February 2025: Charging Ahead - Safer Batteries

In this edition:

• Good News Corner
• Flame Prevention is Better than Flame Retardants
• PBDE Furniture Flame Retardant Linked to Four Times Higher Cancer Mortality
• Trump Administration Chemical Changes
• Green Science Policy Institute in the News
• Calendar

I hope you’re having a good winter. I have enjoyed cross country skiing in Idaho, Wyoming, and the Methow Valley in Washington state so far this winter. If the famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil is correct, there should be more weeks of skiing weather ahead. A good time for all of us skiers!

Although we are very concerned about the current undermining of our federal government, at the Green Science Policy Institute we are continuing our efforts to reduce the use of harmful chemicals—with an increased focus on the state of California and our business relationships. Still, I had a productive trip to Washington DC last month, where I met with Consumer Reports, firefighters, and Senate staff about our formal petition to "get the cancer-causing chemicals out of our cars."

Hard to believe that the "Tris" flame retardant found in our cars today is the very same one removed from use in children pajamas in 1977 after my research showed it was a mutagen and likely carcinogen.

Another place where we are concerned about harmful flame retardants today is in the plastic cases surrounding lithium-ion batteries. Last month, we published a Viewpoint in Environmental Science & Technology warning about the harm from this use of flame retardants.

Many are linked to cancer and other health problems and can end up in children’s toys, food containers, and other products made from recycled plastic — think back to black plastic spatulas. The toxic chemicals do not have a proven fire-safety benefit in slowing highly energetic lithium-ion battery fires.

In addition to detailing the problem, our Viewpoint also points to potential solutions. The best approach is to prevent lithium-ion battery fires from occurring in the first place. Strategies like improving battery management systems, stopping the use of faulty batteries, and developing nonflammable battery technologies can prevent dangerous thermal runaway fires—as well as the motivation to use harmful flame retardants.

Recent research documents that flame retardants can be harmful to our entire population. A study found that people with higher levels of PBDEs in their body were four times as likely to die of cancer as those with lower levels. You can read more in the blurb below. Also, numerous human epidemiology studies demonstrate that the average American child has lost about four IQ points from PBDE flame retardants. Billions of dollars of productivity loss across our population have been attributed to this IQ loss.

Given their proven potential for harm, it seems sensible to stop adding flame retardants to our electronics cases and our cars until a fire-safety benefit from their use has been demonstrated. Our current projects around electronics and cars are very challenging. However when we and our colleagues succeeded in stopping the use of flame retardants in furniture, we persevered after being repeatedly told it would not be possible. So now, in spite of the current very challenging political climate and other obstacles, we continue to persevere.

We also wrote about the unnecessary use of flame retardants in electronic cases in our latest Forbes column. We published an article late last month about the use of cancer-causing flame retardants in cars. To receive an email every time our Institute publishes an article, you can create a free Forbes account and subscribe to our column by clicking on the “Follow” button next to my byline. We also will post new articles on our LinkedIn, Facebook, and our new BlueSky accounts.

Finally, you can register for my zoom talk on Friday March 28 from 12:30 to 2 pm Pacific time “Climbing Your Own Everests: Mountains and Molecules,” at Virginia Tech University here.

Kind regards,

Arlene and the Green Science Policy Team

Good News Corner

We are planning to share good news from the environmental health world in our newsletters. It’s important to celebrate wins. For example, the FDA finally banned Red Dye No. 3—linked to cancer in animal studies—from food and drugs. You can read more about this in our next newsletter and please forward good environmental health news to us.

Flame Prevention is Better than Flame Retardants

By Lydia Jahl

When relatively new technologies have widespread issues—like rechargeable batteries catching on fire more frequently—people often scramble for a quick fix. While battery fires are a serious problem, solutions that use toxic flame retardant chemicals in plastic enclosures without evidence for a fire-safety benefit may lead to more harm than good. 

Along with University of Toronto scientists, we published a Viewpoint article in Environmental Science & Technology, discussing how battery standards are increasingly requiring plastic battery enclosures to pass flame tests. These tests are most easily passed with the use of flame retardant chemicals, which can be carcinogenic, neurotoxic, and endocrine-disrupting. To our knowledge, these standards were written quickly without first determining if these old flame tests (intended for electronic enclosures) apply well to battery systems where the potential ignition sources are much different. 

Fire scientist Dr. Vyto Babrauskas said of lithium-ion batteries undergoing thermal runaway, “Trying to stop thermal runaway fires by adding flame retardants to plastic is like adding a screen door to a submarine. It's a futile effort against an overwhelming force.” 

