Banning Household Products With Toxic Chemical Flame Retardants

The entire class of organohalogen flame retardant chemicals has been associated with serious human health problems, including cancer, reduced sperm count, increased time to pregnancy, decreased IQ in children, impaired memory, learning deficits, hyperactivity, hormone disruption and lowered immunity. The chemicals continue to be used at high levels in consumer products.

Case Overview

A broad coalition of health, firefighter, consumer and science groups are asking the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to ban four categories of consumer products—children’s products, furniture, mattresses and the casings around electronics—if they contain any flame retardant in the chemical class known as organohalogens.

Petitioners include the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Hispanic Medical Association, the International Association of Fire Fighters, the Learning Disabilities Association of America, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, the League of United Latin American Citizens, Worksafe, Dr. Philip J. Landrigan and the Green Science Policy Institute.

This entire class of chemicals has been associated with serious human health problems, including cancer, reduced sperm count, increased time to pregnancy, decreased IQ in children, impaired memory, learning deficits, hyperactivity, hormone disruption and lowered immunity. Nevertheless, the chemicals continue to be used at high levels in consumer products.

These chemicals migrate continuously out from everyday household products into the air and dust, such as when a guest sits on a sofa or a baby is laid down on a crib’s mattress. As a result, more than 97 percent of U.S. residents have measurable quantities of toxic organohalogen flame retardants in their blood. Children are especially at-risk because they come into greater contact with household dust than adults. Studies show that children, whose developing brains and reproductive organs are most vulnerable, have three to five times higher levels than their parents.

A growing number of firefighter organizations have expressed concern about the use of this class of chemicals as well. When consumer products containing these chemicals burn, the fire and smoke become more toxic. The International Association of Fire Fighters has determined that there is a link between exposure to the fumes created when toxins burn and the disproportionately high levels of cancer among firefighters.

No law or government regulation in the country compels the use of flame retardants in the products that are the subject of this petition. However, no law or regulation prohibits using chemicals from this toxic class in consumer products either. Over the last decade, as evidence mounts that one flame retardant chemical is dangerous, the chemical industry has responded by phasing it out and replacing it with a structurally similar chemical that eventually also turns out to be harmful.

The most effective solution is to ban products containing this entire class of chemicals. Under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act, the CPSC has this authority.

A baby's room.
Flame retardant chemicals migrate continuously out from everyday household products into the air and dust, such as when a guest sits on a sofa or a baby is laid down on a crib’s mattress. (Photo courtesy of Lynn-Anne Burns)

Case Updates

May 21, 2021 In the News: City & State New York

Inside the chemical lobby’s unusual campaign to protect the fire retardant business

Eve Gartner, Managing Attorney, Toxic Exposure & Health Program, Earthjustice: “This pseudo-campaign shows the chemical industry’s desperation around this bill.”

Taking on toxics.
May 10, 2018 feature

Insider Briefing: Taking on Toxics

Earthjustice attorneys and policy staff discuss recent victories and the fights ahead to keep dangerous chemicals out of our homes and environment.

Earthjustice attorney Eve Gartner (left) and scientist Arlene Blum (right) joined forces in 2011 to get flame retardant chemicals out of furniture. The coalition they built compelled federal regulators to call for banning an entire class of flame retardan
January 24, 2018 Article

How Two Women Teamed Up to Take on the Chemical Industry—and Won

Earthjustice attorney Eve Gartner and scientist Arlene Blum worked together to convince the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban an entire class of toxic flame retardants.