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Flame-retardant chemical exposure reduced with frequent hand-washing, house cleaning
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Exposure to organophosphate and alternative brominated flame retardants is common in American households through stuffed furniture like sofas and other household objects; however, regular hand-washing and house cleaning can effectively lower concentrations of these chemicals, researchers said.
Previous research has demonstrated that organophosphate flame retardants — including tris(1, 3-sichloroisopropyl) phosphate, tris-(2-chloroethyl) phosphate, tris(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate and triphenyl phosphate — are related to disrupted function of the endocrine system and thyroid, as well as decreased fertility.
“In our paper, we report on mothers because they had more complete data and samples than the children, but the question we addressed here is relevant to all members of a household,” Julie Herbstman, MSc, PhD, associate professor of environmental health sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, told Infectious Diseases in Children. “Based on our data, if you wash hands and remove house dust more often, thereby breaking the pathway by which flame retardants are inadvertently ingested, you can reduce exposure. These EPA recommendations theoretically work.”
During the first week of the study, 32 mothers were assigned to house cleaning — which included education on proper cleaning technique and flame retardant-free cleaning products — or hand-washing. During the second week, the two groups both cleaned their houses and washed their hands. Gibson and colleagues measured changes in maternal concentrations of endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in dermal hand wipes and urinary metabolites.
The researchers observed reductions in flame-retardant chemicals in urinary analytes in both groups. This reduction was sustained after an additional week of using both interventions compared with baseline levels.
Although the level of analytes measured in hand wipes after 1 week of either intervention did not differ significantly from baseline, 1 week of hand-washing or house cleaning and a second week of combined interventions were effective in reducing the levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in those who had higher exposures to the chemicals at baseline.
“The challenge in these interventions is whether they can be sustained and/or initiated by children and whether there are other hand-to-mouth behaviors among children that are important such as nail-biting, thumb-sucking and toy-mouthing,” Herbstman said. “To some end, this is where the combination of both intervention modalities becomes important: If there is less flame retardant-containing dust in the home environment, mouthing behaviors that are so hard to break in childhood would be less important as exposure drivers.” – by Katherine Bortz
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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