GreenBuilding Advisor and Spray Foam Insulation Lawsuits

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Once again, GBA reports on the many complaints and lawsuits against the spray foam industry.

Lawsuits Name Makers of Spray Foam Insulation

Federal court filings in a half dozen states allege that spray polyurethane foam is defective and dangerous to homeowners

POSTED ON APR 26 2013 BY SCOTT GIBSON

Spray foam insulation is the target of civil complaints filed in federal district courts. A lawyer in the case describes the number of complaints from homeowners as an “avalanche.”

Federal lawsuits claiming that spray-polyurethane foam insulation is toxic and can sicken those who live in houses where it has been installed are pending in more than a half-dozen states as lawyers deal with an “avalanche” of complaints, a Florida attorney says.

To date, complaints have been filed in federal district courts in Florida, New York, Michigan, New Jersey, Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, says Vince Pravato, an attorney at Wolf & Pravato in Fort Lauderdale. According to Pravato, litigation filings are also expected in North Carolina and Arkansas.

Pravato says he has been retained by clients to pursue claims against a number of different manufacturers and installers, including Demilec, Lapolla, Masco, and NCFI Polyurethanes.

The filings mark the start of what is likely to be a protracted legal effort on the part of a number of attorneys representing many homeowners. Attorneys for the homeowners are hoping the cases will be bundled into something called “multidistrict litigation” that would speed pretrial proceedings. A hearing on that request is scheduled for the end of May in Kentucky.

Verdicts in any of the requested jury trials could be a year or more away.

Some clients suffer ‘severe health issues’

Pravato was one of the attorneys working on litigation that targeted defective drywall manufactured in China and installed in thousands of homes in the U.S.

Class action settlements approved in that case could cost the manufacturer more than $1 billion. “I was not eager to jump into another situation like the Chinese drywall case,” Pravato says, “but more and more people began contacting me and I said I would look into it, and it became an avalanche.”

The chief complaints are health problems suffered by occupants of homes that have been insulated with spray foam. Apparently, some homeowners develop chemical sensitivity to foam ingredients.

While a number of manufacturers have been cited, Demilec comes up most frequently, Pravato says. Most often, the affected homeowners were in their homes at the time the foam was sprayed, or returned home immediately afterward. Clients who developed health problems typically didn’t know what was causing them. Plaintiffs include a family doctor from Virginia, Pravato says, who was forced out of his home.

“He had significant neurological problems,” the attorney says. “He had MRI testing because he was losing sensation in his legs. He had breathing problems. He was seeing an allergist. He couldn’t figure out what the problem was, and he was a medical doctor. He said, ‘Vince, if somebody came to me with these problems and said it was spray foam I wouldn’t believe him.’ And he finally figured out what it was. They moved out and he’s doing much better. But his house sits empty.

“When you hear these stories it’s just a tragedy after a tragedy. These people are losing their homes. It’s terrible story after terrible story.

“I think there are a lot of people out there who are having problems and don’t know why they are having problems,” he adds. “This hasn’t become a giant public concern so far. You don’t have a lot of news coverage on it. I don’t think people really have the tools to know what is the cause of a lot of the problems they may be having.”

Full Article HERE

 

Send Your SPF Story

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Please email me your SPF story and any testing results.  We have an interested party (media) that wants to look over the complaints, issues, and results in order to pull together the next step of the documentary.

It is important to send your experience so we can capture how many of us are involved and the similarities.

As always, privacy is always granted.

Foamproblem@gmail.com

 

Childrens EPA – Nancy Swan and SPF Dangers

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Here is a blog post from Nancy Swan, Director of Children’s Environmental Protection Alliance known as Children’s EPA

Proposed Connecticut House Bill 5908 -To protect the health and safety of spray foam insulation installers and their customers,

