Conformity Magazine - January 2009 - (Page 14) physicians, firefighters, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to support proposed legislation in California that would stop the addition of toxic fire retardants to furniture sold there. In order to comply with the requirements of California TB 117, which came into effect in 1980, manufacturers have added brominated fire retardants (BFRs) and chlorinated fire retardants (CFRs) to the polyurethane foam used for furniture cushions and padding, as well as in juvenile products. However, there was insufficient data to show that the presence of these chemicals in furniture sold in California actually led to a reduction of fires, injuries and deaths when compared to other states. In fact, many fire scientists believed that the similar rate of decline in fire deaths in all states, including California, was explained by the decrease in cigarette smoking, the increased use of smoke detectors, and by increased enforcement of fire safety standards, etc. The major support for continuing to add potentially toxic fire retardant chemicals to furniture in California primarily came from the flame retardant chemical companies that profited from selling the chemicals, and their allies such as NASFM8. In November 2007, Blum learned about the IEC candle flame ignition requirement that had been proposed and promoted by NASFM. She was concerned by an electronics industry estimate that as much as 1.7 billion pounds of additional fire retardant chemicals would be required annually to deal with the undocumented hazard of candle fires igniting consumer electronics, without adequate information on the impact that the addition of such a large quantity of potentially toxic chemicals would have on consumer health and on the environment. When, in December 2007, she asked a TC 108 voting representative about health and environmental impacts of the proposed changes, she was told “IEC 62368 is being voted on right now in thirty countries. You can see it in April after it passes.” Separately, a report from Pure Strategies10 to the NGO community stated that, “the (standard development) process is far enough along and sufficiently isolated to preclude the NGO community from influencing the standard.” In a separate conversation, a chemist from one of the voting member companies told Blum there would be no health or environmental problems from the new candle flame ignition requirement, since three previously banned fire retardants would not be used. But Blum was not reassured, since neither federal nor state governments have the authority to ensure that fire retardant chemicals are safe for human health. Further, she knew of many dozens of animal studies that had shown adverse health impacts from exposure to some fire retardant chemicals, including cancer, harm to reproduction, and scrambling of brain development, as well as persistence, and bioaccumulation of the chemicals in humans, animals, and the environment. 1 Conformity JAnUAry 2009 For Blum, adding hundreds of millions of pounds of such chemicals to consumer electronics to achieve an undocumented fire safety benefit seemed like an enormous gamble with human and environmental health worldwide. Determined to either stop the development of the candle ignition requirement part of the standards or to add consideration of health and environmental impacts of the chemicals most likely to be used to meet them, she contacted colleagues in academia and environmental NGOs from around the world to assemble a coalition of indisputable expertise. At the same time, Blum recruited Michael Kirschner (co-author of this article), based on his knowledge of the electronics industry and his company’s membership in the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Kirschner joined the U.S. national committee for TC 108 and began researching the proposed requirement. Among other things, he learned that, despite the high cost of implementation and the lack of a proven fire safety benefit, electronics manufacturers were resigned to approving the candle flame ignition requirement. They had been unable to accumulate adequate technical information to counter the NASFM’s push, and appeared unwilling to face potential negative publicity about their products. Kirschner was told, “unless you have a silver bullet” there’s nothing that can be done about this. Turns out there was a silver bullet. But getting it loaded, pointed, and fired at the target in a short amount of time would take substantial effort. The Strategy The key challenges facing Blum and Kirschner were to build a defensible argument against the candle flame ignition requirement based on actual fire and toxicology data, and defuse the perceived threat of negative publicity against manufacturers unwilling to go along with the proposed requirement. Blum identified leading researchers in chemistry and toxicology at distinguished institutions to help assess specific chemical substances most likely be used to meet this requirement. She recruited environmental NGOs, such as Friends of the Earth (FoE) and the Center for Environmental Health (CEH), groups that were already working with her on the problem of toxics in furniture. These NGOs connected her to international networks including the Chemical Secretariat (ChemSec) and the European Environmental Citizens’ Organization for Standardisation (ECOS), and added the voice of international “civil society,” that is, the very consumers who buy electronic products, and who were being targeted by the NASFM with misleading information about the safety of those products12. Her work on the furniture issue had also introduced her to fire safety and fire-fighting organizations that could help assess the validity of the fire data.
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