The article below was reprinted from "The American Chiropractor" magazine, a non-profit medical journal, November 2006 issue, pages 54-55.
by Mark Strobel, B.S.
BEFORE THE NEW NATIONAL FLAMEPROOF MATTRESS REGULATION, all mattresses would not ignite from cigarettes. With the new regulation, all new mattresses must now withstand a two-foot wide blowtorch open flame test for seventy seconds.
Some things are clear: New mattresses, including crib size, contain known acutely toxic and cancer causing chemicals including boric acid (yes, the roach killer), antimony trioxide, silicon, decabromodiphenyl oxide, ammonium polyphosphate, melamine, and formaldehyde, to meet the severe open flame test. Scientists have proven these chemicals leach from flameproof mattresses in large quantities, have measured how much leaches to the surface, and proven these chemicals are absorbed by our bodies. Manufacturers are free to choose any untested chemicals they wish to use in mattresses to pass the test. With no labeling requirements for the flame retardant chemicals in mattresses, you will never know which chemicals you, your children, and your patients are sleeping in and absorbing every night.
There are no scientific studies that say it is safe to sleep in these chemicals. Many MD's say it is unsafe for anyone. One medical school professor called it, "Another example of ignorance beyond reason."
The only document which examines the safety of sleeping in some, but not all, of the most commonly used chemicals in flameproof mattress is a short renew internally generated by US Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) employees in January 2006. This is the document proponents point to as proof flameproof mattresses are safe. Ironically, the document proves that known acutely toxic and cancer causing chemicals leach from flameproof beds in large quantities, and are absorbed by our bodies.
The CPSC report has a variety of problems, errors, and omissions: First, they excluded children under age five from the analysis by assuming all these children will sleep on vinyl sheets due to bedwetting problems, and that this will protect them from absorbing the toxic chemicals in their mattresses. A lot of research proves even remarkably low level toxin exposure can harm young children. Even new crib mattresses contain boric acid and antimony to meet the regulation. European scientists proved antimony leaches through vinyl on crib mattresses, and linked it to SIDS.
In a 2004 CPSC Report the authors mote: "Formaldehyde is a known sensitizer, and is also regarded as a carcinogen." Data are needed to determine the conditions for, and potential releases of, formaldehyde from barriers made with melamine formaldehyde resin fibers."
In the 2006 report, these same authors do not test for or mention formaldehyde absorption. They knew about formaldehyde, and omitted it.
An independent review is required by law, hut the report, basically, failed the review as they rebutted and ignored the recommendations. The reviewer complained strongly that their assumptions of safe levels of toxin absorption do not agree with other agencies, and that they changed the rules of the National Academes of Science "Child Sucking Test," and then did not even apply it to one-year-old children whom the test was designed to protect. If they had used the EPA number for antimony safe absorption, it would have proved mattresses toxic by 27.5 times, even with their low skin absorption assumptions. They admit uncertainty and that they have no data for antimony skin absorption. We know one to a few skin applications kills rabbits, yet they assume we will absorb only 2/1,000’s of the antimony that has leached to the surface and contacts our body. Any one of these things, if done properly, would have stopped this regulation.
When pressed that these chemicals are not proven safe to sleep in, the CPSC responded: "All of the statues that provide regulatory authority to the CPSC explicitly require risk-based decision making, thus precluding application of the 'precautionary principle."'
Now, every American, all three hundred million of us, will be eventually forced to unknowingly sleep in and absorb poisonous and cancer causing chemicals for the rest of our lives; so will our children. All of this to avoid a one in 1.111 million mattress fire risk.
Close chronic chemical mattress exposure is risky. People have already gotten sick. We have made toxic mistakes in the past. If these mattresses eventually prove poisonous, how many millions of people will be harmed or killed?
You may agree the risk outweighs the benefit for your patients. Fortunately, the law allows doctors, including chiropractors, to prescribe and sell toxin--free mattresses to those lucky few who learn the truth.
Mark
Strobel, BS, started and owns Strobel Technologies, a national specialty
mattress manufacturer in business thirty-two years. For the last two years, Mark
led the fight against flameproof mattresses by launching
www.PeopleForCleanBeds.org
and generating news and eight hundred doctors' and public comments against the
regulation. Now he offers toxin-free prescription mattresses through
chiropractors at
www.PrescriptionBeds.com You can reach Mark at 1-812-280-6000. or
email mark@strobel.com
See a scanned PDF file of the article by clicking here.