Introduced by: General Law Committee,  referred by House to Committee on the Environment on April 4, 2013
To monitor status of this Bill: http://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&bill_num=HB05908&which_year=2013
Proposed Connecticut House Bill 5908: an act concerning safety and certification standards for the spray Foam Insulation Industry.
Spray Polyurethane Foam (SPF) Spray on Foam roofing and insulation industry has been named by the US EPA and major health organizations as responsible for injuring schoolchildren, employees, and homeowners for more than thirty years, yet no state or federal government has succeeded in regulating this powerful and reckless industry.
The SPF industry continues to exploit a regulatory loophole which causes tens of thousands of injuries and deaths – each year.  Storage of deadly chemicals and their use in the manufacture of products and safety of employees is regulated only in manufacturing facilities.  However, SPF are transported off-site where manufacture of the foam takes place in individual homes, businesses, day cares, and schools.
Odd as it may seem,  SPF applicators are not required to be certified in the safe storage, manufacture or application of one of the most deadly chemicals manufactured – isocyanate. SPF sellers are too eager to make a profit and applicators are “intermediaries.”
The Intermediary Defense is a legal term used to manipulate the judge and confuse juries by pointing the finger of blame at each other- the manufacture or the applicator- so that neither is held accountable for injuries.
As a result the failure to regulate the SPF industry, innocent consumers and inhabitants of these buildings are not warned of the known and potential health dangers caused by SPF, no first aid is provided, and injury and death end up drawn out in civil court for sometimes fifteen or more years, like my case.
Spray Polyurethane Foam (SPF) roofing, Spray on Foam roofing and insulation, and Spray on Foam sealant have been heavily marketed to school boards around the world for the last 30 years as a “green solution.”   A bill has been introduced in Connecticut to regulate the use of Spray on Foam products.
Get involved:
  • If you live in Connecticut, call your lawmaker to support CT H. B. 5908.
  • If you live outside Connecticut, write a letter in support of federal SPF regulation to President Obama using the CT Bill 5908.
  • Ask national and state health and environment organization to fax a letter of support to CT House Committee on the Environment.
http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=91060&sitesection=WTIC_hom_non_fro&VID=24462819
Spray on Foam products may help to reduce energy consumption BUT SPF increases a children’s exposure to deadly, asthma causing, and cancer-causing chemicals.
Spray on Foam is a dangerous product which if properly or improperly applied, cured, and maintained can seriously injury or kill you or your child.
The terms “Green” and “Green solution” are not regulated by USA and most other countries, and therefore have no useful meaning to school boards or to the consumer.  “Green” and “Green solution” are product and advertiser hype words only.
Sale and use of this product needs to be tightly regulated throughout the USA and other countries.

Spray on Foam products seriously and permanently injured me and more than two dozen children at the school where I had been teaching.   Toxic Justice – Nancy Swan

This tragedy is happening in every city and thousands of schools across the USA.
How can you prevent this product from harming you or your child?
After watching the following video, please visit http://www.childrensepa.org/
Bill to regulate Spray on Foam use in Connecticut http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=91060&sitesection=WTIC_hom_non_fro&VID=24462819
Tags: SPF, Spray Polyurethane Foam, SPF Insulation, Spray On Foam, Spray On Foam Roofing, Spray on Foam Sealant, Spray on Foam products, School Board, Brain damage, Asthma, Green Solution, Green, Connecticut, WTIC, Homeowners, insulation, Children’s EPA, Toxic Justice, legislation, environment, health, children’s health, asthma, brain damage, respiratory irritant, cancer, American Chemical Council, EPA, CDC, Connecticut, H. B. 5908, chemical safety, OSHA, FEMA, NIOSH, CDC

Of Course It Will Take A Mom To Fight This…Time To Mom UP.

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The couch is gaining a ton of attention because it is filled with flame retardants – But Hello??? What do you think is in the foam of your spray foam insulation??? And yes, it does become part of your interior envelop, so to all the ignorant architects protecting the projects you spec’d over the years, wake up. Your pretty, energy efficient homes are flame retardant filled dust boxes, sleep well and karma sucks.

This blog from LaurasRules is priceless…

Dear Governor Brown and Chief Blood:

After years of being duped by stooges from the chemical industry, you have finally taken a big step in the right direction.

Your proposed rule on flame retardants in furniture (TB 117-2013) would greatly improve the lives of both Californians and the rest of America, which buys furniture impacted by California’s standards, by allowing furniture makers to drop the use of IQ-destroying, fertility-lowering, carcinogenic chemicals.

