Investigation comes after recent studies linked flame retardants – found in many household items – to serious health risks

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

The Obama administration is to review the safety of 20 flame retardants used in a host of common household items, from baby products and children's pyjamas to sofa cushions.

The review, to be carried out by the Environmental Protection Agency, follows growing concern about the widespread use of such chemicals, after studies linking flame retardants to cancer, lower IQ, developmental problems, and decreased fertility.

"Americans are often exposed to flame retardant chemicals in their daily lives," the EPA said in its announcement of the risk assessment. "EPA is committed to more fully understanding the potential risks of flame retardant chemicals, taking action if warranted, and identifying safer substitutes when possible."

Eleven states are considering laws to ban toxic flame retardants, in response to hundreds of studies over the last four decades pointing to the health and environmental dangers.

The chemicals migrate out of household products, and are inhaled as dust, or ingested by young children who put things in their mouths.

They also linger in the environment turning up in the tissue of baby seals and other marine animals.

Campaigners said the announcement by the EPA was an important first step controlling chemicals that have become extraordinarily widespread, despite the dangers.

The Centres for Disease Control recently detected flame retardants in the blood or urine of virtually every person tested for the substances. A study published last month found elevated cancer risks among firefighters exposed to high levels of flame retardants during house fires.

"It's wonderful progress, but it's not over," said Susan Shaw, director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute, who led the study on the California firefighters.

The 20 flame retardants were on a list of 23 chemicals undergoing risk assessment by the EPA. The agency said it would also study 1,4-dioxane, a chemical used in laundry detergent that is a suspected carcinogen.

Shaw said the EPA was encouraged to order the assessment after growing public pressure on flame retardants. More than 20 senators wrote to the EPA last month urging a review.

Meanwhile, California is considering whether to revise a 1975 law requiring furniture-makers to inject enough of the chemicals into upholstery cushions to prevent ignition from a lit flame for 12 seconds.

Flame retardants were introduced originally to make products safer – buying time in case of a house fire. But over the years, there has been growing scientific evidence that they offer no meaningful protection from household fires. "The chemicals are not that effective the benefits are not that clear and the toxicity is overwhelming," Shaw said.

Meanwhile, federal regulators and campaigners argue that existing laws are outdated or too weak to weed out dangerous chemicals.

"The evidence is building that flame retardants are threatening the health of our children and families in their own homes," senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat who has spent the years fighting to reform those laws, said in a statement. "We must reform our broken chemical laws if we ever hope to truly protect American families from dangerous chemicals. "