Toxic Hot Seat

While watching the movie, Toxic Hot Seat, in AP Environmental Science late last week, our class learned about the harmful chemicals in our home furnishings. These chemicals are touted as "flame retardants" or chemicals that would slow fire growth and spread so that people would have extra time to get away from the fire. Yet, these chemicals are incredibly harmful and can and have caused cancer. There are many people, especially firemen, who have been diagnosed with types of cancer like Transitional Cell Carcinoma. These chemicals are showing up in nearly everyone, young and old. Mothers who are breastfeeding are practically feeding these chemicals to their children. These chemicals are extremely dangerous and yet, the chemical companies are still pushing for them to be necessary in home furnishings.

The spread of these chemicals in our furnishings began in the 1970s, when cigarettes were causing a large amount of fires in houses. To combat these fires, the tobacco companies developed a self-extinguishing cigarette that would be safer than their previous cigs. Yet, they complained that they could not create a cigarette that people would want to smoke that would have this added benefit. So, to combat this unwillingness to make the cigarettes safer, furnishing companies began to put chemicals into the foam that they used to make the furniture. After many tests, these companies began to use it more and more and finally a law was passed in California called Tb117, a law that required every new furnishing produced in California was required to have these chemicals in them. Because of this, the companies that made the furniture decided that, instead of making special foam just for California, they would simply make all their foam with this chemical in it.

One of the tests that was conducted to conclude the effectiveness of the chemicals was done by Vytenis Babrauskas, an expert in the subject of fire science and technology and the first to get a PhD in fire protection. He conducted tests by burning the foam from a non-Tb117 foam couch and the foam that contained the chemical. Yet, the foam that contained the chemical had been treated by a NASA regulated chemical that was never used in regular furniture. His tests showed that the chemicals did help retard the growth of the flame but only by very little. He was not a fan of the retardants because of the toxins. He said in the movie when asked about the chemicals that, "they provided a slight benefit but there were more toxins."  When his research came into the hands of the people fighting for Tb117, however, the data was distorted. They used his research to further their goals and did not take into account the fact that these chemicals were very toxic to humans. Babrauskas was adamant about the fact that his research had been skewed to help the chemical companies and wanted to state that his intentions and the intentions of those in his profession did not want to cause harm.

After decades of these chemicals being in our furniture, we have started to see the affects. People are discovering them in their bodies and they have been found to cause cancer. Firemen, activists and politicians all banded together to fight the use of these chemicals in the late 2000s and early 2010s but mostly to no avail. The chemical companies even created a group to help further their claims that these chemicals were needed but after investigation by the Chicago Tribune, this group was found to only have 3 members, all of which were big chemical companies who supplied the flame retardants. After a long fight, these people have made significant headway in the fight against these flame retardants.

In conclusion, I believe that these chemicals are so harmful that they should have no place in our daily lives. They may provide the extra moments needed to escape a fire but they are not worth the risk of infecting our population with these terrible chemicals. It is simply deplorable that, even after they have been proven harmful, that people keep fighting for them to be put into all of our furniture. These chemicals need to be removed and replaced by something that would protect against fire but not hurt us in the process.