"The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency gratefully acknowledges the efforts of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group and the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum to provide the Agency with important information regarding the polybrominated diphenyl ethers, especially decabromodiphenyl ether, in meetings on July 25, 2005 and September 8, 2005, respectively, and through personal contacts. The information provided is greatly appreciated."
Even though the wheels started turning on all of this a few years ago. Even though the EU themselves only banned things in the last year.
Rather than jumping into the actual story, they used it to push an entirely unrelated political narrative. Worse still, a lot of folks are going to see those first two paragraphs and not read the rest of the article.
> ... It took until last year for mattresses and furniture containing the highly toxic retardant deca-BDE to be banned, under European law, from sale. ...
If that's the threat, then Wikipedia has a long way to catch up:
> In 2004, ATSDR wrote "Nothing definite is known about the health effects of PBDEs in people. Practically all of the available information is from studies of laboratory animals. Animal studies indicate that commercial decaBDE mixtures are generally much less toxic than the products containing lower brominated PBDEs. Because of its very different toxicity, decaBDE is expected to have relatively little effect on the health of humans."[5] Based on animal studies, the possible health effects of decaBDE in humans involve the liver, thyroid, reproductive/developmental effects, and neurological effects.[25]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decabromodiphenyl_ether