Brominated Flame Retardants – Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals in the Swiss Environment
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.2533/chimia.2008.352Keywords:
Brominated flame retardants, Emerging contaminants, Endocrine disruptors, Persistent organic pollutantsAbstract
Brominated flame retardants (BFR) are additives used to protect plastic materials and textiles against ignition. As some widely used BFR have chemical structures similar to well known endocrine disruptors such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) or bisphenol A, adverse effects were also presumed for BFR. When the NRP50 programme started in 2001, the sparse knowledge on environmental behavior and toxicology of BFR did not allow a proper assessment of the risks associated with the widespread use of these chemicals. Therefore, we proposed to address questions such as the exposure of animals and humans, temporal trends in the environment as well as transformation and transport processes of BFR. Concentrations of BFR in wildlife and humans in Switzerland today pose no serious concerns for negative health effects according to the current knowledge on the toxicity of BFR. However, negative health effects cannot be ruled out in the future, since some BFR persist in the environment and their concentrations in freshwater lake sediments are increasing rapidly. The development of environmentally safe alternatives to these chemicals will be an important issue for the future.Downloads
Published
2008-05-28
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Scientific Articles
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Copyright (c) 2008 Swiss Chemical Society
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
[1]
A. C. Gereckea, P. Schmid, C. Bogdal, M. Kohler, M. Zennegg, N. V. Heeb, Chimia 2008, 62, 352, DOI: 10.2533/chimia.2008.352.