Do you have flame retardants in your home?

UC Science Today

If your home has furniture that contains flame retardant materials, you may want to consider getting rid of it. A study by Tracey Woodruff, an environmental health scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, has shown that exposure to flame retardant chemicals, or PBDEs, may affect your health. "The thing about the flame retardants use in a polyurethane foam is that they are not bound to the polyurethane, so they can get out and they can get into dust, and then they can migrate through dust, and people can get exposed through the dust, and they can also get into food. Another thing about PBDEs is that their chemical structure is such that it makes them persistent: once they get out they don’t break down, they hang around in the environment." According to Woodruff, pregnant women and children are especially vulnerable. PBDEs may slow down children’s neurodevelopment, lower their IQ and possibly increase the risk of ADHD. "Children may be more highly exposed to PBDEs, as it gets out in dust, because they are lower to the ground, they crawl around, they put their hands in their mouth." So, not having furniture with these chemicals is the safest bet.