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Sunday Happenings
Hearing on Dangers Posed by Bisphenol A in Baby Bottles
Thursday, May 29 at 3:00pm
Iannella Chamber, 5th Floor of Boston City Hall
If you have a baby, or drink from Nalgene-like bottles, maybe you've heard of bisphenol A. It's a chemical found in many polycarbonate plastics (mostly recyclables #3 and #7) that can leach from the plastic into your delicious beverage, whether it be water, juice, or--for the wee ones--milk. Bisphenol A in particular has estrogen-like effects that may affect development and even cause cancer. The effects are heightened when the liquid in the bisphenol A-containing bottle is super-hot (so maybe all that making sun tea in Nalgenes on camping trips was not an A1 idea after all). Even hot water used to sterilize these bottles can exacerbate the leaching of chemicals. The baby-carrying, baby-making, or otherwise baby/bisphenol-concerned among us can attend a hearing tomorrow evening on the dangers of bisphenol A in baby bottles and other containers.
Led by City Councillor John R. Connolly, the hearing will analyze risks posed by bisphenol A to Boston residents. Though promoted as focusing on bisphenol A in baby bottles, it seems that the hearing can incorporate non-baby-centric concerns as well. Dr. Michael Shannon, Chair of the Division of Emergency Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Boston; Mia Davis of Clean Water Fund, co-author of Baby’s Toxic Bottle; and Steven Hentges, Ph.D., Executive Director of the American Chemistry Council’s Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group will be there to testify.
Brighton Centered goes into the science in more detail, but the general consensus is that we all ingest at least some bisphenol A on a regular basis. The disagreements arise when it comes to how much harm it does. Show up tomorrow night to get a range of perspectives on the issue.
Bebe duck image tagged Bostonist on Flickr by amythyst_lake
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Consumers have well-justified concerns about the estrogenic activity (EA) exhibited by BPA and phthalates because many scientific articles have reported that chemicals with EA produce many adverse health effects. While estrogens (the female sex hormones) occur naturally in the body, many scientific studies have shown that significant health problems can occur when chemicals are ingested that mimic or block the actions of these female sex hormones; the fetus, newborn, or young child is especially vulnerable. These health-related problems include early puberty in females, reduced sperm counts in males, altered functions of reproductive organs, obesity, altered behaviors, and increased rates of some breast, ovarian, testicular, and prostate cancers.
However, consumers should be aware that just choosing a BPA-free plastic bottle does not mean that they are safe from estrogenic activity. BPA and phthalates are just two of several thousand chemicals that exhibit EA. Many of these chemicals having EA leach from almost all plastics sold today, including polyethylene, polypropylene, PET. That is, plastics advertised as BPA-free or phthalate-free are not EA-free; almost all these plastics still leach chemicals having EA – and often have more total EA than plastics that release BPA or phthalates. In fact, our data show that all the plastics listed in this article release chemicals having EA.
Various plastics manufacturers are attempting to solve this problem by removing chemicals having EA (BPA, phthalates) one at a time. This approach is not an appropriate solution because thousands of chemicals used in plastics exhibit EA, not just BPA and phthalates. This is a marketing-driven solution, not a health-driven solution. The appropriate health-driven solution is to manufacture safer plastics that are EA-free. This is not a pie-in-the-sky solution, as the technology already exists to produce EA-free plastics that also have the same advantageous physical properties as do almost all existing EA-releasing plastics. In fact, some of these advanced-technology EA-free plastics are already in the marketplace. Your readers should be demanding EA-Free plastics, not BPA or phthalate free plastics that are not certified as EA-free..
George D. Bittner, PhD
Professor of Biology,
The University of Texas at Austin
Founder: CertiChem, PlastiPure