PONE-D-23-24715Reconciling chemical flame retardant exposure and fire risk in domestic furniturePLOS ONE

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For non-financial interests, they declare involvement in environmental advocacy for over 15 years and being motivated by a perceived need for significant improvement in identification and management of potential risks to health posed by the environment in which humans live. They have written several papers and held public positions, such as developing and/or signing consensus statements, about the need for improved regulation and scientific assessment of chemical substances with flame retardants as an example. They are actively involved with NGOs, particularly in the UK, who are advocating for reforms to chemical regulation. Being prominently involved as a Research Fellow in the Evidence-Based Toxicology Collaboration, their views could be perceived as upholding that organisation's views. They are also Editor-in-Chief of Evidence-Based Toxicology, a new journal concerned with promoting improved research and publishing practices in toxicology and environmental health. While these financial and non-financial interests are pertinent to the manuscript, PW does not believe them to have compromised the integrity of the work undertaken. SW declares scientific consultancy services in fields unrelated to the topic of research in this manuscript. The way the work is received could affect their prospects of future employment. CB declares employment at the University of Central Lancashire in the Centre for Fire and Hazards Sciences as part of a team who examine the toxicity of flammable materials. CB is also a trade union representative at the University. As a result of previous work in their current role, CB declares an awareness of the potential hazards presented by both flammable materials and flame retardants, and the belief that it is important to accurately assess hazards and strive to protect people from them as much as possible. 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They declare being a current member of the UK government’s Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee; while this manuscript may be perceived as reflecting the views of this committee, it has not to date involved consideration of human exposure to flame retardants and moreover SH's views are purely their own and not those of the committee. While these financial and non-financial interests are pertinent to the manuscript, SH does not believe them to have compromised the integrity of the work undertaken. NJ declares employment as a Post Doctoral Researcher at the University of Central Lancashire at the time the research was carried out. TK declares they are currently employed by the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, and that they commissioned this work on behalf of the Office for Product Safety and Standards. They were involved in setting the objectives and the design of the research. As a civil servant they state they are impartial to the findings of the research, and that the research does not necessarily represent the views of the department. DN declares being employed by OPSS during the conduct of the study, as Head of the Science Strategy team overseeing research projects. EW declares employment by the University of Central Lancashire at the time the research was carried out. RH declares employment as a Professor of Chemistry and Fire Science by the University of Central Lancashire since 2007. They do not have any secondary employment, consultancy, board membership, patents or patent applications. They have received research funding from external organisations: in 2018, £15,000 by Silentnight Beds Ltd., to undertake four large scale fire tests and assess the smoke toxicity; in 2019, £161,000 from Innovate UK and Silentnight Beds Ltd., to support a Knowledge Transfer Partnership aimed at helping Silentnight reduce their fire retardant use, the smoke toxicity, and the recyclability of their products, in order to improve their access to the wider mainland European market (Silentnight Beds had no involvement in the current BEIS project, nor in the authorship of this paper); funding from Fire Safe Europe to support a PhD student investigating smoke toxicity of construction products; and funding from the Construction Products Group, Europe to develop fire protective coatings for structural steel. RH has also supported their colleague Prof Anna Stec in their role as an expert witness to the United Kingdom's Grenfell Tower Inquiry, and is a member of the BEIS Expert Advisory Panel for the revision of the English Furniture Flammability Regulations. RH does not believe they have any interests that compete with those of the research described in the manuscript."   We note that one or more of the authors are employed by a commercial company: University of Central Lancashire, Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, OPSS,   1.) Please provide an amended Funding Statement declaring this commercial affiliation, as well as a statement regarding the Role of Funders in your study. 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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Overall evaluation

The topic of furniture as exposure source of hazardous chemicals is of contemporary interest for the research community, for policy makers and the related industries as well as for the public.

The topic is also in the scope of the journal.

The paper can in my opinion be accepted after minor revisions.

Major comments

You lump all chemical flame retardants together which is an oversimplification. Please mention that there are e.g. halogenated flame retardants which are considered particular problematic. Possibly mention the review article of Shaw et al. 2010.