In fact, your previous “fire safety” standards did not protect public safety, as tests by federal regulators show, because they delay a fire by only 2-3 seconds, while making smoke, toxicity and soot worse. A comprehensive paper by Arlene Blum and other leading scientists, “Halogenated Flame Retardants: Do the Fire Safety Benefits Justify the Risks?” from Reviews on Environmental Health in 2010 (pdf link here) explains, on pages 281-2:

Laboratory research on TB117 supports this lack of measurable fire safety benefit. A study at the National Bureau of Standards in 1983 showed that following ignition, the important fire hazard indicators (peak heat release rate and the time to peak) were the same in TB117-compliant furniture where the foam was treated with chemical flame retardants and in non-treated furniture. A small flame was able to ignite both regular furniture and furniture meeting the TB117 standard—once ignited, the fire hazard was essentially identical for both types.

A 1995 report from the Proceedings of the Polyurethane Foam Association provides further evidence that TB117 does not improve fire safety. Small open flame and cigarette ignition tests were performed separately on 15 fabrics covering TB117 type polyurethane foam, conventional polyurethane foam, and polyester fiber wrap between the fabric cover and the foam cores. The study found no improvement in ignition or flame spread from a small open flame or cigarette ignition propensity using TB117-compliant foam.

The authors also provide other reasons why the old California test, which exposed the internal foam directly to flame, is pointless — for one, because the fabric often also catches on fire and can provide its own ignition source.

In fact, though its not due to chemicals, the number of people (and children) who die in a fire has gone down dramatically over the past century, which makes sense when you think about the absence of headlines about cows allegedly knocking over lanterns and lighting whole cities ablaze. It’s a resounding victory for public safety measures, as these numbers from the National Fire Protection Association (pdf) indicate:

Out of a million Americans, average number who died of unintentional injury due to fire:
in 2007: 9

in 1992: 16

in 1977: 29

in 1962: 41

in 1947: 56

in 1932: 57

in 1917: 105

Nonetheless, California evidently was taken in by chemical company goons posing as fire safety “experts” touting lies and exploiting the tragic deaths of infants for their own profits.

Interestingly, California lacks a law that provides penalties under the law for lying to state officials or lawmakers. In contrast, federal law has criminal penalties for intentional deception of a federal official, and the federal rulemaking docket at the CPSC on flame retardants, curiously, does not have any comments on burned babies as a part of the submissions. My conclusion? You guys should get one of those laws that makes it illegal to lie to you about important things.

In this case, the consequences were awful. For all of us, really. Because of your terrible judgment, we have pounds of dangerous and pointless chemicals in our homes, in our indoor air, and in the bloodstreams of our children. As the Blum papersays:

Many of these chemicals are now recognized as global contaminants and are associated with adverse health effects in animals and humans, including endocrine and thyroid disruption, immunotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, cancer, and adverse effects on fetal and child development and neurologic function.

Given that a recent paper reported on by the New York Times, found flame retardants in the blood of 100 percent — every single! — toddler they tested.

How many kids have you put at risk? Let’s make a rough estimate. A table under the Population tab on this page indicates that there are an estimated 50.7 million children in the U.S. ages 0-11 today. The CPSC study (pdf) as to chlorinated tris (just one of these chemicals) in 2006 specifically concluded:

The estimated cancer risk for a lifetime of exposure to TDCP-treated upholstered furniture was 300 per million. In children, the estimated cancer risk from exposure during the first two years of life alone was 20 per million. Both of these risks exceed one-in-a-million. A substance may be considered hazardous if the lifetime individual cancer risk exceeds one-in-a-million.

So the overall risk for a child from exposure to tris is 20 times 50 million children, orone thousand kids (extra) with cancer. And, sadly, childhood rates of the worst kinds of cancer are on the increase. According to the National Cancer Institute:

Over the past 20 years, there has been some increase in the incidence of children diagnosed with all forms of invasive cancer, from 11.5 cases per 100,000 children in 1975 to 14.8 per 100,000 children in 2004.

In fact, it appears that a person’s lifetime risk of dying of cancer is 192 times their risk of dying in a fire:

Lifetime odds of death for selected causes, United States, 2008*

Total, any cause 1 in 1

Heart disease 1 in 6

Cancer 1 in 7

…
Exposure to smoke, fire, and flames 1 in 1,344

And that’s just for cancer risks. There’s also reproductive harm, attention deficit issues, and other health damage linked to flame retardants. For just one example, here’ssobering coverage of a 2012 study linking maternal-fetal levels of PBDEs, another ubiquitous flame retardant found in 97 percent of the study subjects, to delayed development in the child at age 7.

