Frequent Fliers And Flame Retardants

A surfeit of fireproofing chemicals in his body leads Portfolio.com science columnist David Ewing Duncan to wonder if all the time he spends in airplanes is affecting his health.

Image: Benjamin Lowy/Corbis

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A recent study released in Sweden about flame retardants showing up in the cabin air inside commercial airliners—and inside passengers, at high levels—may shed light on a mystery that I discovered in 2006.

That year, I happened to be in an airport waiting for a long flight when I got the news that swirling inside my body were levels of flame retardants 12 times higher than average in the U.S., and 100 times higher than levels found in Europeans.

The results were delivered by phone from a specialist on polybrominated diphenyl ethers—P.D.B.E.'s—a type of flame retardant that until recently was added for safety to products ranging from mattresses and clothing to plastics and electronics found in televisions, computers, and on airplanes.

P.D.B.E.'s are mixed into products such as airline tray tables, seats, carpet, and wiring to raise the temperature at which they would otherwise ignite, making them harder to burn. These chemicals save hundreds of lives a year from death by fire, but they also can break loose as gas and particles released into the air, where they attach to dust that people can breath in.

In mice and rats, high doses of P.D.B.E.'s interfere with thyroid and liver function, and cause neurological problems that include impairment of learning and memory. They also have caused problems with neurological development in fetuses and newborns.

P.D.B.E.'s are suspected carcinogens—which has led the European Union to ban them. In the U.S., California has banned some versions of these chemicals, and Washington State has banned them all.

Scientists have found P.D.B.E.'s all over the Earth, in polar bears in the Arctic, cormorants in England, and killer whales in the Pacific.

When I was tested for my levels of this chemical and hundreds of others for an article in National Geographic, I expected to have normal levels of P.D.B.E.'s—until Åke Bergman of Lund University in Sweden phoned from Stockholm. He asked me if I was sitting down and then paused for what seemed like a very long time.

"I hope you are not nervous, but your concentration is very high," Bergman said in a light Swedish accent. My blood level of one particularly toxic P.D.B.E., found primarily in U.S.-made products, is 249 parts per billion—that's 12 times the mean found in a recent Centers for Disease Control study that tested thousands of Americans.

My levels would be high even if I were a worker in a factory making the stuff, Bergman said.

Yikes, I thought, glad that I was sitting down, though Bergman hastily assured me that even my levels were a long way off from being dangerous—as far as anyone knows.

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