Your couch is bad for your health!
I have written about this topic before in an early post, Toxic flame retardants: In our homes, our dust, our lives, but this HBO special covers this topic in much greater detail and packages it in video ;-)
I believe it is very important for everyone to understand the level of chemical experimentation that is happening to them – to YOU, to US – right now. We are being pumped full of all kinds of man-made chemicals; most (99+%) have had very little unbiased testing with regards to their short-term and long-term effects on health. Of the 84,000+ industrial chemicals registered for use in the United States, just over 200 have been evaluated for human safety by the Environmental Protection Agency (that’s because industrial chemicals are presumed safe unless proven otherwise, under the 1976 federal Toxic Substances Control Act). But the saddest and most disturbing thing is, lots of chemicals we KNOW are awful for us, chemicals we KNOW with 100% certainty mimic hormones, are mutagenic and cause cancer and other maladies when they enter our bodies, are still being produced (and are still being used as though there was nothing wrong with them)!
Flame retardants are no exception. And the worst part about this class of chemicals is, they have been proven to be ineffective. The industry uses fear to keep the legislators from banning them outright. But enough of me telling you my thoughts, they do a great job in the video. And for even more on this subject you should also look here: Tribune Watchdog: Playing with Fire. This research is what spawned this documentary.
Trailer:
Full Documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e-LK80LhUY