Brominated flame retardants: cause for concern?

By L. Birnbaum, D. Staskal. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2003

1,672 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) have routinely been added to consumer products for several decades in a successful effort to reduce fire-related injury and property damage. Recently, concern for this emerging class of chemicals has risen because of the occurrence of several classes of BFRs in the environment and in human biota. The widespread production and use of BFRs; strong evidence of increasing contamination of the environment, wildlife, and people; and limited knowledge of potential effects heighten the importance of identifying emerging issues associated with the use of BFRs. In this article, we briefly review scientific issues associated with the use of tetrabromobisphenol A, hexabromocyclododecane, and three commercial mixtures of polybrominated diphenyl ethers and discuss data gaps. Overall, the toxicology database is very limited; the current literature is incomplete and often conflicting. Available data, however, raise concern over the use of certain classes of brominated flame retardants.

Subfields: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Polymers and Plastics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/abffd752c392af39e14cefd89b74b79f3089640a

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

1. P. Ross
2. K. Vorkamp
3. D. Herzke
4. G. Bossart
5. C. D. de Wit

In Polymers and Plastics

1. P. Ross
2. D. Herzke
3. G. Bossart
4. V. Thakur
5. C. D. de Wit

Citations in the corpus

• Marine Mammals as Sentinel Species for Oceans and Human Health (2011, background): “In toxicology testing in laboratory species, convincing evidence exists for the toxicopathologic effects of many of these contaminants on endocrine, neurologic, reproductive, developmental, immunologic, and cellular systems.(13,41,45,53,67,79,104,125,126,170,193,229) Beluga whales (Delphinapterus le”
• Recent developments in recycling of polystyrene based plastics (2018, background): “Plastic samples can be evaluated for their fl ame retardants content in regard to reduce the risk from fire [92].”
• Brominated flame retardants in the Arctic environment--trends and new candidates. (2010, background): “The toxicity of PBDEs, PBBs, HBCD and TBBPA has been reviewed (de Wit, 2002; Darnerud, 2003, 2008; Birnbaum and Staskal, 2004).”
• Fireproof killer whales (Orcinus orca): flame-retardant chemicals and the conservation imperative in the charismatic icon of British Columbia, Canada (2006, background): “Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) represent one such product, which was developed to resist fire as an additive component in consumer electronics, automobile plastics, foam upholstery in furniture, carpets, and some textiles (Birnbaum and Staskal 2004).”