Advancements in Life Cycle Human Exposure and Toxicity Characterization.

Background: The Life Cycle Initiative, hosted at the United Nations Environment Programme, selected human toxicity impacts from exposure to chemical substances as an impact category that requires global guidance to overcome current assessment challenges. The initiative leadership established the Human Toxicity Task Force to develop guidance on assessing human exposure and toxicity impacts. Based on input gathered at three workshops addressing the main current scientific challenges and questions, the task force built a roadmap for advancing human toxicity characterization, primarily for use in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA).

Organophosphate flame retardants in dust collected from United States fire stations.

Firefighters are exposed to chemicals during fire events and we previously demonstrated that fire station dust has high levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). In conducting the Fire Station Dust Study, we sought to further characterize the chemicals to which firefighters could be exposed - measuring the emerging class of phosphorous-containing flame retardants (PFRs) in fire stations, for the first time, as well as PBDEs. Dust samples from 26 fire stations in five states were collected from vacuum-cleaner bags and analyzed for PFRs and PBDEs.

High levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers in vacuum cleaner dust from California fire stations.

Firefighters are exposed to chemicals during fire events and may also experience chemical exposure in their fire stations. Dust samples from used vacuum cleaner bags were collected from 20 fire stations in California and analyzed for polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Median dust concentrations were higher for PBDEs (e.