Flame Retardant Found in Lake Michigan

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Flame Retardant Found in Lake Michigan Associated Press

November 24, 2004 02:15:55 PM PST , Associated Press

http://health./search/healthnews?lb=s & p=id%3A65832

 

Concentrations of a flame retardant banned by many European countries

have been found in Lake Michigan and are increasing, adding to concerns

over previous findings that the chemicals were showing up in supermarket

foods and women's breast milk.

 

In the latest study, sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration, University of Wisconsin scientists found PBDEs, or

polybrominated diphenyl ethers, in sediment hundreds of feet down in

Lake Michigan.

 

Fish and other animals absorb chemicals and pollutants through the

environment, storing them in fat that people then eat. Studies in rats

and mice suggest high levels can cause liver and thyroid damage, NOAA said.

 

" They're really showing up all over the world, " Bill Sonzogni, a

University of Wisconsin professor, said Wednesday. " And the Great Lakes

— because of the food chain for bioconcentrating contaminants — has

sometimes served as a sentinel for other parts of the world. "

 

The three-year study found PBDEs of up to one part per billion in the

lake sediment — the equivalent of one drop of water in a 10,000 gallon

swimming pool. By dating the samples of PBDEs, Sonzogni and scientist

Jon Manchester also found that the concentrations were increasing, and

that they mirror levels of PBDEs and other flame retardants used since

the 1970s.

 

How the PBDEs and other chemicals get into Lake Michigan is still not

entirely clear, but the air appears the mostly likely way.

 

" We use a large number of synthetic chemicals and we do not have a good

understanding of where these chemicals move to, " Manchester said.

 

PBDEs are added to plastics used in computers, televisions, furniture

and carpets. Some computer makers stopped using PBDEs in 2002, but a

flame retardant related to PBDEs is still used in some circuit boards.

 

No direct correlation has been shown between PBDEs and specific diseases

or developmental impairment, and the government has not set any level of

use that is considered safe in food.

 

Starting in 2008, California will become the first state to ban two

forms of the PBDEs because they accumulate in the blood of mothers and

nursing babies. The ban was approved last year but delayed to give

manufacturers time to find alternatives.

 

California researchers found that San Francisco Bay area women have

three to 10 times greater amounts in their breast tissue than either

European or Japanese women, while Indiana University researchers found

levels in Indiana and California women and infants 20 times higher than

in Sweden and Norway.

 

The European Union (news - web sites) moved to restrict the chemicals'

use in February 2003. In the United States, the Bush administration has

expressed concern that traces of the chemicals, part of a broader class

known as brominated flame retardants, have been showing up in people and

wildlife. The administration is still gathering information while

working with industry on alternatives.

 

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) won an

agreement from an Indiana company to voluntarily stop producing two

widely used forms. The action came after a study by the Environmental

Working Group, an advocacy group, found the chemicals in the breast milk

of each of 20 women it tested nationally.

 

The flame retardant chemicals, like PCBs that were banned decades ago in

the United States, persist in the environment for years.

 

In 2001, scientists Sonzogni and Manchester also found that Lake

Michigan's top predator fish — coho and chinook salmon — had PBDEs at

concentrations exceeding 100 ppb, among the highest measured in open

water fish anywhere in the world.

 

Now, they say that the concentrations of PBDEs, if unabated, might

eventually eclipse PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, as the lake's

main contaminant.

 

" They're small but they're still important, " Sonzogni said. " Because

what happens is they tend to concentrate at higher levels in the food

chain in the fish, and then we eat the fish. "

 

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On the Net:

 

University of Wisconsin Sea Grant: http://www.seagrant.wisc.edu