Lactnet friends,  The PBDE story keeps growing.  Below is a brief
description of a brand new study on the presence of PBDE in breast
milk, which was forwarded to me by an chemist colleague of mine, Pat
Costner.

Key points here:

1) There are signs of an ongoing exponential rise of PBDE
cocentrations in U.S. breast milk.

2) Authors claim that main route of exposure is dietary.  If true,
this means that advising lactating women simply to avoid consumer
products with PBDE in them (computers, sofa cushions, etc.) isn't
going to do much to lower exposure rates.  To wit, this is an
ecological problem.

3) Other countries have already put in motion plans to phase out this
family of chemicals, meaning that effective, less toxic substitutes
do exist.

My own personal reaction to reading this:  Breastfeeding advocates
MUST lead the charge on publicizing these kinds of studies and join
with other anti-toxics groups to demand an immediate phase-out of all
toxic chemicals known to accumulate in human milk, regardless of what
we now know or don't know about the precise harm that drinking flame
retardants in these quantities poses to nursing infants.  (It will
take scientists years and years to answer this question.)

If not us, who?  If not now, when?

The question that I wrote on the top of my notebook after reading
this study is about to be posted on my bathroom mirror:  "What have
you done to safeguard breast milk today?"

warmly, Sandra


*****

Betts, K., 2002. Rapidly Rising PBDE levels in North America.
Environ. Sci. Technol. 36: 50A-52A

The levels of PBDEs in North Americans appear to be doubling
every two to five years …
…
The new Canadian data are important because they show that
PBDE levels are approaching those of PCBs, which have been
proven to cause developmental problems in children, says Ake
Bergman,  chair of the environmental chemistry department at
Sweden’s Stockholm University and one of the world’s leading
PBDE researchers.

The penta brominated diphenyl ether (penta-BDE) formulation that
is used almost exclusively in the United States is associated with
the greatest number of health effects.  According to Alaee, most of
the PBDEs measured in the North American samples are from the
penta-PBDE formulation.
…
The levels of 200 nanograms of PBDEs per gram of fata (ng/g)
reported as the highest data point on the graph are so high that
Olaf Papke, the German scientist who collected the milk  from
women in Austin and Denver, sent samples to colleagues in
Germany and Sweden to have them analyzed independently.
Before those confirmations came back, Papke “didn’t believe the
result,”  recalls Bergman, who says he was shocked when his lab
verified the samples’ PBDE concentrations.

As is the case with PCBs and dioxins, the main way people take up
PBDEs is by consuming fatty animal foods such as meat, fish,
poultry, eggs, and dairy products, Ryan says.  “However, there may
be additional food exposure routes for PBDEs, possibly in food
processing, which are not found with dioxins or PCBs,” he notes.

Environment Canada’s commercial chemical branches are
currently evaluating the PBDE data, and the end result could be a
recommendation to ban the chemicals …

Based in part on the evidence that the levels of PBDEs were
growing exponentially in Swedish women, the EU has voted to ban
two PBDE formulations, octa-BDE and penta-BDE, by July 1,
2003, and a third formulation, deca-BDE, could be banned by 2006.

Campbell, who is on the Brominated Flame Retardants Industry
Panel of the American Chemistry Council, an industry organization,
stresses that more data will be needed to convince the industry that
any PBDE formulations must be removed from the market.



--
--

Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor
Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors
110 Rice Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY  14853
[log in to unmask]
www.steingraber.com

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