels of the compound.

"We're not only looking at the levels, but we're also trying to
understand whether there are potential health effects or biological
markers, biological changes that might be indicative of a biological
effect," said Dr. Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician and researcher at the
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who helped lead the
study.

Goldman, a former assistant administrator in the EPA's Office of
Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, said researchers don't know
the answer yet.

Dr. Leo Trasande, a pediatrician and environmental health specialist at
Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, said: "We know relatively little about
PFOA. But what we know raises strong concerns about their human health
effects, especially their effects on children."

What industry's doing

Under mounting public pressure, industry is taking action.

DuPont and seven other companies worldwide agreed in January to work
toward stopping manufacture and use of PFOA by 2015.

"The fact that it's out there in the blood of the population raises
questions that need to be answered," said David Boothe, global business
manager for DuPont Fluoroproducts.

But the company vigorously defends the use of the chemical and the
products that contain it, saying it is "not toxic by the yardsticks that
the government usually measures these things."

A number of independent health studies dispute that, however.

The EPA's science advisory board that recommended PFOA be considered a
likely carcinogen has also proposed that the agency study PFOA's
potential to cause liver, testicular, pancreatic and breast cancers and
whether it affects the hormones or nervous or immune systems.

DuPont rejects the science panel's review because it is based primarily
on animal testing.

"We think the weight of evidence and science says, look, the things that
are happening in rats don't happen in people," Boothe said.

He also said the EPA has ignored company studies that did not find
health problems in workers "exposed to thousands of times higher levels
than in the general population."

"So DuPont's position on this is, to date, there are no known health
effects from exposure to PFOA," Boothe said.

But the company's worker studies "have many limitations, such that
definitive conclusions about PFOA cannot be made at this time," said
Charles Auer, director of the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention &
Toxics, in an e-mail response to written questions from the
Star-Telegram.

There's nothing wrong with using animal studies to gauge the health
effects of chemicals, said Linda Birnbaum, an EPA toxicologist.

"People are animals," Birnbaum said. "If you find a similar kind of
response in a couple of species of animals or if you find that a
chemical is targeting multiple kinds of tissues, why would we think that
humans would be completely resistant or different?"

Tracking PFOA

Researchers know that PFOA is widespread in the environment, but how did
it get there?

Until recently, many suspected Teflon cookware was the main source. A
2001 University of Toronto study published in the British science
journal Nature concluded that PFOA is one of several toxic gases emitted
when Teflon is heated to 680 degrees, which is easy to do, even if
cooking an omelet. And there have been at least 94 documented cases of a
flulike illness, polymer fumer fever, among industrial workers exposed
to Teflon heated beyond 700 degrees.

DuPont has spent millions of dollars on studies that it says show that
the compound is not coming off nonstick pots and pans. And DuPont has
recently reduced the level of PFOA in new Teflon products.

Independent researchers say small levels do come off the pans but not
enough to explain the widespread exposures that have been measured.

Today, the focus has shifted to food wrappers, carpet and other
household products. Kannan, the New York State Department of Health
scientist, believes that those items release perfluorochemicals as a
gas.

"They are constantly leaching from the surfaces they are applied to," he
said. "The indoor air is filled with these compounds."

They can also be released from manufacturing plants. That's one reason
that the EPA pledged in January to add PFOA to a program that tracks
industrial emissions of toxic chemicals and makes the results public.

Doing so would allow researchers to track "where this stuff might be
concentrated," said Brad Karkkainen, an expert on environmental and
natural-resources law at the University of Minnesota Law School in
Minneapolis.

It would also be a symbolic gesture, he said, "an official
acknowledgement by the EPA that it has reason to believe that there are
adverse environmental or public health effects associated with the
thing."

The agency has not added the compound to its Toxics Release Inventory,
and EPA officials say they have no timetable for doing so.

Wastewater treatment plants can also release perfluorochemicals.

When shampoos, denture cleaners and car waxes are washed down the drain,
wastewater plants are not designed to treat the PFOA in them.

"So they get released into the rivers, lakes and ponds, and fish living
in those places accumulate these compounds and enter into the food chain
that way," Kannan said.

The voluntary withdrawal will help slow the spread of PFOA. But the
deadline for withdrawal is not until 2015, which the EPA has classified
as an "aspirational goal," not a mandate.