In sum, you’ve royally screwed up. The best thing to do when you’ve made a colossal error in judgment? Apologize and try your best to make it right.

There’s really no two ways about it, California: you owe Americans a new couch. One that won’t poison our homes and make our children sick. One that won’t show up in our bloodstreams, ‘fer Pete’s sake.

Seriously. This is really not too much to ask, given the harm you’ve caused. IMHO, the chemical companies could pay for it out of the profits they made peddling all that cancerous stuff. Certainly, the good people of California, who have the highest levels of flame retardants in their bodies in the world, have suffered enough.

At any rate, I look forward to hearing from you. A (flame-retardant-free) loveseat in a nice brown or beige would do just fine.

All best,

Laura

Blog Link Here

Furniture/Spray Foam and Flame Retardants= Danger.

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Flame retardants and the dangers associated with them are finally being taken seriously.  BUT…when will the builders and architects start understanding homes with spray foam insulation have much more flame retardant in the foams than any one piece of furniture.  Chlorinated Tris is in SPF at least in Sealection 500 from Demilec.

By Michael HawthorneTribune reporter

12:05 a.m. CDT, March 27, 2013

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California officials vowed Tuesday to move forward on a new fire safety rule that could eliminate the use of toxic flame retardants in household furniture and baby products sold nationwide.

At a public hearing on the proposed standard, what was most striking was what didn’t happen. Unlike previous forums on the issue, no witnesses for the chemical industry presented dramatic testimony about children dying in fires or videos of couches engulfed in flames.

Instead, a single consultant for a group representing the manufacturers of flame retardants disputed technical details of the proposal and said it would not adequately protect people from furniture fires.

The proposed changes would require upholstery fabric to resist cigarettes and other smoldering items — the biggest cause of furniture fires. California currently requires the foam cushioning underneath to withstand a candlelike flame for 12 seconds, a standard manufacturers typically meet by adding flame-retardant chemicals to furniture sold nationwide.

The rule also has been applied to baby products such as diaper-changing pads, highchairs and nursery rockers.

California announced last year that it would overhaul its 38-year-old flammability rule after a Tribune investigative series documented how the chemical and tobacco industries waged a deceptive, decades long campaign to promote the use of flame retardants, even though government and independent research has found the chemicals do not provide meaningful protection from furniture fires.

If the state adopts the changes later this year, scores of new household products might soon be free of flame retardants linked to cancer and other health problems. Studies show the chemicals migrate out of products into household dust ingested by people, especially young children.

See Article Here

Why Plastic Foam Insulation Is Like a Twinkie: Lessons Green Builders Can Learn From Michael Pollan

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Tree Hugger has a fantastic point about SPF in the following article.

As for my own experience, I can vouch for the fact that SPF will never be a ‘green’ product for many reason, but one obvious reason is this stuff does not biodegrade.

When we had to remove over a hundred plastic bags filled with failed or bad SPF from our home, it was very obvious that this will sit in a dump somewhere – for-EVER!

Lloyd Alter
Design / Green Architecture
December 20, 2012Green building means different things to different people, but improved insulation and reducing energy use is certainly up at the top of everyone’s list. Some of the most effective insulations are made from plastic foam, either in rigid boards or sprayed foams.

But there are concerns; Architect Ken Levenson recently wrote a controversial article, Why Foam Fails. Reason #1: Dangerous Toxic Ingredients, which was the start of a series that is very critical of foam insulation. I wrote about it in Does Foam Insulation Belong in Green Buildings? 13 Reasons It Probably Doesn’t and at the Green Building Advisor, the discussion almost turned into a flame war between those who think that plastic foam does a great job, and those who agree with Ken Levenson.

The more I read the discussion at Green Building Advisor, the more I thought that the arguments sounded familiar. At TreeHugger we have covered both green buildings and green food, and the arguments about the merits of plastic insulation vs natural products, what we put in our houses, are almost identical to those we have been having about what we put in out mouths.

Consider the Twinkie.

