Our results support the hypothesis that cats are highly exposed to PBDEs; hence, pet cats may serve as sentinels to better assess human exposure and adverse health outcomes related to low-level but chronic PBDE exposure.
A new study by the Environmental Protection Agency, et al, "Elevated PBDE Levels in Pet Cats: Sentinels for Humans?" has been making the blog rounds of late, proving, perhaps, that we can muster up more outrage over the suffering of house pets than we can about a world of children. ("That's it. Now I'm really angry," writes Eric de Place on the Grist blog.)
(Flower hopes there's no PBDEs in my bike bag.)
I'm not judging this or criticizing this impulse; in fact I share it.
What do you mean my innocent cats, the ones I raised by bottle since their first day on earth, have been lounging on toxic furniture? That their very fastidiousness, their assiduous grooming, has caused them to ingest more of the flame-retardant chemicals that sully our sofas than do our dirty pet canines?
Wasting away with thyroid disease possibly brought on by exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), they can have no idea what made them sick or why, and they're powerless to stop it. It's unconscionable.
But as the journal of Environmental Science and Technology points out, we already knew that children have been taking on more PBDEs from household products than adults do in the same househould; in fact, a study published in 2006 found "children's levels 2- to 5-fold higher than those of their parents." In other words, we should have been outraged already.
Doesn't matter, though, really, does it? Whatever wakes us up. And we have no excuse. What matters now is what we do about it. And there's no greater authority on this than author, climber and biophysical chemist Arlene Blum, who in the 1970 worked to get another flame retardant chemical, Tris, banned from children's sleepwear. On the Huffington Post, she writes not only of her cat's battle with (PBDE-triggered?) hyperthyroidism, but also of the ongoing political struggle to ban disease-causing chemicals from our household products, furniture and toys. PBDEs have already been banned in California, but:
The bad news is that the very same Tris, I'd helped remove from kid's pajamas decades ago is replacing them. A handful of companies -- Albemarle, Dead Sea Bromine, and Chemtura -- supply potentially toxic fire retardant chemicals to the foam and furniture industries with assurances of safety. And these fire retardant manufacturers have already spent $1.4 million in Sacramento this year opposing reforms that would protect our health and environment.
As Blum notes, MomsRising.org has a letter-writing campaign going to urge the swift passage and approval of AB 706, the bill working its way through Sacramento that would "require all
seating, bedding, and furniture products to comply with certain requirements, including . . . the requirement that they not contain brominated fire retardants or chlorinated fire retardants," beginning in 2010.
Don't just do it for your cat. Do it for yourself. And your kids.
And, of course, it goes without saying: Do it for future generations of cats.
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