Something sinister is lurking in your living room...
...but you can stop toxic flame retardant chemicals from turning your couch into a killer...
Tell Governor Schwarzenegger to be a hero and stop poisoning the rest of the country with California's outdated furniture standard!
California's current furniture flammability standard is over 30 years old and must be modernized to account for advances in furniture construction and availability of equally effective, yet less toxic means of retarding furniture against fires.
Brominated flame retardants have been found in the environment, in wildlife, and in mother's milk. American mothers have 10-20 times the amount of PBDEs (Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers) in their breast milk as European mothers. A study published in May 2007 by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences showed a link between high levels of PBDEs in breast milk and elevated rates of cryptorchidsm, a genital birth defect in baby boys.
In the 1970s, work conducted by bio-physical chemist Arlene Blum at the University of California at Berkeley showed that chlorinated tris, a chemical used to make children's pajama's flame resistant, was getting into their bodies. Tris was removed from sleepwear after Blum's work showed it caused mutations--meaning it changed DNA--and caused cancer in lab animals. Today, chlorinated tris is the second most-used fire retardant in furniture in California. And because California's outdated standard has become the de facto national standard, tris--a known mutagen and probable human carcinogen--could very well be lurking in the living rooms of families across the country. | 