Consider the Twinkie. It sort of looks like polyurethane foam and lasts about as long. It’s made from “37 or so ingredients, many of which are polysyllabic chemical compounds.” (see them all here). The manufacturer of Twinkies recently went bankrupt for the second time, not because of unions or Wall Street shenanigans, but because their sales had been declining for years. Peoples’ tastes changed and they simply were not buying as much of this kind of food. More people wanted real, more people wanted healthy, more people wanted something that may have been a little bit less efficient at delivering easy calories but on the whole did a better job of it.

Plastic foam is like that. It stops calories of heat dead in their tracks, it’s a very efficient insulator. Like the Twinkie it is made from a pile of chemicals that nobody really wants to know about. But there is a perceived price in health that people do not necessarily want to pay any more.

If we are going to think of building materials like we do about food, We should learn from the master, Michael Pollan. I have taken his wonderful little book,Food Rules, and have reinterpreted his rules for the building industry, subsituting “build” for “eat” and “building products” for “food.” A lot of them apply.

Full Article Here

SPFA is Misleading the Public – One SPF Victims Fight

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In the below article posted by SPFA on February 26, 2013, they are claiming to save the day with 5 days notice. They are publicly stating Connecticut was trying to catch them by surprise. This simply was not the case.
Below is SPFA’s public statement online;

http://www.naylornetwork.com/spf-nwl/articles/index.asp?aid=208797&issueID=31960

“SPFA’s Dr. Richard Duncan Testifies in Connecticut on HB 5908, a Bill Considering SPF Certification”

On February 21, the General Law Committee of the State of Connecticut Legislature held a hearing regarding HB 5908, a bill considering the need for professional certifications for the SPF industry. This hearing was only announced five days prior to the date, during the end of SPFA’s Annual Convention and Expo, which left very little time to prepare. Dr. Duncan attended the hearing and offered testimony found on SPFA’s YouTube page here. SPFA testified that it would support the committee’s efforts to consider certification requirements for SPF professionals, and informed the committee of its new industry consensus-developed, ANSI/ISO-accredited Professional Certification Program. SPFA hopes that should this bill move forward, such a program would be a reference point and resource for the state rather than having legislators look to create requirements from scratch. The final product and exceptionally hard work put in by the SPFA members in development of this program could not have come at a better time.

The above article is all Public Relations FLUFF!

Here you will see SPFA deleted my testimony from the link they posted on their public website which shows only Dr. Duncan’s testimony.

This is the full public testimony of Dr. Duncan and Richard Beyer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVjy1Xz2P1g&feature=youtu.be&goback=%252Egde_4233068_member_216953821
My (Richard Beyer) written testimony submitted to the “Connecticut Legislative Law Committee” on February 21, 2013, page 26 (subject heading page) “December 12,2012, 11 a.m. Legislative Office Building” is proof SPFA is lying in their public relations statement that they “only had 5 days to prepare”.
SPFA and Anchor Insulation called for this meeting on December 12, 2012 along with Paul Duffy V.P. of Icynene. Spray Polyurethane Foam Alliance (aka) SPFA, Kurt Reisenberg was well advised of the governments position regarding H.B. 5908 as indicated on page 27 under “Moving Forward ” “If the State would look at requiring certification for State and Municipal projects they would not object to training standards too (because it is something they already do).”

http://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/menu/CommDocTmyBill.asp?comm_code=GL&bill=HB-05908&doc_year=2013

 

1.1M house uninhabitable because of toxic chemicals in insulation

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Unfortunatley, this situations sounds too familiar…

From The Saratogian:

Published: Thursday, March 07, 2013

Saratoga County contractors face lawsuit from homeowner who says 1.1M house uninhabitable because of toxic chemicals in insulation -

SARATOGA SPRINGS — A Queensbury resident is suing two Saratoga County firms, charging that work they did on her new

$1.1 million Lake George home has made it unlivable.

Robin Inwald recently filed suit in state Supreme Court, Warren County, against Lee Horning, owner of Horning Construction Co. in Moreau, and Tom and Cynthia Eletto of Saratoga Springs and Tom Eletto’s spray-foam insulation company, Aloha Energy.

In September 2009, Inwald hired Horning to build a new lakefront home in Cleverdale, a hamlet in the town of Queensbury, after removing an old one that had been in her family for many years.

However, when she turned the heat on last winter, Inwald said she noticed strange odors. Tests revealed elevated levels of potentially harmful chemicals coming from the insulation, which she has since had removed.