"Technical and cost issues might preclude eliminating PFOA and related
chemicals entirely from emissions and product content by 2015," said
Auer, the EPA toxics official.

That concerns some researchers who want to see regulatory action taken
now to reduce human exposure, even if a lot more research is needed to
determine precise human health effects.

"I think you want to take regulatory action at a point before there are
effects in humans," said Goldman, the Johns Hopkins researcher. "The
point is to try and prevent that."

PERFLUOROCHEMICALS

What are they? A group of man-made chemicals often used in a wide
variety of consumer products such as carpets, upholstery, textiles and
nonstick cookware. Perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, has grabbed the
public spotlight recently because it is used in Teflon cookware. DuPont
and other manufacturers agreed to work to phase out its use by 2015.
Still, perfluorochemicals are in the blood of virtually all Americans,
according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. And numerous
studies have found that the levels in U.S. residents are the world's
highest. The chemicals' widespread use in carpets, stain-resistant
textiles and cleaners is possibly the major source of human exposure.

What are the possible health effects? The main concern is that when
perfluorochemicals enter the body, they stay there for years. An EPA
science advisory panel recommended in February that PFOA is a "likely"
human carcinogen. Other studies involving laboratory animals have found
that perfluorochemicals damage organ function and sexual development.
DuPont officials, however, say there is no evidence that the chemicals
harm humans.

SOURCES: Environmental Protection Agency, federal Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry, New York State Department of Health

ZORAIDA RODRIGUEZ

Zoraida Rodriguez walks into the patient's room and waves hello. The
patient looks nervous. She hates to get shots, and she knows that
Rodriguez has come to give her one.

Rodriguez, 33, is a medical assistant for a Fort Worth physician who
specializes in alternative treatments, such as herbs and vitamins.

The patient gets a B-12 vitamin shot. It will become a daily routine
from now on, and Rodriguez instructs the woman on how to give herself
the shot at home.

"Go in like this," she says, pretending to stick her side with an
imaginary needle.

Rodriguez smiles and pats the woman on the shoulder. Rodriguez is so
adept at her work, Dr. Randall Hayes says, that "I'll hear patients say,
'Wow, I didn't even feel that.'"

She approached the Star-Telegram project with a bit of professional
curiosity.

"This is stuff you don't ever think about," she said. "So it makes me
wonder, what's in me?"

CLINICAL CURIOSITY

Zoraida Rodriguez was interested in having her blood analyzed partly
because of her profession: She's a medical assistant for a Fort Worth
physician.

ABOUT THIS PROJECT 

Twelve Tarrant County residents volunteered to have their blood tested
for 83 toxic chemicals, many of which are used in common household and
office products.

The Star-Telegram worked with Dr. Arnold Schecter, an
environmental-sciences professor and public-health physician at the
University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas. Blood samples
were drawn at Lone Star Screening in Euless and sent to ERGO
laboratories in Hamburg, Germany.

For questions or comments, contact Scott Streater at 817-390-7657 or
sstreater at star-telegram.com, or Mark Horvit at 817-390-7087 or
mhorvit at star-telegram.com.

Sunday: A Star-Telegram research project found dozens of toxic chemicals
in the blood of 12 people who volunteered to be tested. And scientists
say the odds are that you have many of those chemicals in your body,
too.

Monday: Flame retardants save lives, but they are a growing concern to
many researchers because the chemicals build up in the body and remain
there for years.

On the Web: For all the stories and additional graphics and video, go to
www.

star-telegram.com.

THE 12 PARTICIPANTS 

Bryan Bradford, Lamar Calvert, Kimbra Counts, Angelia Counts, Kyle
Counts, John Counts, Desiree Koehn, Brianna Koehn, Bob Koehn, A.J.
Molina, Zoraida Rodriguez, Charlotte Landon


------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
Scott Streater, 817-390-7657 sstreater at star-telegram.com  




Deborah L. DeBiasi
Email:   dldebiasi at deq.virginia.gov
WEB site address:  www.deq.virginia.gov
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
Office of Water Permit Programs
Industrial Pretreatment/Toxics Management Program
Mail:          P.O. Box 1105, Richmond, VA  23218 (NEW!)
Location:  629 E. Main Street, Richmond, VA  23219
PH:         804-698-4028
FAX:      804-698-4032