DUST in American homes contains such high levels of flame retardants called PBDEs that young children could be ingesting up to 6000 nanograms of these chemicals a day.
鈥淲e cannot say what these levels will do,鈥� says Heather Stapleton of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland, whose team carried out the study. 鈥淏ut laboratory studies with rats and mice have shown that exposure to PBDEs can affect development.鈥�
The team found PBDEs in dust from all the 17 homes they sampled in Washington DC and Charleston, South Carolina. Concentrations ranged up to 30,100 nanograms per gram, they report online in Environmental Science and Technology.
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PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) are common in furniture, carpets, TVs and computers. Their discovery in food, blood and breast milk has raised concerns about health effects.