“The product shouldn’t be giving off toxic chemicals; that’s the bottom line,” said her attorney, Chris Humphrey of Saratoga Springs.

But Horning and Eletto both say the insulation isn’t faulty and that Inwald didn’t use a heat recovery ventilator properly, which would have prevented the problem.

“These houses are built so tight today,” Horning said. “It’s just like a thermos.”

Installing spray foam insulation on top of that made it even tighter, Eletto said.

“It’s just like a plastic bubble,” he said. “You can’t live in it without fresh air.”

However, Inwald and her attorney disagree.

“I don’t know who in their right mind would agree to put a dangerous product in their home that out-gasses chemicals, which may cause neurological harm and trust a ventilation system to remove the chemicals,” Humphrey said. “It’s like arguing that there would be no problem if the residents of the home went to sleep with respirators. Mr. Eletto did not tell Robin Inwald that there was even a remote chance that the insulation wouldn’t cure and that it would emit noxious fumes well over a year after installation.”

Last March, town of Queensbury Appraiser Ted Bigelow visited the house and told Inwald in an email that he experienced headache and nausea, which he attributed to “ingesting noxious chemical smells.”

However, Bigelow said Wednesday that he didn’t know for sure if insulation was the source.

“It could have been anything,” he said. “The house had been closed up all winter without any ventilation.”

Inwald was advised by her doctor not to live in the house until the situation is resolved. In light of this, Bigelow decided to reduce the home’s assessment from $1,149,600 in 2011 to $825,000 for the 2012 and 2013 tax rolls.

The lawsuit, filed Jan. 11, says that Inwald hired experts to conduct air sampling and that they found “dangerous levels of chemicals,” including acetic acid, formaldehyde and volatile organic carbons that made the house unsafe for occupancy.

Horning said all new building materials emit odors. Eletto compared it to the smell that comes from new cars.

“She’s got a beautiful house and there’s nothing wrong with it,” Horning said.

Inwald said she’s already paid thousands of dollars for a different company to remove the trim, sheetrock and foam insulation from a sunroom floor, all perimeter walls, garage and basement. Contractors have experienced physical symptoms after brief visits inside, she said.

The Aloha website touts its spray-foam insulation as the “greenest of the green,” with the highest bio-renewable content in the United States. Raw materials include soy, castor bean and sugar. The product is manufactured on Mechanic Street in Ballston Spa.

However, the website also says, “Important Note: Properly insulating a building with Aloha-

Energy Bio Renewable Spray Foam Insulation (or any polyurethane foam) necessitates the inclusion of a heat/energy recovery ventilator system to efficiently bring in fresh heated or cooled air from the outside.”

Since Inwald’s home was built, Eletto said he’s developed a different product based primarily on cashew shell oil and sugar and that he plans to introduce a new, high-density insulation that will “revolutionize the industry.”

Eletto said his insulation has been used in hundreds of homes throughout the Northeast with no other complaints.

Further complicating matters, the Inwald and Eletto families have been seasonal Lake George neighbors for many years. Inwald knew Eletto was in the insulation business, so after hiring Horning to build her house, she suggested that he use Eletto’s product.

Eletto said his wife, Cynthia, has no role in his company, so he doesn’t understand why Inwald named her in the lawsuit.

“I think this puts it over the edge,” Eletto said. “I would say we’re no longer buddies. I’m stunned. I really am. What are they trying to prove?”

Technically, Inwald’s house is owned by her limited liability corporation, Inman Enterprises. The lawsuit specifically accuses the defendants of negligence, violation of business law, breach of warranties, defective manufacture and design, failure to warn, unjust enrichment and breach of contract.

The lawsuit seeks payment for the original cost of construction, remediation and ongoing medical monitoring related to potential health problems that might arise from Inwald’s alleged exposure to potentially harmful gasses.

Full Article Here

 

The Dutch Are Documenting SPF Health Issues

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The Dutch are documenting failed SPF homes and sick occupants

Incorrectly sprayed polyurethane insulation may have sensitised customers

By Urethanes Technology International

A small number of Dutch householders are becoming sensitised to isocyanates following application of spay foam insulation to their houses, said Dr Atien Verschoor, project leader at Expertiese Centre Environmental Medicine (ECEM), an occupational health centre at the Hospital Rijinstate, Arnhem, the Netherlands.

