"Toxic Hot Seat" about cigarettes, flame retardants, and death for profits

Toxic Hot Seat:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcia-g-yerman/toxic-hot-seat-ignites-aw_b_4338572.html

This is a clear example of Pope Francis' principle of greed-driven "murder", for lack of a better term. Some companies and trade groups decided to protect their profits rather than do the right thing for their customers. And this has created enormous social costs for everyone.

The storyline:

- Since the '70s, 2-6K Americans died each year from residential fires.

- By far, the biggest driver of these tragedies are unmonitored cigarettes (yet another way they kill users and bystanders), and this trend persists in most nations.

- A self-extinguishing cigarette is affordable and easily implementable, but the tobacco industry resisted, and created a "fire marshal" advocacy org to convince leaders and public that the problem was the "fuel" (household flammable stuff), not the ignition.

- So the chemical industry jumped on this and developed "flame retardants" that could be sprayed on curtains, furniture cushions, etc. (this was during the era of DDT and such where toxicity testing was nonexistent).

- In 1975, a professional study was warped by some CA regulators and lobbyists to mandate all furniture sold in the state to contain fire retardants with no health risk conditions. Since CA was such a big market, and it was expensive to develop 2 versions of furniture, manufacturers decided to put retardants on everything, and the standard has stuck.

- Despite a huge "astroturf" (fake grassroots) chemical industry push, Maine was able to ban retardants in favor of safer alternatives. The lobbying machine has prevailed so far in CA, and Representative Leno has sponsored several similar bills to ban them, but they failed each time due to the irrational fire scare and industry advocacy. Changing the law is part of Gov. Brown's current agenda, and so far he was able to at least permit the sale of furniture that doesn't contain retardants. It's up to consumers to check whether the products they buy have them or not, but an outright ban like Maine is still elusive.

Commentary:

So what are the consequences of big tobacco's greed/negligence and big chemical's opportunism (now a $5B global industry)? We know that preventing/reducing fire severity is important and can save lives/money. But are these retardants the most cost-effective solution? Studies show that smoke alarms and sprinklers are much more effective than retardants - with nearly zero downside. Only the retardant manufacturer association has produced a few suspect studies to support the use of their product. But fires are scary and their arguments won the day for decades ("whatever it takes" to prevent fires!). Fire danger is a lot more tangible and acute than nearly invisible carcinogens that may need extended exposure to do measurable harm (but no less bodily harm than burns). So it's easy to fixate on the fire risk, which may trump other concerns. 

It's one thing if retardants are ~90% effective (at least as effective as condoms), but they're not. The flame retardant standards state that the material must be able to resist a "small flame" for 12 secs. While that could be effective in some situations, it is deficient in many tests and in the field, because a furniture's unprotected covering burns first, so by the time it hits the cushions (that contain the retardants), it's no longer a small flame and the retardants are no longer effective.

So they don't really make us safer, yet they are likely making us sicker. Retardants are known carcinogens and mutagens like thalates, bromides, and BPA (that the baby industry has been forced to remove from plastic products due to customer anger). Retardant-containing products still burn, so when firefighters have to respond, they are rushing into and inhaling the chemical soup. When SFFD personnel were tested, incidence of middle-age female breast cancer was 6X the population average, and incidence of cancer among retirees was also unusually high. Parents groups fought to get these chemicals banned in child pajamas (on toxic grounds) and won, yet the exact same chemicals are still present in child car seats, play pens, backpacks, furniture, etc. that kids touch and lick. They're still present in those products because it's expensive to mount a legal challenge, and chemicals get the benefit of the doubt.

Speaking of that, why do virtually all side effects, interactions, allowable dosages, etc. need to be thoroughly documented and scrutinized for a drug to reach the market, but chemicals are "innocent until proven guilty"? It's about the burden of proof. As depicted in films like "A Civil Action", it is very hard to prove that a specific chemical directly caused measurable harm over what could be years of exposure to many chemicals. Companies can just show that rats "survived" when exposed to the chemical under specific, arbitrary conditions - and that is supposed to prove that they are universally safe.

And when pro-business leaders continually weaken and defund the EPA and other regulators, that makes them look ineffective/unnecessary and strengthens the industry argument to just trust the companies, not delay new product approval with frivolous tests, and not stifle chemical innovation, which "creates jobs/revenue" and "makes our lives better". And this is not just about retardants, but literally thousands of chemicals that we don't even know we're exposed to each day. Like all those "dispersants" used by BP to make the Gulf spill look less nasty to the naked eye - we have no idea WTF they do to living tissues over time, and they will likely show up in seafood, breast milk, etc.

There is an underlying assumption that benevolent gov't is watching out for us, and products wouldn't be on the shelf unless they were totally safe (and Dow and Monsanto say you can trust them). Well after leaded gas, asbestos, CFCs, and the sad history of tobacco, we should know better. The only ones who are looking after public safety are scientists, survivor victims, and grassroots orgs. And politicians will only listen to them if voter anger outweighs industry lobbying dollars. But this is obviously short-sighted leadership. It makes no sense to threaten and poison future society's health and productivity for present-day industry profits. Taxpayers and gov't coffers will be burdened by the health costs of harmful chemicals, which means less money for other national priorities. Everyone loses but the companies and their stakeholders.

The same thing is playing out in places like China with pathetic regulation, but they recognize this and are trying to improve. Can you imagine the impact on their economy when their current population ages and disproportionately develops all sorts of illnesses from the ubiquitous pollution, toxins, etc.?

And it's not like these "innovative chemicals" are so critical to human survival. We can get along fine with many natural, renewable products like wool, plants, and wax. We don't need chemical X to make our jacket down 0.1% warmer but our kids 10% sicker. Someone has to say enough is enough.