He reached out to Twin Cities media outlets and set a flame-retardant-treated couch on fire for TV cameras. Want to get a point across? Think visual.

“Whoosh,” the couch went after a few seconds. TV ate it up and ran the video clip the same night.

When it seemed that statehouse lawmakers were dragging their feet on legislation to ban toxic chemicals in flame retardants, veteran St. Paul firefighter Chris Parsons assembled a bagpiper and a contingent of colleagues from across the state May 4 to stand outside the front doors of the House chambers at the state Capitol. Want to get a point across? Play a beautiful but very loud instrument that will stop conversations mid-sentence and ring ears for a while.

Parsons, a fire captain who also heads the Minnesota Professional Firefighters group, did everything short of setting himself on fire this legislative session in his attempt to raise awareness about elevated cancer rates harming and claiming the lives of firefighters from coast to coast.

Now it appears that his yearlong efforts, along with others’, may bear fruit. The House is expected to vote Saturday on a bill to ban the manufacture and sale in the state of flame-retardant-treated furniture, clothing and other products. If passed, experts believe, it will become the most restrictive law of its kind in the nation.

“I’m glad I did not have to do that,” Parsons quipped this week of any thoughts about self-immolation. “It won’t happen overnight, but we hope this (bill) will help save the lives of firefighters in the future.”

That’s the little-known fact about this bill. More firefighters will come down with cancers for years to come because of the “toxic soup” emitted by chemically treated furniture, clothing, laptops and other materials found in homes and commercial structures during blazes.

But every worthwhile journey starts with a first step.

The current version of the bill would ban, as of July 1, 2018, all manufacturers or wholesalers in Minnesota from making or distributing a children’s product or upholstered residential furniture containing any of at least four flame retardants considered the most toxic.

Minnesota retailers have a year from that date before they are banned from selling such chemically treated materials “in amounts greater than 1,000 parts per million,” the bill states.

It appears to be a legislative drop in the bucket. Such toxic materials are being made and are present in millions of homes and businesses and have been for decades. There’s no way anyone can enforce purchases of such materials from other states or overseas, where environmental standards are minimal, nonexistent or ignored in pursuit of the almighty buck.

FROM 10 CHEMICALS TO FOUR

Fires have always been toxic, whether the materials burning are wood, concrete, asbestos or hundreds of other harmful materials. But study after study in recent years has shown a troubling parallel between the advent of flame-retardant use and elevated rates of several types of cancers among firefighters, when compared with the general population.

A Senate version of the bill quickly passed last month by a vote of 52-9. The House version got stuck in committee malaise until Rep. Jeff Howe, R-Rockville, a retired firefighter, worked with legislators, Parsons, and lobbyists from the chemical industry to hammer out a compromise.

The list of 10 chemicals banned in the original Senate version was whittled down to the four considered the most toxic and potentially cancer causing.

Though disappointed, Parsons praised Howe, who 30 years ago was an ardent supporter of flame retardants as potential lifesavers. Howe did not realize until recently that they could have played a role in the number of fire colleagues who contracted cancer or died in recent years.

“I believe that if it wasn’t for his work, this bill would be dead in the water,” Parsons said. “He stuck his neck out.”

MINNESOTA IN THE LEAD

Susan Shaw, an environmental health researcher who testified this week in support of the bill, calls Parsons “the top lobbyist for firefighters on this issue in the country.”

With other researchers, Shaw is taking part in an unprecedented biomarker study of more than 300 firefighters, including those in the Twin Cities area, to prove a direct link between flame retardants and some of the cancer spike in firefighters.

Most previous studies have been statistical or epidemiological in nature. The biomarker study will be similar in procedure and testing to the landmark study that proved cigarettes caused lung cancer in smokers.

She and others believe paid lobbyists for the chemical industry and related trade groups are using the same deny-and-delay tactics the tobacco industry used for decades until the truth became an irrefutable fact of science.

Critics of the bill, which include representatives from the American Chemistry Council and the North American Flame Retardant Alliance, told the House Commerce and Regulatory Reform Committee this week that no study has yet found a direct link between some fire retardants and the cancer spike among firefighters. Besides considering the bill too broad in scope, they maintain that the chemicals, though it might be a mere handful of seconds, potentially give people enough time to escape a fire.

Shaw maintains the current study — though it will take years to complete — will be just as significant as the tobacco one.

“There were 30 years of lawsuits against the tobacco industry that could not tie cigarette smoking to lung cancer until that study was done,” said Shaw, founder and president of the Marine Environmental Research Institute in Blue Hill, Maine.

“I expect we will see other states following Minnesota’s lead,” said Shaw, who fielded phone calls this week from England and elsewhere about the issue. “This bill is getting international attention as well.”

Parsons is confident the bill will become law before the legislative session is scheduled to wrap up next week. If not, at least a repeat and longer performance by bagpiper and St. Paul firefighter Ben Schenck will be warranted. I hear he takes requests.

Ruben Rosario can be reached at 651-228-5454 or email at rrosario@pioneerpress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/nycrican.