If you’ve been following the issue of toxic flame retardants over the last few years, you’ve probably read how the chemical industry has used some pretty low tactics to keep harmful chemicals on store shelves and in our homes. Paying an expert doctor who didn’t tell the truth, misrepresenting paid chemical industry employees to elected officials, and creating bogus front groups are just a few of their past shenanigans.
The bromine industry, for example, has big money at stake in ensuring that pounds of toxic fire retardant chemicals continue to be used in our homes without close scrutiny of the health hazards they pose. After being called out for fear mongering and dirty tricks in 2012, the industry now offers a feel-good campaign to promote its chemicals, including this infographic we came across last week.
Anyone can make an infographic. In fact, we made our own. What matters is not the charming graphics but the real people, independent science and actual market change those pictograms represent. Furniture makers moving away from toxic flame retardants, firefighters raising questions about their high rates of cancer, and parents worried about the impact of these chemicals on their child’s health — that’s the real story of toxic flame retardants.
We see through the chemical industry’s shiny PR. We’re tired of the million-dollar campaigns. The days of toxic flame retardants need to come to an end now.
