West Seattle Mom Speaks Truth To PBDE Power

Recently, West Seattle mom (Volvo driver, PCC shopper) Karina Aldredge learned that there is strong scientific evidence that "levels of PBDEs are rising rapidly in the environment and in human bodies, particularly in North America where the use of PBDEs is the highest":

Recent studies show that women in the United States have levels of PBDEs in their breast milk that are up to 100 times higher than the levels found in European women.

Studies in wildlife have shown that PBDE levels are rising at alarming rates, doubling every one to five years. In the Columbia River system, levels of PBDEs in fish doubled in a mere 1.6 years.

Well. she freaked. Moms get that way when you toxify their breast milk.

But this isn't a post about shaking a fist at unwelcome news. Like you, Seattlest is heartened to hear of citizen participation in politics. (Heck, we tear up at Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and that crazy filibuster.) So when we heard that Karina Aldredge then drove down to Olympia with her 2-year-old boychick -- with another baby due in two weeks or so -- to lobby politicians about toxic PBDEs, why, we just had to kvell a bit.

January 18, see, was named Moms, Doctors, and Nurses Lobby Day by the Washington Toxics Coalition (which is not a coalition of toxins, but a coalition against toxins). The focus was the elimination of toxic flame retardant PBDEs, also a pet project of the Northwest Environment Watch and their blog, Cascadia Scorecard. (They've produced this handy two-minute film about PBDEs.) For more on environmental doings in Olympia, see this Real Change story.

Perhaps because she looks ready to give birth at any second, she got time with Rep. Eileen Cody and Rep. Joe McDermott. She told both of them that she was there to speak for mothers who had no freaking idea that government had been sitting on this PBDE issue for the past four years and who just expected that they could buy carpets, pajamas, and so forth without introducing toxic chemicals into their breast milk.

These moms didn't know that Boeing, for instance, was a member of the Chemical Action Plan stakeholder committee, and was as of 2004, (PDF link alert!) arguing that they needed a risk assessment demonstrating that more people would die from PBDE exposure than would burn to death before acting to phase PBDEs out, even though non-toxic fire retardants are available. (Thanks, Boeing! Too bad they didn't volunteer to organize that assessment a few years earlier, being a concerned stakeholder and all.)

Anyway, Seattlest just wanted to say kudos to Karina because that's how it's supposed to work, the whole democracy thing. A regular person can go to Olympia and come home feeling heard. Plus, since it was raining really hard the drive down, it wasn't exactly a pleasure trip.