Toxicological risks of selected flame-retardant chemicals

de Toxicology Committee, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Life Sciences Commission, Division on Earth and Life Studies Staff, National Research Council Staff

From the press release: "The eight chemicals that the panel deemed safe at this point are hexabromocyclododecane, decabromodiphenyl oxide, alumina trihydrate, magnesium hydroxide, zinc borate, ammonium polyphosphates, phosphonic acid, and tetrakis hydroxymethyl phosphonium chloride. Although toxicity data for some of them are inadequate for certain routes of exposure, these chemicals were found to be safe even under the worst-case exposure assumptions ... Because of limited data, the panel could not rule out the potential for eight of the flame-retardant chemicals to cause health problems, including cancer in certain cases, so it recommended further study to determine the extent to which the population could be exposed to these chemicals. The eight chemicals requiring exposure analyses or dermal absorption studies are antimony trioxide, antimony pentoxide and sodium antimonates, calcium and zinc molybdates, organic phosphonates and cyclic phosphonate esters (dimethyl hydrogen phosphite), tris (monochloropropyl) phosphates, tris (1,3-dichloropropyl-2) phosphate, aromatic phosphate plasticizers (tricresyl phosphate), and chlorinated paraffins."