Shaw SD, Blum A, Weber R, Kannan K, Rich D, Lucas D, Koshland CP, Dobraca D, Hanson S, Birnbaum LS. (2010) Halogenated Flame Retardants: Do the Fire Safety Benefits Justify the Risks? Rev. Environ. Health 25(4), 261-305.

Please mention that almost all other countries do not have this flame retardant standard which require that the bulk polymer in furniture is flame retarded and that in particular UK and US had this stringent standard. Please mention that US/California modified their flammability standard for furniture which does not require to use flame retardants for the bulk polymer/PUR now. Please reference to Charbonnet et al. 2020 and possibly others.

Charbonnet, J.A., Weber, R. and Blum, A., 2020. Flammability standards for furniture, building insulation and electronics: Benefit and risk. Emerging Contaminants, 6, pp.432-441.

Please mentionthe situation of other European countries (also almost all other countries): Most of them do not use flame retardants in PUR foam in furniture. I do not think that they experience unacceptable fire risks. Please mention and discuss. If possible please compare fire death or fire frequency in at least some European countries which do not require flame retardants in bulk materials in furniture with UK.

Specific comments on sections and paragraphs:

Introduction

Line 100: “The most widely used CFRs in domestic furniture include decabromodiphenyl ethane (DBDPE) “. Please mention that this is today and that in the past decaBDE was mainly used. Also please mention that PBDEs are listed as POPs in the Stockholm Convention for global phase out.

Line 107: “DBDPE to Deca-BDE suggests that it too will be withdrawn at some point in the near future: it is currently under assessment as PBT (ECHA, 2018).” Please mention here the new proposed strategy of ECHA for flame retardants with suggestion to phase out aromatic brominated flame retardants as a group.

Line 117ff “Meanwhile, pressures such as reducing the presence of toxic substances in our environment, the need to recycle products such as furniture at their end-of-life, and the “unsuitability of furniture containing CFRs for alternative end-of-life processes, such as landfill or material reclamation, are much higher priorities than they were in the 1980s.” Not clear – please rephrase.

Result and discussion

Line 387ff: “We do, however, know that none of the reviews in our document set that addressed human exposure to flame retardants discussed in detail how specific items of

furniture contribute to a person’s exposure to CFRs.”

Abdallah Harrad (2018) have conducted studies which showed that HBCD in furniture textiles result in relevant exposure by skin contact. Please mention this and reference to

Abdallah, M.A.E. and Harrad, S., 2018. Dermal contact with furniture fabrics is a significant pathway of human exposure to brominated flame retardants. Environment international, 118, pp.26-33.

Also Pawar, G., Abdallah, M.A.E., de Sáa, E.V. and Harrad, S., 2017. Dermal bioaccessibility of flame retardants from indoor dust and the influence of topically applied cosmetics. Journal of exposure science environmental epidemiology, 27(1), pp.100-105.

You mention the first paper in the Table 3 but suggest to mention it also in the text.

Table 3: (Abou-Elwafa Abdallah and Harrad, 2022). Think this is (Abdallah and Harrad, 2022). Also in his researchgate he abbreviate to Mohammed A. Abdallah)

Table 5: Baby mattress has lower score (3.4) compare to Baby products with seat (3.6) and Bassinet (4.0). However mattress has likely the by far longest contact time. Possibly modify?

Line 566: “moved around, so were judged to be more likely to come into contact with smokers materials.” While smokers materials are certainly relevant, suggest also to mention candles having high use frequency.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript is exceptionally well-written, providing valuable insights into future fire risk assessment and CFR exposure modeling concerning furniture. The comprehensive explanation and presentation of limited information and empirical data regarding the flammability of fabric and foam when exposed to small open flames and materials used by smokers are noteworthy. There are no discernible flaws in this publication, and it is ready for publication as is.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Reconciling chemical flame retardant exposure and fire risk in domestic furniture

PONE-D-23-24715R1

Dear Dr. Whaley,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Yanping Yuan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: N/A

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The topic of furniture as exposure source of hazardous chemicals is of contemporary interest for the research community, for policy makers and the related industries as well as for the public.

The topic is also in the scope of the journal.

The paper can be accepted after reviewer comments have been addressed or replies have been given.

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Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

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