AUGUSTA – Concerned that flame retardants could become the next DDT or PCB, environmental groups are asking Maine legislators to follow California’s example and phase out the use of the chemicals.

Brominated flame retardants include a large class of chemicals that make a variety of items fire-resistant. They are used in upholstery, carpets, mattresses, plastics and electronics, among other products.

The United States is the largest user and producer of flame retardants, and concentrations in American women’s breast milk are 10 to 100 times higher than in European countries.

Because the chemicals look and act like polychlorinated biphenyls, scientists say they could cause cancer.

“Scientists are now concerned that the brominated flame retardants are going to be the DDT and PCBs of this generation,” said Steven Gurney, science and policy director for the Environmental Health Strategy Center in Portland.

The chemicals have shown up in blood taken from office workers who use computers and workers who dismantle electronics. They’ve turned up in house dust, harbor seals in San Francisco, fish in Maryland and Virginia, and eggs of peregrine falcons in Sweden.

Brominated flame retardants have been linked in animal studies to effects on developing nervous systems, developmental problems in the ovaries and testes, and effects on thyroid hormones.

The bill sponsored by Rep. Hannah Pingree, D-North Haven, would phase the chemicals out of consumer products in favor of safer alternatives through 2010. Exemptions would be allowed for products for which there is no alternative.

The bill also requires warning labels.

The Natural Resources Council of Maine, the Toxics Action Center, the Maine Public Health Association, the Learning Disabilities Association of Maine, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Maine Peoples’ Alliance and the Maine Labor Group on Health are supporting Pingree’s bill.

An industry group spokesman, Peter O’Toole of the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum, said the health risks have not been proved in humans.

“There have been animal studies, but you cannot extrapolate those findings out to human beings,” O’Toole said.

“That’s the leap I think some people want to make – if these are showing up in the environment, then they have to have negative human health effects,” said O’Toole, “but that’s just not valid.”

While there’s no evidence yet that the compounds are causing problems in people, “there’s clearly the potential for that based on a lot of our animal studies,” said Linda Birnbaum of the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s health laboratory.

If the measure passes, Maine would become the second state to address the issue. California lawmakers banned two types of flame retardants last August.