This is my cat, George. He is fat and grouchy, but I love him. He likes to sun himself on the patio.
This is a link to Sightline's research on PBDEs, toxic flame retardants. A couple of years ago, we conducted a study of PBDEs and found high concentrations in the breast milk of nursing mothers throughout the Pacific Northwest. It was bad news.
And what's the connection to George? Well, new scientific research shows that PBDEs are making house cats sick. (Major hat tip here to Lisa Stiffler, ace environmental reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, who covers the story in her blog today.)
From a summary of the study:
PBDE concentrations in blood serum of the 23 house cats participating in the study were 20-100 times higher than the median levels of PBDEs in people living in North America, who have been shown to have the world's highest human PBDE levels.
PBDEs are long-lived. They're found in foam cushions, TVs, computers, carpet pads, curtains, you name it. It's thought that we humans get our exposure to PBDEs through house dust, which often includes crumbled bits of foam and other goodies. Same goes for cats: researchers believe that felines, with their obsessive-compulsive grooming, are literally lapping up the toxic compound. And many cats (George included) eat a lot of fish, which tends to have high concentrations of toxics, too.
In any case, PBDEs are bad news. Research suggests that they can impair brain development, learning, memory, and behavior. They also retard thyroid functioning, and that's what's happening to cats.
Cats are now the only mammal other than humans to suffer from high incidences of hyperthyroidism. The affliction was unknown in cats 35 years ago; now it's common. And that timeline coincides exactly with the introduction of PBDEs into household products.
Unfortunately, the news gets even worse. Remember how I said that PBDE levels in cats are off the charts? Well, there's this, from the study:
... young children are exposed to far more dust than older people. Cats' meticulous and continuous grooming habits could conceivably result in PBDE uptake similar to what toddlers are exposed to through their increased contact with floors and "mouthing" behaviors ... "
In other words, in the proverbial coal mine of PBDE exposure ... cats are the new canaries.
UPDATE: More coverage in today's P-I, including something important that I forgot in my cat-blogging fury:
This spring, Washington became the first state to ban the use of all forms of PBDEs in mattresses beginning next year. A ban on their use in televisions, computers and residential furniture will be enacted in 2011 provided a safer, technically feasible substitute is found for making the items fireproof.
Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things
Comments
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rozgrist Posted 9:26 am
16 Aug 2007
Both my cats like to lick plastic in all its forms. I can't help but wonder if that has something to do with it. They also LOVE the scent of chlorine. I don't allow chlorine in my house (no bleach, no cleaning products that contain bleach) but when I come home from swimming at the pool, look out! My cats go into a licking frenzy and I have to hide from them until I can get the scent off of my skin. Echo, the one with hyperthyroidism, also likes to remove any perfume that I wearing, so I never put on perfume until I am right about to leave the house as I am afraid of what licking perfume will due to her. She also licks soap, so I changed to using liquid soap. I also found her happily chewing away on my toothbrush one day. Who knows how long that had been going on! Now I store my toothbrush where Echo can't get her paws on it.
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caniscandida Posted 3:45 pm
16 Aug 2007
Cats and dogs, as well as birds and rodents, and no doubt other vertebrates, have much higher metabolisms than we do, and are affected much quicker and much more severely by toxic elements in the environment than we are. Here in NYC, where we live on the ground floor, I dread the day when there is a "fuel delivery": the fumes fill the apartment, and it is always best if we are aware at once, so that we may shut the front windows, open the back windows and turn on the fans. Little White Dog, meanwhile, never complains, but of course it is she that I am worried about.
Cats seem to be well adapted to surviving brilliantly on their own, in our absence, so long as they can get outside, amazingly efficient predators that they are; whereas dogs, in our absence, terrificly dependent on our good pleasure and our care, would probably be doomed -- according to a recent book that speculates on what would happen to life on Earth, if human beings were to disappear. Could be. I definitely believe that about cats. And I believe that about many dogs, but not all; I suspect a few of them would hang on. (Not Little White, I am afraid, unless she plays her cards right.)
Anyway, it is ironic, then, that the recent problem of contaminated food imported from China affected the much more specialized digestive systems of cats, true carnivores, than it did that of dogs, omnivores with a catholic diet including some awfully offensive items.
Yesterday evening, I called L.L. Bean, to order a doggie blanket for Little White Dog, and I asked first, before actually ordering, that it be clear that no parts of the blanket were made in China. The agent on the line did what little research she could, and then urged me to call back tomorrow (today!), to speak to a "product specialist." So far from thinking I was a crank, she told me that her dog was her baby too, and she perfectly understands that we who love our companion animals do not want to introduce anything dangerous into their environment.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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FuriaFubar Posted 6:51 am
18 Aug 2007
All the Best,
Furia -
http://www.xanga.com/furia_fubar
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