Well, this is good.

It will mean that these babies are impervious to fire.

The Guardian:

New peer-reviewed research has identified 25 kinds of toxic flame retardant in human breast milk in the US, and all samples contained at least some level of the dangerous chemicals.

The compounds are part of the brominated flame retardant class, which are commonly used in plastic, televisions, appliances and electronics. The research also marks the first time a largely unregulated subclass of the flame retardants, called bromophenols, have been found in breast milk.

The chemicals are thought to be potent neurotoxins, especially for developing children, and the findings are “disturbing”, said Erika Schreder, a toxicologist with Toxic Free Future and a study co-author.

“The production and use of these compounds continues, and they are likely to impact children’s health until governments require companies to end their use and switch to safer solutions,” the study’s authors wrote.

The researchers, also from Emory University, the University of Washington, and Seattle Children’s Research Institute, checked milk samples from 50 mothers across the US.

Brominated flame retardants are a class of at least 75 chemicals used to prevent combustion in consumer products and electronics. Some older versions of the chemicals were removed from the marketplace in the 1970s because they were so toxic, and newer iterations have raised health concerns.

Among other issues, many of the compounds are linked to memory impairment, increased impulsivity, impaired motor skills, decreased attention and overall lower measures of intelligence in children. Some of the chemicals may also be carcinogenic. Humans are exposed to brominated flame retardants when the chemicals break off from the plastics, get in dust, and are either breathed in or ingested.

In 2007, some states started enacting bans on polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), one commonly used subclass of the flame retardants, prompting some in the industry to stop using or producing them. The new research found concentrations of PBDEs in milk seem to be decreasing over time – median levels in mothers in the Pacific north-west region are about 70% lower than researchers found in a similar study 20 years ago.

The findings show “regulations work for making breast milk safer”, Schreder said, but she added that it highlights how unregulated flame retardants are still a problem.

As PBDEs have attracted increased regulatory scrutiny and their health risks have become clear, industry has started switching to bromophenols subclass. Though the two chemicals are structurally similar and used for the same purpose, bromophenols are unregulated because so little is known about their toxicity.

Can’t we just have a law that says you’re not supposed to put potentially toxic shit in the things you sell until they’re tested first?

Has nobody ever thought of that?

However, like their predecessors, bromophenols have been linked to brain development disorders, and the study found the chemicals in 88% of samples.

The process by which chemical companies slightly alter chemicals’ properties to make similar compounds that evade regulation is called “regrettable substitution”, and industry’s actions with brominated flame retardants is a “classic” case of it, Schreder said.

“The parallels between these chemicals are extremely disturbing, and we’re seeing bromophenols building up in breast milk,” Schreder said. “I hope we can learn our lesson this time and put policies in place that address the entire class and make sure chemicals used in products are known to be safe.”

We’ve definitely got some brain development disorders going on in America.

These people believe in the coronavirus, BLM, and the Ukraine war.

It’s a nation of retards.

This video was uploaded 9 years ago

You might think this is the first good thing this institution has ever done, but it’s actually the second good thing it’s ever done.

The first one was banning atrazine, which isn’t something any sane man wants on his food, but is still legal in America and other countries.

The Guardian:

Thousands of potentially harmful chemicals could soon be prohibited in Europe under new restrictions, which campaigners have hailed as the strongest yet.

Earlier this year, scientists said chemical pollution had crossed a “planetary boundary” beyond which lies the breakdown of global ecosystems.

The synthetic blight is thought to be pushing whale species to the brink of extinction and has been blamed for declining human fertility rates, and 2 million deaths a year.

The EU’s “restrictions roadmap” published on Monday was conceived as a first step to transforming this picture by using existing laws to outlaw toxic substances linked to cancers, hormonal disruption, reprotoxic disorders, obesity, diabetes and other illnesses.

Industry groups say that up to 12,000 substances could ultimately fall within the scope of the new proposal, which would constitute the world’s “largest ever ban of toxic chemicals”, according to the European Environmental Bureau (EEB).

Tatiana Santos, the bureau’s chemicals policy manager, said: “EU chemical controls are usually achingly slow but the EU is planning the boldest detox we have ever seen. Petrochemical industry lobbyists are shocked at what is now on the table. It promises to improve the safety of almost all manufactured products and rapidly lower the chemical intensity of our schools, homes and workplaces.”

The plan focuses on entire classes of chemical substances for the first time as a rule, including all flame retardants, bisphenols, PVC plastics, toxic chemicals in single-use nappies and PFAS, which are also known as “forever chemicals” because of the time they take to naturally degrade.

All of these will be put on a “rolling list” of substances to be considered for restriction by the European Chemicals Agency. The list will be regularly reviewed and updated, before a significant revision to the EU’s cornerstone Reach regulation for chemicals slated for 2027.

Chemicals identified in the new paper include substances in food contact materials, single-use nappies and PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon) in granules for children playgrounds.

But industry groups argue that the scheme’s focus on groups of chemicals could affect high street products such as sun creams and perfumes, which may use a host of synthetic substances.

“A lot of different ingredients fall under the skin sensitiser group so a wide range of cosmetic products would potentially be affected,” said John Chave, the director general of Cosmetics Europe, a trade body. “The effect on consumers would be that there would potentially be less variety, less choice and less functional effectiveness for cosmetic products with no gains for safety whatsoever because the ingredients were safe in the first place.”

Beyond cosmetics, affected products could include paints, cleaning products, adhesives, lubricants and pesticides.

Europe’s Reach system is already the world’s most extensive chemical register, and new bans could hit more than a quarter of the industry’s annual turnover of around €500bn (£420bn) per year, according to a study by the trade group Cefic.

“Some of the restrictions may have a significant impact on the industry and value chains,” said Heather Kiggins, a Cefic spokeswoman.

The industry argues for a more narrowly targeted approach to restrictions, and for incentives and import controls to help develop safer alternative products.

Nevertheless, the European Chemicals Agency favours dealing with chemicals in groups because chemical firms have previously avoided bans on individual chemicals by tweaking their chemical composition to create sister substances that may also be dangerous, but which then require lengthy legislative battles to regulate.

The industry tactic, known as “regrettable substitution”, has been criticised by environmental groups for allowing the replacement of substances such as the endocrine-disrupting bisphenol A with other bisphenols.

Santos described it as “a cynical and irresponsible tactic by the chemical industry to replace the most harmful banned chemicals with similarly harmful ones not yet on the regulatory radar. We’ve witnessed a decades-long pattern of regrettable substitution to avoid regulation.”

More than 190m synthetic chemicals are registered globally and a new industrial chemical is created every 1.4 seconds on average.

Europeans are at least capable of functioning rationally, which is a lot more than you can say about Americans.

This is going to lead to a split sooner than later.