October 7, 2008
By, Malcolm Maclachlan
Excerpt: Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, has sent a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger asking him to use his executive power to ban a controversial set of flame retardant chemicals from furniture sold in California.
The letter, sent late on Monday, is a response to a study released last week by the Silent Spring Institute. The Massachusetts-based group that found that Californians had twice the level of a fire retardant known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, in their blood as people in other states. Animal studies have found that PBDEs to cause cancer, reproductive and neurological problems. An industry representative said that there is no evidence the chemicals cause health problems in humans.