The dangers of cleaning

Are the chemicals inside our sofas, electrical goods and in the environment safe? Even if they aren't, they don't get into our bodies, do they? Think again. The scientific world is in the middle of a rethink on chemicals and the dangers they pose.

Many experts now believe that thousands of chemicals used in everyday consumer products may be interfering with our bodies, even at tiny doses.

Some chemicals - which are absorbed into body fat - have been linked to rising rates of breast cancer, testicular cancer and asthma. We are all at risk, but developing foetuses, babies and children are particularly vulnerable to chemical exposure, which disrupts our endocrine, immune and nervous systems.

The chemicals under suspicion are called organic chemicals because their chemical structure is similar to substances found in humans and animals.

They're in everything from the coatings of non-stick saucepans to the foam seats of our office chairs. They're also in our water and soil and that guarantees they're in our food. With chemicals everywhere, it's easy to understand how we eat, breathe and suck them in via our skin every day. What's even more disturbing is that our bodies are unable to remove a lot of these substances. Many are " bioaccumulative", meaning that they stay inside us, building up over time.

The environmental group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) decided to prove just how widespread chemical contamination has become by testing the blood of 155 people from across the UK. WWF looked for 78 substances belonging to three different groups of organic chemicals: polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) found mostly in soil and food, and brominated flame retardants (BFRs).

PCBs were once used in everything from electrical transformers to carbon copy paper, but were banned in the 1970s, although they still remain in much of our water and soil. The Government is only beginning to restrict the use of certain BFRs because of fears they could be partially responsible for falling fertility rates. BFRs are added to consumer products, especially furnishings, to cut the risk of a fire spreading.

The tests showed that every one of the 155 participants was contaminated with an average of 27 of the 78 chemicals searched for. It is impossible to say whether the contamination will harm the health of all the people tested because a lot depends on when they were contaminated - it's riskier if it was when they were inside the womb or when they were small children or teenagers. We asked two of the case studies for their reactions ...