I don't see it discussed in the ME/CFS community much, but there is a law in California that requires huge amounts of flame retardant chemicals to be added to most furniture items around your house including your pillows, couches, carpet, curtains, etc.
Since it is a law in California, everyone adds the chemicals to their products sold across the country so they don't have two versions of their product. So a crap law in California is forcing the chemicals on the rest of the country.
These chemicals have been shown in studies to cause serious health problems in even healthy people, including a lower IQ among a huge list of health problems. My family knows the foremost researcher on these chemicals who has dedicated her life to trying to get them banned. She is constantly working on it. But the companies who make the flame retardant chemicals make incredible profits from their product literally being required to be used in high quantities. So these companies lobby the govt heavily. And whenever there is a bill to make them illegal, they barrage the public with images of burning houses and children on fire. And the public doesn't really ever understand the truth.
Which is that they are seriously toxic, and they do not even suppress fire. Fire fighters themselves hate them because they don't do anything to slow or stop fires, and they create super toxic fumes that they have to breathe in when fighting house fires.
Also, when this woman finally does get a chemical banned because it is shown in studies to cause health problems, the companies just modify the chemical compound slightly and then keep adding it to all of our furniture. And then she goes to work trying to ban that chemical.
There is so much of these chemicals in furniture that it is a significant percentage of the final product by weight (I forget the percentage but it is shocking).
currently am using random pillows, some from the hospital that probably have flame retardants. I would love to create a thread full of sources for pillows and curtains and other furniture that is specifically flame retardant chemical free. Organic does not necessarily mean free of these chemicals. I see tons of organic pillows and they talk about being free of "toxins" and what they're talking about is pesticides used in the farming of the material, not flame retardants added to the product. afterwards. I think most organic furniture is full of these chemicals. If they don't specifically mention that they are flame retardant chemical free, we can assume they are not.
I'm sure that if these chemicals harm healthy people, they likely are much worse for us. Especially long term.
Since it is a law in California, everyone adds the chemicals to their products sold across the country so they don't have two versions of their product. So a crap law in California is forcing the chemicals on the rest of the country.
These chemicals have been shown in studies to cause serious health problems in even healthy people, including a lower IQ among a huge list of health problems. My family knows the foremost researcher on these chemicals who has dedicated her life to trying to get them banned. She is constantly working on it. But the companies who make the flame retardant chemicals make incredible profits from their product literally being required to be used in high quantities. So these companies lobby the govt heavily. And whenever there is a bill to make them illegal, they barrage the public with images of burning houses and children on fire. And the public doesn't really ever understand the truth.
Which is that they are seriously toxic, and they do not even suppress fire. Fire fighters themselves hate them because they don't do anything to slow or stop fires, and they create super toxic fumes that they have to breathe in when fighting house fires.
Also, when this woman finally does get a chemical banned because it is shown in studies to cause health problems, the companies just modify the chemical compound slightly and then keep adding it to all of our furniture. And then she goes to work trying to ban that chemical.
There is so much of these chemicals in furniture that it is a significant percentage of the final product by weight (I forget the percentage but it is shocking).
currently am using random pillows, some from the hospital that probably have flame retardants. I would love to create a thread full of sources for pillows and curtains and other furniture that is specifically flame retardant chemical free. Organic does not necessarily mean free of these chemicals. I see tons of organic pillows and they talk about being free of "toxins" and what they're talking about is pesticides used in the farming of the material, not flame retardants added to the product. afterwards. I think most organic furniture is full of these chemicals. If they don't specifically mention that they are flame retardant chemical free, we can assume they are not.
I'm sure that if these chemicals harm healthy people, they likely are much worse for us. Especially long term.
