What are industrial chemicals used to fireproof TVs and sofas doing in her breast milk in the first place?
It’s a question every mother in America could be asking herself. “I was surprised to have any (flame retardants) in me at all,” the Mill Creek mom said. “You don’t want to see that. It’s troubling and concerning.” Riseden-Perry is not alone in her worries. Washington lawmakers are considering passing the strongest ban on the chemicals ever approved in the United States. A vote could come any day. The chemicals — called polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs — are everywhere: in your TV, your computer, your toaster and your sofa. They’ve been in use since the 1970s. The global demand for PBDEs was 200,000 tons in 2003 alone. But PBDEs don’t stay put. Sit down on a foam cushion and you’re releasing countless, invisible PBDE particles. When the TV gets hot, still more escape. Scientists find PBDEs in house and office dust. They rinses off our clothes in the laundry and run down the shower drain, winding up in sewage that’s applied to farm fields as fertilizer. The flame retardants bio
