One of the unfortunate aspects of human progress is that people often forget or discount what life was like before that progress was made. We have seen this in recent years with the debate over issues like the use of chlorine to treat the drinking water supply. There are a number of people who question the use of disinfectants in drinking water despite the fact that these chemistries virtually eliminated cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery and hepatitis A in this country. A similar experience is happening with life-saving fire safety measures. Washington state legislators are currently considering two bills that would ban specific flame retardants from certain products, and groups opposed to flame retardants are eagerly encouraging policymakers to pass the legislation. What is missing from this debate is historical context and science-based fact.
Most people today were not alive during a period when terrible building fires ravaged life and property during the early to mid-part of the 20th century. Indeed, fires like the ones that swept through Boston’s Cocoanut Grove night club in 1942, killing 492 people, as well as the one that burned through Manhattan’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, killing 146 people in 1911, are virtually unheard of in the U.S. today.
This progress is due in no small part to the many fire safety regulations that were enacted over the intervening decades, as well as to fire safety tools, like fire alarms, fire extinguishers and flame retardants, that are used to help meet these regulations.
As a result, we’ve seen tremendous progress in fire safety statistics in almost every sector. For example, no one these days thinks about fire safety and televisions. That’s because they don’t have to. Televisions produced in the U.S. have complied with a voluntary standard since the 1970s, and manufacturers have used flame retardants to help meet the standard. Before this measure was put in place, television fires killed an average of 160 people a year in the United States. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission credited the voluntary standard with an immediate and drastic drop in television fires.
Still, similar to the issues related to drinking water, some people have expressed concern about health and safety consequences associated with flame retardants. It is important for these people to understand that there are a number of different flame retardants made from many different chemistries. These flame retardants, like all chemicals, are subject to review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other agencies in the U.S. and around the world. The EPA has the authority to limit or even prohibit a chemical’s use if it has questions concerning safety of any chemicals. During a recent review of data, the EPA identified approximately 50 flame retardants that are unlikely to pose a risk to human health.
Additionally, other government and industry-sponsored peer-reviewed research has been conducted on these chemicals, and the results show that for many of these flame retardants human exposure is well below the level associated with significant health effects.
Given these facts, it is clear Washingtonians and their elected representatives should not have to make the choice between fire safety and chemical safety. They can have both.
We should not turn the clock back on the progress on fire safety. Washington state policymakers should oppose any restrictions on flame retardants that are not clearly grounded in sound science.
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