The editors of the environmental chemistry journal Chemosphere published an eye-catching correction to a study they reported was toxic. Flame retardants from electronics have found their way into some household items made from black plasticincluding kitchen utensils. This research Successive media reports A few weeks ago, I made an urgent request to people. Throw away the kitchen spatula And a spoon. Wirecutter also provided buying guides for the following products: what to replace them with.
correctionThis article, posted on Sunday, may provide some relief for the beleaguered cooker. The authors made a mathematical error that missed the estimated risk from kitchen appliances by an order of magnitude.
Specifically, the authors found that if kitchen utensils contain moderate levels of an important toxic flame retardant (BDE-209), based on their regular use during cooking and when serving hot food, We estimate that kitchen utensils can transfer 34,700 nanograms of contaminants per day. The authors then compared that estimate to the reference level of BDE-209, which is considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA’s safe level is 7,000 ng per kilogram of body weight per day, and the authors used 60 kg of adult body weight (approximately 132 pounds) as an estimate. Therefore, the safe EPA limit is 7,000 times 60, or 420,000 ng per day. This is 12 times the estimated daily exposure of 34,700ng.
However, the authors missed zero and reported the EPA’s safe limit as 42,000 ng per day for an adult weighing 60 kg. This error made the estimated exposure appear to be close to the safe limit when in fact it was less than one-tenth of the limit.
“We miscalculated the reference dose for an adult weighing 60 kg and initially estimated it to be 42,000 ng/day instead of the correct value of 420,000 ng/day,” the correction reads. “As a result, we have changed our statement from ‘The calculated daily intake will approach the U.S. BDE-209 reference dose’ to ‘The calculated daily intake will still be lower than the U.S. BDE-209 reference dose. We regret this error and have updated the manuscript.
unchanged conclusion
An order of magnitude off seems like a significant error, but the authors seem to think it doesn’t change anything. “This calculation error does not affect the overall conclusions of the paper,” the correction reads. The revised study still ends by stating that flame retardants “significantly contaminate” plastic products with “high potential for exposure.”
Ars contacted lead author Megan Liu, but did not receive a response. Liu works for Toxic-Free Future, an environmental health advocacy group that led the study.
The study highlighted that flame retardants used in plastic electronics could in some cases be recycled into household products.
