Analysis: Oregon Breast Milk Contaminated (with fire retardant)

AP ^ | 8/26/05

[Salvation]

**Overall, they had levels of PBDEs 20 to 40 times higher than levels found in women from Europe and Japan.**

Hmmm.

[Salvation]

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[Salvation]

You are sooooo right!!

[Cold Heart]

Thanks for an intelligent reply.

[blackie]

I guess I'll stay away from breast milk. *sigh*

[Valpal1]

Bingo, hope the loggers lawyers make this connection and arguement next time they get sued to stop the logging.

[Iconoclast2]

Isn't this stuff used in manufacturing fabrics to federal safety standards? This may not be a NW issue at all.

[Larry Lucido]

Hmm, better start checking breast milk here in Michigan. Line forms to the right!

[wideminded]

As the father of a son who was recently born and breast fed in Oregon, I find this article somewhat more worrying than the other posters on this thread.

[r9etb]

True. The samples were taken in states where there'd been big fires, though -- perhaps there's a pre-existing assumption on the part of the researchers.

[wideminded]

Hmm, better start checking breast milk here in Michigan. Line forms to the right!

You probably already got your dose:

"Despite having been banned, PBB-153 continues to be found in human blood in Michigan. This may be due to a 1973 accident in Michigan in which PBBs (mostly 153) were accidentally mixed with dairy cow feed. This accident caused PBBs to get into the milk supply and be widely distributed and consumed in the state." - link

There was a memorable TV movie about this incident starring Ron Howard as a young farmer who begins wondering about strange illnesses in his cows. In the climactic scene cows were herded into a large pit while farmers surrounded it with rifles.

[drungus]

Simply consider the number of huge forest fires in the NW over the past few years, and the correspondingly huge firefighting efforts. The retardant gets dropped in the mountains and washed into the watersheds, and so of course it gets into human tissues.

The retardants used in wildland firefighting are NOT PDBEs. A typical slurry includes of ammonium phosphate or sulfate.

PDBEs are used in furniture and such. While it might be tempting to blame the envirowhacko stance on forest policy for PDBE in breast milk, there is simply has no factual link.