NEWS OF THE W EEK
HEARING: Flame retardants in furniture offer little protection against fire, safety groups say
F
OAM-PADDED FURNITURE containing flame
retardants burns almost as fast as identical furniture without these chemicals, officials of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) told Congress last week. Inez M. Tenenbaum, CPSC chair, and August W. Schaefer, UL senior vice president and public safety officer, based this conclusion on tests conducted independently by their organizations. They described results of the studies at a hearing on upholsteredfurniture flammability and flame-retardant chemicals convened by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services & General Government. Panel Chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) called the hearing in response to a recent investigative series by the Chicago Tribune on flame retardants. Citing a May CPSC report, Tenenbaum described results of the commission’s open-flame ignition tests on upholstered chairs cushioned with polyurethane foam. The report concluded, “A relative difference was noticed in the foams, but the fire-retardant foams did not offer a practically significantly greater level of openflame safety than did the untreated foams.” In contrast, installation of a fire barrier between the upholstery fabric and the foam “markedly increased the fire safety of the furniture,” the investigation found. The barrier used in the CPSC test was a fabric composed of fiberglass, modacrylic, and polyester. Self-funded research by UL, a nonprofit, independent product-testing organization, came to similar conclu-
sions: Barriers offer significant fire-safety advantages, but flame retardants in foam don’t, Schaefer said. “These flame retardants don’t even do what they’re meant to do,” observed subcommittee member Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.). Also at the hearing, an EPA official described how one compound used as a flame retardant in polyurethane foam demonstrates the shortcomings of the federal chemical control law—the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The chemical is 2-ethylhexyl-2,3,4,5-tetra bromobenzoate (TBB), a component of Firemaster 550. This mixture was introduced by specialty chemical maker Chemtura to replace the widely discontinued flame retardant pentabromodiphenyl ether, which is persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic. In 1995, the agency’s new chemicals program reviewed TBB before it was commercialized, said James J. Jones, EPA’s acting assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention. But EPA’s review failed to identify that TBB is persistent and bioaccumulative, he said. These characteristics of TBB came to light only in recent years, when the substance was found in household dust, sewage sludge, and Arctic animals. Jones pointed out that under TSCA, the agency has the burden of determining whether a chemical poses a risk; manufacturers do not have to demonstrate that their substances are safe. TBB “is an example that highlights the critical need for the agency to have greater evidence that new chemicals are safe prior to commercialization,” Jones said. But for this to happen, Congress would have to revise TSCA. Jones added that TBB is among the chemicals EPA intends to assess in 2013 to determine whether they should be regulated (C&EN, June 11, page 30).—CHERYL HOGUE
Jones, left, watches as Tenenbaum describes a flammability test with a foampadded furniture model.
YURI GRIPAS/REUTERS/NEWSCOM
INEFFECTIVE CHEMICALS
PHARMACEUTICALS GSK clinches $3.6 billion deal for Human Genome Sciences Human Genome Sciences has agreed to be purchased by GlaxoSmithKline in a transaction valued at about $3.6 billion. The decision marks HGS’s failure to attract a higher offer after it rejected an overture by the British drug firm in April. After turning down that initial bid by GSK, HGS hired Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse to explore other options. GSK will pay $14.25 per share in cash, which is almost double HGS’s closing price of $7.17 per share on April 18, the last day of trading before HGS publicly disclosed GSK’s initial offer of $13.00.
Under the agreement, GSK will attain full ownership of Benlysta, a monoclonal antibody developed with HGS and approved last year for the treatment of lupus, an autoimmune disorder. The drug is the only commercial product to result from a partnership between the two firms dating back to 1993, two years after HGS’s founding. The companies have two other drugs in Phase III clinical trials: albiglutide, to treat type 2 diabetes, and darapladib, to treat heart disease. GSK CEO Andrew Witty calls the purchase a “natural next step in our nearly
WWW.CEN-ONLIN E .ORG
7
J ULY 2 3, 20 1 2
20-year relationship with HGS.” GSK says acquiring HGS will allow it to optimize R&D, manufacturing, and commercial operations. GSK expects to achieve $200 million in cost savings by 2015. The deal follows a short run of contentious attempts by drug companies to acquire biotech firms, including Sanofi’s six-month wrangle to acquire Genzyme and Roche’s failed hostile bid for Illumina. More recently, after an initial rejection, Bristol-Myers Squibb signed a deal to acquire Amylin in partnership with AstraZeneca.—RICK MULLIN
