Flame retardants are but one of many chemicals we are exposed to on a daily basis.

In this 2003 USA Today report referencing a breast milk study, we here in America are lucky enough to have the most aggressive fire retardant policies in the globe, with the corresponding highest rates of these chemicals in our breast milk.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-09-22-breast-milk_x.htm

In yet another article, the use of these chemicals is questioned. In this clipping, you can see that 2 of the more than 175 chemicals was pulled from the market when actually researched or acute detrimental exposure was found. What about all the others? As typical, industry makes these things, the government assumes they are benign because of reasons we can speculate, but in frank cases, they can be pulled from the market. The truth is that they act slow slowly and insidiously, that it's can be hard to make an exact correlation. Plus, when you combine these toxins with many other plasticizers, heavy metals, etc, the aggrergate toxic load is something we can't adequately calculate.

Snippet

"There are more than 175 different types of flame retardants, which are generally divided into classes that include the halogenated organic (usually brominated or chlorinated), phosphorus-containing, nitrogen-containing, and inorganic flame retardants. The brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are currently the largest market group because of their low cost and high performance efficiency. In fact, there are more than 75 different BFRs recognized commercially. Some, such as the polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), are no longer being produced. The PBBs were removed from the market in the early 1970s because of poisonings in Michigan attributed to the inadvertent mixing of a bag of Firemaster FF-1, a commercial PBB mixture, into animal feed. This PBB contamination of animal feed resulted in loss of livestock, long-term impacts on the health of farm families in Michigan, and economic dislocation (Dunckel 1975; Fries 1985; Mercer et al. 1976). "Tris-BP," another BFR originally used in clothing, was shown to be mutagenic and nephrotoxic and was later removed from commerce (Dybing et al. 1980; Soderlund et al. 1980)."

Full article

http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1289/ehp.6559

I think I'd rather let smokers who fall asleep in bed light themselves on fire rather than expose millions of Americans to these toxins, our children included.