Authors Reply to Letter to the Editor, Comparative Room Burn Study of Furnished Rooms from the United Kingdom, France and the United State

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The corresponding author of the letter has questioned the independence and ethics of the testing laboratory and authors. Southwest Research Institute is a nonprofit research institute of which the Department of Fire Technology is on quarter of one of the 10 operating divisions. The experiments described here represent 0.01% of the annual operating budget of the institute and less than 3% of the Department of Fire Technology. Fire Tech does literally thousands of experiments every year, primarily for industry to ensure their products meet fire safety codes, regulations, and standards. The authors disclosed the funding source for this series of experiments in the journal article. It is important to note that the North American Fire Retardant Association and the American Chemistry Council had no control of the experimental design or the results reported in the journal article. As a direct corollary, the letter author makes income from organizations that oppose the use flame retardants in consumer products, manufacturers of mineral wool, as well as litigation against manufacturers of consumer products that result in injuries from fire. We would ask Mr. Babrauskus to disclose any Conflicts of Interest he may have related to the issues he raises. …