Verschoor has seen 40 people who have exhibited sensitivity to isocyanates. These people came from houses which had been insulated using polyurethane spray foams. “It takes people a lot of time to come to us,” she said, “People don’t recognise the symptoms, their doctors don’t recognise the symptoms.”

Full article here

http://www.prw.com/subscriber/headlines2.html?cat=1&id=2444

 

Toxic Nap Mats – The same Flame Retardant (Tris) is In Spray Foam

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Another scary realization (although not surprising because foam CONTAINS FLAME RETARDANTS)! is that kids nap mats contain a dangerous flame retardants.

Chicago Chronicle exposes it here:

Many sleep mats contain chlorinated Tris, which was banned from pajamas in 1979 and is known to damage DNA. Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle

 

An Oakland watchdog group said Tuesday it is suing major manufacturers and retailers, including Target and Amazon.com, for selling nap mats made with a toxic flame retardant that is also a known carcinogen.

The lawsuit is the latest legal move for the group, which last year put the companies on notice for selling or making similarly contaminated changing pads, crib mattresses and other items. While some of the manufacturers and retailers say they’ve started to change their practices, the Center for Environmental Health says it wants the courts to require swift action.

Many foam nap mats, which are widely used at places like day care centers, are doused with flame retardants linked to obesity, hormone disruption and infertility, according to the lawsuit. One of those flame retardants is chlorinated Tris, a carcinogen that was banned more than 30 years ago from children’s pajamas, the group says.

These chemicals are released into the air that infants and toddlers inhale as they doze on the mats, said Caroline Cox, the center’s research director.

“Kids are sleeping on them with their nose practically right up against the mat,” she said.

According to a report released by the center Tuesday, a Duke University scientist found flame retardants in 22 out of 24 nap mats that researchers bought or borrowed in California, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and other states.

The Center for Environmental Health used that information as the basis of lawsuits filed Friday in Alameda County Superior Court against the following vendors and sellers of nap mats: Target, Amazon.com, Lakeshore Learning, Venture Products and Peerless Products.

The lawsuit also targets companies, which the group first identified in December, for making and selling infant recliners, crib mattresses and other foam products with chlorinated Tris. These companies include Babies R Us, Walmart, Kmart, Delta Children, Bed Bath & Beyond, Foundations, Angeles, A Baby, Dex Products, Children’s Factory, Munchkin, Carpenter, Baby Doll Bedding and Infants Wear, Hayneedle and Baby Matters.

According to the lawsuit, the companies illegally failed to inform consumers that the products contain chlorinated Tris, which was banned from pajamas in 1979.

That omission violates Proposition 65, the state’s consumer protection law, which requires warning labels on products with certain toxicants, the group said.

The group said it can only sue sellers and makers of items with chlorinated Tris, because the other flame retardants found are not subject to Prop. 65.

Jessica Deede, a Target spokeswoman, did not comment on the lawsuit except to say, “We abide by all state and federal laws, and expect our vendors to do the same.” Amazon did not return a request for comment.

Halting sales

Toys R Us, which owns Babies R Us, said it is discussing the lawsuit’s claims with its suppliers, and some retailers, such as Walmart and Lakeshore Learning, have said they would stop selling products with chlorinated Tris.

The Center for Environmental Health is suing to legally ensure they stick to their promise, Cox said.

Flame retardants have been controversial because of a 1975 California requirement that polyurethane foam in upholstered furniture and some children’s items resist a small flame for 12 seconds.

Many nap mats carry tags that say they comply with California’s flammability law, known as Technical Bulletin 117. But while TB-117 regulates booster seats, infant mattresses and other children’s products, it doesn’t apply to nap mats.

Manufacturers routinely add flame retardants to items that aren’t included under the 1975 law. Cox said it is unclear why the chemicals were added to nap mats.

Many studies have found that the chemicals do little to stop foam items from catching fire.

Flame retardants common

The 24 mats analyzed by the Duke researcher were bought from stores, online and in person. Some of them were also borrowed from child care centers.

Read more here: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Toxic-nap-mats-draw-suit-in-Oakland-4292200.php#ixzz2Le2TndK5