Flame Retardants | Fatal Conveniences™

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House fires are terrifying. Believe me, I know. So trying to protect our home and family from fires seems entirely understandable. However, chemical flame retardants are not only toxic to our health, but don’t even offer the protection they claim. What is going on, guys?!

Welcome to Fatal Conveniences™

5-10% of the total weight of your living room couch is made up of chemical flame retardants.

Yup, you read that correctly. These toxic chemicals not only exist in your furniture and mattresses, but they’re floating around your entire home. These toxic chemicals like Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) are seeping in the air in our home because of off-gassing. Chemical particles can be found on our carpets, on the walls and even in the dust floating in the air. It’s not just furniture and mattresses these flame retardants are in either. They’re also used in electronics and even kids’ car seats and boosters.

But that’s not the worst of it.

In studies, these flame retardant chemicals were found in nearly all of the test subjects’ bodies. They were found in blood, fat, breast tissue and even breastmilk. These toxins aren’t just hanging out in our bodies, they’re causing real, permanent damage to our health. They disrupt our hormone production, mess with our thyroids and even cause cancer. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the havoc their wreaking on our bodies. If you have kids or pets at home, this is even more disturbing.

So it’s a small price to pay to save us from fires, right? If these products help us to get out of our homes during a fire and to safety quicker, then it’s worth it. Right? Wrong! They don’t even do what they claim to do! Studies done by fire experts show that flame retardants do not make fires easier to escape, but they actually increase deadly gases during combustion. So they’re killing us two ways? How is this possible?

In this Fatal Conveniences™ segment, I’ll explain how we got to this point, and why it all goes back to Big Tobacco. I’ll go over just what chemicals are used in these products and why they’re so dangerous. And of course, I’ll give ways to rid your homes of this stuff and healthy safe alternatives to buy instead. This one got me incredibly fired up (pun intended) and I hope it motivates you to look a little closer at the organizations and agencies that are supposed to be protecting us.