It’s time to take the BPA fight to the state legislatures. Action Alerts!
Three recent studies paint a bleak picture about both the health risks and the prevalence of bisphenol A (BPA), a known endocrine disruptor.
A Dutch study has found that fetuses of mothers who have high levels of BPA in their systems grow more slowly, have smaller heads, and weigh 20% less at birth compared with babies born to women with the lowest BPA levels.
Moreover, BPA may have multigenerational effects. A study published in the peer-reviewed journal Endocrinology demonstrated that exposure to even very low levels of BPA during pregnancy results in adverse behavioral effects in mice carried forward over three generations. The multi-generational effects result from an epigenetic mechanism.
In a third study, children and adolescents with high levels of urinary BPA showed evidence of low-grade albuminuria (where the kidney has experienced damage and is starting to spill some albumin into the urine). Damage at this early stage may have implications for the later development of kidney and cardiovascular disease.
Despite growing evidence to the contrary, FDA’s assessment is that BPA is safe at low levels. The FDA rejected a petition from the Natural Resources Defense Council to ban BPA in food containers. ANH-USA’s petition to the Consumer Protection Agency was denied, and we still haven’t received a response to our OSHA petition regarding BPA in thermal register receipts.
Given the federal government’s inaction, if we are to make progress on BPA, it will have to occur at the state level. This approach has already created positive change: the chemical industry voluntarily petitioned the FDA to limit BPA in baby food containers—and of course, since it came from the chemical industry, the FDA listened without commenting on the question of safety!
Action Alerts! If you live in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, or Pennsylvania, please write to your state legislators and ask them to support these important BPA bills:
Connecticut: S.16 would require all food containers containing BPA to be labeled as such. Take Action!
Massachusetts: S.400 would ban BPA in toys, and mandate that manufacturers use the least toxic alternative as a replacement. Take Action!
New York: A.1654 and S.4709 would prohibit the manufacture, sale, or distribution of business transaction paper containing BPA; S.3533 would prohibit the sale of toys, as well as liquids, foods, and beverages in containers that are intended for children 3 and younger if they contain BPA. This bill would also require manufacturers to use the least toxic alternative chemical compound to replace BPA. Take Action!
Pennsylvania: H.377 and S.490 would ban BPA in children’s and toddlers’ products, and mandates that manufacturers use the least toxic alternative as a replacement. Take Action!
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Get rid of BPA once and for all – it is not needed to produce plastic! Many products now say BPA-Free; they all should!
BPA must be removed from all containers of food. Now!!
BPA is pretty scary stuff! Can we focus our attention on getting it out of our every day environment so we are not creating such dire health risks for our children? If I were a young woman, I might choose NOT to have children because of the environmental hazards and high chances of severe health issues. Young friends ban BPA from their home, but I suspect they have no idea it is in so many things. Let’s support the least toxic replacement of BPA and teach people to live in a sustainable way to not have it in their environment.
We have yet another example whereby large companies are more important than that safety of the food we eat. What will become of our children-the future of this country?
You would think labeling a product “BPA-Free” would be some measure of protection against ingesting toxic plastic by-products, but it turns out that tests on plastics using this label have not been conducted under real-world conditions like running the plastics through a dishwasher or heating them in a microwave.
In a study meant to simulate “real-world” use, 95 percent of all plastic products tested positive for estrogenic activity, meaning they can still disrupt your hormones even if they carry a BPA-free label. Even more disconcerting is the finding that BPA-free plastics in some cases leached more BPA than the non-BPA free plastics.iii
In some cases, instead of actually removing BPA from their products, manufacturers are only taking out a percentage of it, which means we’re still being exposed to it, only now in undisclosed amounts. The truth is there’s an alphabet soup of toxic chemicals in almost everything you come in contact with, from plastics to PVC water lines to canned goods, which are lined with BPA-containing plastic. Thermal receipt paper, all world paper currency and those sealants your dentists want to put on your and your children’s teeth also are primary sources of BPA exposure.
But again, BPA is not the only culprit; it’s simply the most highly publicized one. There’s also Bisphenol AB and AF, Bisphenol B and BP, Bisphenol C, Bisphenol E, F, G, M, S, P, PH, TMC and, yes, there’s even a Bisphenol Z. Any one of these can be in your BPA-free baby bottle or sippy cup, unfortunately.