Flame retardants contaminate everyone but concentrate especially in children

The question at the time was whether these children were unique: Did something in their home or life lead to such unusual numbers, or might most children have higher-than-expected levels? It is hard to say, because even today Rowan and Mikaela remain the only two young children in the United States to have been tested for such compounds.

A year later, however, new exposure estimates and more data about these chemicals in our environment make the answer clear: They are not alone. The science suggests that for this flame retardant, polybrominated diphenyl ether, or PBDEs, levels in children throughout the United States are higher and possibly much higher than their parents.

And parents, particularly in California, already have the most flame-retardant blood in the world, so high the most-exposed are near levels causing fertility and sexual defects in lab rats, according to one analysis. "What we are seeing here is very serious," said Ake Bergman, professor of environmental chemistry at Stockholm University in Sweden and one of the first scientists to alert the world to the threat posed by PBDEs.

"If in fact you have exposure the first few years that is exceeding the parents' exposures, this may have this may have implications for brain development."
A year later The Berkeley family was part of a newspaper investigation of our "body burden" a chemical legacy, picked up from our possessions and imprinted in our brain, blood and fat cells.

Scientists suspect synthetic chemicals plastic, flame retardants, pesticides, even the chemical precursors for nonstick frying pans taint the blood of everyone alive today.
It's the result, they say, of nearly 50 years of reliance on synthetic chemistry without a full understanding of how these compounds interact with our environment.

The amount of these chemicals in our bodies is vanishingly small; so minuscule scientists had trouble seeing it just 10 years ago. Now researchers suspect some of the compounds impair our health.

The Oakland Tribune tested the Hammond-Hollands for traces of five metals and four classes of chemicals: PBDEs; their banned cousins, the polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs; plastic additives known as phthalates; and an exotic chemical family, perfluorinated acids, used to make Gore-Tex, Teflon and other nonstick and waterproof products.

The investigation found all but arsenic in their hair, blood or urine. In many cases, the children's concentrations were higher than the parents'. But the PBDE results confronting the Hammond-Hollands at the dinner table went far beyond what even scientists expected.

PBDEs are a family of chemicals astonishingly effective at slowing fire in foam and plastic. They permeate everything from seat cushions and drapes to carpet padding, TV sets and computer casings. National demand was 36,500 tons in 2001, nearly 80 percent of the world market and almost double demand in 1990.