What is Bisphenol A (BPA) and is it really safe?
Recently it has been determined that some plastics used to store food and beverages may contaminate said products.
Let’s start with the industry web site on BPA:
“Bisphenol A (BPA) is a key building block of polycarbonate plastic.”
Source: http://www.bisphenol-a.org/human/polyplastics.html
Fair enough. Is it harmful to me?
According to NIH we should be careful with it, especially around pregnant woman and infants (at the very least):
“The possibility that BPA may affect human development cannot be dismissed,” said John Bucher, associate director of the toxicology group, in a statement in Bloomberg. “We see developmental changes occurring in some animal studies at BPA exposure levels similar to those experienced by humans.”
Source: http://cerhr.niehs.nih.gov/chemicals/bisphenol/bisphenol.pdf
Sunoco seems to agree with NIH, as they have restricted sales of BPA:
“Sunoco, a producer of gasoline and chemicals, is now refusing to sell the chemical to companies for use in food and water containers for children younger than 3, saying it can’t be certain of the compound’s safety. Sunoco plans to require its customers to guarantee that the chemical will not be used in children’s food products.”
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=7070048
Do we really have to worry about BPA leaching in to our food and water that’s stored in polycarbonate plastic?
“We found that drinking cold liquids from polycarbonate bottles for just one week increased urinary BPA levels by more than two-thirds. If you heat those bottles, as is the case with baby bottles, we would expect the levels to be considerably higher. This would be of concern since infants may be particularly susceptible to BPA’s endocrine-disrupting potential,” said Karin B. Michels, associate professor of epidemiology at HSPH and Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study.
Why aren’t we banning BPA as other developed countries have?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/18/AR2008041803036.html
There has been a stir in Washington, but we need more action to get things going:
http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/41215752.html
Consider contacting your representative and encouraging them to take action against BPA in food and beverage products.
In addition, refusal to buy these products and asking store owners to stock products stored in glass or safer plastics (such as LDPE and HDPE) will help to encourage moving away from BPA.
Update: Check out the history of BPA. Very interesting information for those who are curious where this chemical came from.