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BPA Action Alert!
Healthy Child
Monday, November 30, 2009
We’re pretty sure you’ve seen the latest headlines about the toxic chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) leaching into our food and beverages.
On November 5th, Consumer Reports published a study looking at BPA levels in 19 different name-brand foods and found that a diverse assortment of canned foods, including some labeled as “organic” and “BPA-free,” contained measurable levels of BPA.
The study concluded that children eating multiple servings per day of canned foods with BPA could get a dose of BPA near levels that have caused adverse effects in several animal studies.
A few days later, The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a compelling piece sounding the alarm on this hormone-disrupting chemical. And a study released on November 11 revealed that male Chinese factory workers exposed to high levels of BPA had increased incidences of sexual dysfunction.
These reports just add to the growing body of scientific evidence—now more than 900 studies—that show BPA, a synthetic estrogen linked to breast cancer and other serious health problems, is bad news.
The BPA Act of 2009 addresses the serious public health concern presented by the migration of BPA from food into people. This important legislation would prohibit the sale of reusable food and beverage containers that contain BPA. It also allows the FDA to issue one-year renewable waivers if a manufacturer can show that no feasible technology exists to replace BPA in the container, provided that the container is labeled indicating the presence of BPA.
The science is clear. This extremely toxic, synthetic estrogen is so powerful it can cross the placenta at parts per billion or parts per trillion BPA and negatively impact prenatal development contributing to an increased risk of breast cancer later in life.
Other adverse health effects associated with BPA exposure include increased risk of prostate cancer, genital abnormalities in male babies, early puberty in girls, metabolic disorders such as insulin resistance and altered fat metabolism, and neurological problems causing changes in sex-specific behavior.
Fortunately, right now the Senate is considering the “Ban Poisonous Additives Act of 2009 (S.593 – the BPA Act of 2009),” legislation introduced by Senator Feinstein that would ban BPA from food and beverage containers.
BPA is considered the building block of polycarbonate plastic and can be found in baby bottles, water bottles and food storage containers. It is also used in epoxy resins that coat the lining of metal food cans, including infant formula cans.
It was first synthesized as an estrogen replacement therapy in the 1930s and today is one the most pervasive synthetic chemicals in modern life with more than 2 billion pounds a year produced in the United States alone.
BPA is not only hormonally active it is also an unstable polymer, meaning that the chemical bonds between molecules can be easily disrupted by heat, acidic conditions and many other everyday conditions. Once these bonds break, BPA leaches out of the plastic or can lining, entering the food and ultimately people.
Packaging additives like BPA are leaching from cans into food and then into people exposing – in the process -- our kids and our families to an unsafe, hormonally active chemical.
The weight of the evidence from the over 200 peer-reviewed low-dose studies show that there is no safe level of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals like BPA.
Get involved! Our friends at the Breast Cancer Fund are collecting signatures for a petition to Congress in support of the bill. And make your voice heard by sending a letter to your Senator asking them to co-sponsor the Ban Poisonous Substances (BPA) Act of 2009.
Posted by Gail Elbek on 12/03 at 08:49 PM
Yes, but take a look at what is “in” the bottle! Soy estrogenic endocrine disrupting formula, (in warmed in a BPA bottle) is DOUBLE the endocrine disruptors of which NEITHER of these toxic chemicals has the FDA found to be safe! NTP is holding a soy-based infant formula meeting on Dec 16 to 18 while KNOWING how soy phyto-estrogens and soy anti-nutrients are extremely toxic to infants…..as are soy foods to children, and to mothers during pregnancy and while nursing. Hundreds of studies PROVE that soy phyto-estrogens are phyto-toxic especially during fetal, infant, and child exposures. The FDA has no evidence that any child can normally survive soy phyto-toxic effects! While the FDA keeps the American public in the dark as to the truth behind soy estrogenic endocrine disruptor effects that are WELL-KNOWN throughout published studies to cause a large assortment of severe and irreversible physiological and neurological damage during fragile developmental exposures!
A crying shame! Let American parents know what is causing their healthy children to be poisoned…....endocrine disruptors…...plastics, pollutions, pesticides, and…... soy as a matter of fact!
Posted by Deanna Walker on 12/03 at 11:30 AM
PLEASE co-sponsor the Ban Poisonous Substances (BPA) Act of 2009!!!
Thank you!