PBDEs :: Children and Parenting :: Health and Environmental Concerns

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PBDEs
by author Vijay Cuddeford

Many of us are familiar with DDT and thinning eggshells, and we may have heard about the dangers of PCBs. But most of us are unaware that another group of ubiquitous and toxic chemicals is in our midst. They’re called polybrominated diphenyl ethers or, mercifully, PBDEs.

PBDEs are a group of chemicals used to slow or resist fires in a staggeringly wide variety of consumer goods, including furniture and automotive upholstery, sound insulation, and carpets, as well as in computers, mobile phones, and a broad range of consumer electronics. You can also find them in human breast milk, where levels of PBDEs are rising rapidly, especially in North America.

It’s now commonly said that we live in a chemical soup. Chemical contaminants turn up with predictable frequency in our water, air, and food chain. But there’s something about finding toxic chemicals in human breast milk that seems…well, wrong. Mother’s milk is somehow supposed to be inviolable, a private source and sanctuary for nursing infants, a pure and whole, unsullied drink of goodness. Finding PBDEs in mother’s milk is unmistakable and compelling evidence of chemical trespass.

In the fall of 2004, Northwest Environment Watch, a Seattle-based group, measured PBDE levels in the breast milk of 40 new mothers from the Pacific Northwest–10 each from British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Montana. The results were shocking. Every one of the mothers in the study had PBDEs in her breast milk, at concentrations roughly 20 to 40 times higher than Japanese or Swedish mothers. Other North American studies have had similar findings.

Alexis Doctor was one of the mothers whose breast milk was sampled. Ms. Doctor lives with her husband and her son Ethan in a pleasant, greenly landscaped section of Richmond, BC, not far from the Steveston docks, just south of Vancouver. Ethan was a few months old when Doctor volunteered for the study.

“I felt that I had the time, the energy, and the desire to find out more. Now that Ethan was in the world, I really wanted to know more, so that I could do more for him.” Doctor waited several weeks for test results but breastfed in the meantime, convinced that this was the best option for her baby. When results arrived indicating she had PBDEs in her breast milk, she was surprised and concerned.

That concern is shared by federal agencies in Canada, who have had PBDEs on their radar for some time. Recent studies by Health Canada found that concentrations of PBDEs in Canadian mothers’ breast milk have increased by a factor of 11 between 1991 and 1992 and 2001 to 2002. Environment Canada is conducting its own studies.

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Vijay Cuddeford is a writer and researcher on environmental issues and food systems. He lives in North Vancouver.

Source: alive #273, July 2005

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