Mattress Forum

Looking over the savyrest link they list small amounts of "sodium silicofluoride" used as a gelling agent in the latex.  sodium silicofluoride is used in small amounts to flouridate water.  Is it safe ? ..... well  I'm not going to loose any sleep over it, because I know it's a 100 % ionic compound that will not soak into my skin pores even if I sleep on the bare mattress and sweat. Also sodium silicofluoride is a compound with no vapor pressure.

PBDE's used in Memory foam products are covalent-organic compound that could slowly soak into your skin when you sweat.
PDBE's in Memory foam are also likely to have a small vapor pressure - meaning over a long time they're going to evaporate into the bedroom.

EDIT:   Edited for accuracy see post #9

I have heard that Styrene Butadiene (synthetic latex) is a suspected carcinogen, although what exactly that means I don't really know....do you think there could be any potential truth to this?

EDIT:   Edited for accuracy see post #9

I was under the assumption that blended latex was a mixture of natural latex (primarily isoprene), and synthetic isoprene. Synthetic isoprene is produced on the Ton Scale & 95% of its production goes into making synthetic latex.

Blended latex, according to latex international, contains natural latex & a synthetic polymer called Styrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR). This SBR is found nowhere in nature.  I can understand latex companies using synthetic isoprene, for cost and availability. But for them to call a latex mattresses blended with SBR, "LATEX" is deceiving on their part.  SBR is not latex.

That said, see my post below on concerns about SBR being a possible carcinogen.

budgy I stand corrected.  Right from the horses mouth.  

http://www.latexfoam.com/index.php?did=12#10

google this term "styrene butadiene cancer".  Seems that the studies relate to factories that deal with the monomers. Butadiene monmer is quite volitle and also carcinogenic. Styrene is probably also carcinogenic.

The polymer of the 2 is probably relativly safe, however there's always going to be small amounts of un-reacted materials present,  however most latex mfg's wash their unfinished products which would remove 99% of that.

thanks for correcting me. that changes my purchasing decision to only 100% natural latex.

During my long search for a comfortable mattress I read everything that I could find on the subject. There has been long debates on this forum about all natural versus blended latex. And long debates about all of the various 100% synthetic material, as well as Talalay versus Dunlop latex.

But I find it somewhat disturbing that the old bugaboo about synthetic material used in bedding, plus all of our furniture, and automobile seating, and so many other things, comes up time and again as a carcinogenic agent. Maybe it is. Maybe that's the reason we have so much cancer in this country. But somehow I doubt it. It seems to me that this argument gets his greatest play on those websites that are selling all natural latex, and other websites that seem to make a living out of trying to scare the people.

I am 72 years old, and I have been setting on car seats and furniture that are made of synthetic material all my life. And if I eventually developed cancer, I would bet quite a bit of money, that it will come from something other than synthetic material that I have been exposed to.

My two cents.