We hope that governmental authorities and standard setting bodies will investigate the fire-safety benefit of requiring flammability ratings for battery enclosures and compare that to the known costs, including health & ecological harm, an impaired circular economy, and more toxic battery fires. Simultaneously, manufacturers and policy makers can work on measures to prevent battery fires from occurring in the first place. Learn more by reading our Viewpoint here. 

PBDE Furniture Flame Retardant Linked to Four Times Higher Cancer Mortality

By Lydia Jahl

It has been thought for decades that many flame retardant chemicals, including polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), used since the 1970s in foam in our furniture and our vehicles, can cause cancer, but can this be demonstrated on a population-level? A study from the University of Iowa and the University of Science and Technology of China sadly confirms that yes, PBDE exposure is associated with a four times higher risk of cancer mortality.

Researchers analyzed data from a survey of the US population that included PBDE levels in healthy adults and mortality outcomes across almost two decades. After adjusting for confounding factors like age, sex, race, and lifestyle, the adults with the highest third of PBDE levels had over four times higher risk of dying from cancer than those with the lowest PBDE levels.

Other studies have found correlations between PBDE exposure and cancer risk in animal studies, and there are biological mechanisms for how endocrine-disrupting chemicals like PBDEs can play a role in the development and progression of hormonally-impacted cancers like thyroid and breast cancer.

PFAS may have earned the nickname forever chemicals, but many flame retardants are also very persistent. The CNN article covering this paper points out how PBDEs have been detected in infants long after their phaseout and how dangerously high
levels are still found in fish and other high-fat foods. Readers can reduce their exposure to PBDEs and other persistent organic pollutants by dusting frequently, replacing old furniture, eating low on the food chain, and voting for politicians who support science-based chemical policies.

Trump Administration Chemical Changes

Ariana Spentzos

Buried in the avalanche of executive orders and policy shifts from the Trump administration, several under-the-radar environmental policy changes are already underway. Addressing the ongoing PFAS contamination crisis in the U.S. remains contentious, with key regulatory policies halted or withdrawn.

On January 21, the administration withdrew proposed guidelines on PFAS discharge limits for chemical manufacturers. These draft guidelines had been sent to the White House for review last year but were withdrawn once Trump took office, as part of his
regulatory freeze executive order, since the rule had not yet been finalized.

Trump’s first-term appointees in chemical regulation have also returned. Nancy Beck, a former executive at the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, is now a senior advisor at the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety. In her previous role in the Trump administration, she opposed numerous regulations on PFAS, asbestos, and carcinogenic solvents.

In early February, an EPA publication in the Federal Register paused implementation of a rule that would have added more PFAS chemicals to the list of substances that industrial facilities must report to the EPA regarding their management and release. These shifts are occurring amid broader changes to the federal workforce, with nearly 400 EPA staff fired last week and hundreds more threatened with layoffs, especially those who work on enforcement of environmental laws, climate change, or environmental justice.

Public Citizen, ACLU, and many others are working to combat these efforts.

Green Science Policy Institute in the News

Below are recent news articles, blogs, podcasts, newsletters, and more that have featured our Institute’s work and expertise.

• Arlene was interviewed by the New York Times publication Wirecutter about her work removing flame retardants from children’s pajamas.
• Our viewpoint on flame retardants in battery enclosures was covered by Popular Science, Environmental Health News, Technology Networks, SlashGear, Waste & Recycling, Canadian Firefighting, R&D World, and more.
• An Inc. article on brands phasing out PFAS mentioned our work with KEEN.
• Arlene was quoted in GearJunkie about PFAS in outdoor gear: “Wearing the jackets is unlikely to harm the person wearing them. The harm comes during the manufacturing to the water, soil, and air near the manufacturing facility.”
• Rebecca talked to Bikepacking.com about what PFAS phaseouts in textiles means for cycling apparel.
• Our formal petition to NHTSA was covered by JD Supra in its Jan. 2025 Wrap-Up of Federal and State Chemical Regulatory Developments.

Calendar

March 12, 2025 at 2pm Pacific:
Lydia Jahl will give a virtual talk to the California Dept. of Toxic Substances Control
entitled "Flame retardants in the air and seat foam of personal vehicles.”

March 28, 2025 at 12:30 to 2:00pm Pacific:
Arlene Blum will present a keynote for the “Women in the Future of Work” speaker
series at Virginia Tech University. The title of her talk is “Climbing your own Everests:
Mountains and Molecules,” The event will be jointly sponsored by the Center for Future
Work Places and Practices and the Virginia Tech Pamplin College of Business.
You can register to watch on Zoom here.

March 28, 2025 at 4:45pm Pacific:
Arlene Blum and Martin Mulvihill will present a session at the 36th Annual Bioneers
Conference March 27 to 29 in Berkeley, CA. Their session is entitled Living In the Toxic
Soup: Solutions to the Legacy of Forever Chemicals.
Register here.