Feed: BPA Free Bottles Updates & News on Bisphenol A / - AggScore: 57.0

90% of Cord Blood In USA Tests Positive For BPA

(NaturalNews) For the first time in the history of its testing, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has found bisphenol A (BPA) in the umbilical cord blood of American babies. Nine out of ten samples tested positive for the chemical, a shocking number when considering the laundry list of chronic illnesses that are associated with BPA exposure. – Naturalnews.com

This is frightening and wild news. Cord blood, as you have probably heard, is being used world wide to be stored for future use in the event of injury or serious illness. Cord blood contains stem cells. Stem cells, as we know are a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat diseases including Alzheimer’s diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Experts and analysts believe the food industry is behind the push to keep BPA legal, exerting influence on the FDA to conceal the truth about its dangers. Many manufacturers have voluntarily been able to eliminate BPA from their products, illustrating that there is no reason why it should continue to be used by anyone. – Naturalnews.com

I wholeheartedly agree. What is it that makes industries, companies and manufacturers want to keep using this chemical? What benefit is it to them other than maybe to save money? It will be really interesting to see who’s behind this as the whole thing unravels in the press.

Who knows, maybe with a bit more investigative journalism, we’ll be able to put together a short film on those who lobby BPA to be safe in the coming years. Would be interesting to find out their motivations and reasoning… I mean, I get that you don’t think there’s anything wrong with BPA, but why not – to keep a pile of smiling consumers happy – just remove it? Become the first brand of soda, cans, plastic containers etc… to completely remove it?

Justify an increase in price, instant increase in sales… what’s wrong with that?

Read NaturalNews.com’s Report

BPA Backed By Chemical Industry

The New York Times seems to have been crowded by a number of responses from the chemical companies and consumers alike in their “letters to the editor” section on the recent BPA issue.

We are disappointed that The Times did not report on either of these peer-reviewed studies, but did cover a non-peer-reviewed Consumer Reports article that was inconsistent with conclusions of expert regulators worldwide.

Steve Russell
Vice President, Plastics
American Chemistry Council
Arlington, Va., Jan. 21, 2010

Of course you are! It’s your stance, and everyone elses is backed by old ancient studies?

And consumers responded as well…

Until we change this, endocrine disruptors like BPA, which are biologically active in human cells and potentially dangerous to the developing fetus, will likely be around for another 20 years.

Sheldon Krimsky
Medford, Mass., Jan. 16, 2010

Good to see voices standing for good reason in The United States!

(Read all responses)

Could Fungus Save Us From BPA?

Not quite the way it sounds, but maybe…

In a report by www.physorg.com – scientists believe they’ve found a fungus that eats harmful chemicals like BPA. Now this doesn’t solve it leeching out of our plastic products, but it does potentially help figure out new ways we may be able to dispose of years of this harmful chemical from hitting the landfills for future generations to grow vegetables in!

Just as cooking helps people digest food, pretreating polycarbonate plastic — source of a huge environmental headache because of its bisphenol A (BPA) content — may be the key to disposing of the waste in an eco-friendly way, scientists have found. Their new study is in ACS’ Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal.

According to the report, manufacturers are producing 2.7 million tons of plastic containing BPA each year. Interestingly enough, they’re hinting that it’s also in CDs and DVDs and eyeglass lenses among other things.

After 12 months, there was almost no decomposition of the untreated plastic, compared to substantial decomposition of the pretreated plastic, with no release of BPA.

Please, read more of this article, this is truly inspiring and hopeful information!

Senate BANS BPA from Baby Bottles

The state Senate has passed a bill banning a widely used chemical from use in baby bottles. The bill, which has also passed in a state Assembly committee, would ban Bisphenol A, or BPA, from use in products used by kids five and younger. The legislation coincides with the latest Food and Drug Administration action regarding the chemical. Earlier this months the federal agency declared BPA, a “chemical of concern.”

This is awesome news!

Now for the next question, what about the rest of us? Why not ban the chemical from all other areas of life? Probably one of the few Unanimous votes that ever happen in the senate, though eh?

(Read Entire Story)

New York Times “Benefits out weigh risks…”

Nor have they urged families to change their use of infant formula or foods because the benefit of good nutrition outweighs the potential risk from BPA exposure.

Why does this statement from the New York Times mess with my head? Like there are no other options to feed your child other than canned foods?!? Obviously there are a ton of other options and there was a time, in the old days when parents didn’t have the option of formula, powdered milk, pumping breast milk and all these innovations. A time where if you couldn’t breast feed your child, you used cows milk, goats milk and grains and such.

Yes, I know that’s not going to happen for these modern mums.. We’d rather expose our child to chemicals and harmful things that we can hide our heads from… But really…

Is The RISK From BPA Worth Banning Your Use Of Convenient Foods?

Read our old page on BPA Risks, examine those details and decide for yourself.

The Saving Grace Of The New York Times…

Fact is, one thing that pleases me to no end is basically proof that the New York Times newspaper is not yet or not at all affected by lobbyists, control groups and big label companies trying to claim this substance, at least not yet. The statement at the end of the article kind of proves it!

“…wise consumers will try to avoid BPA.”

Well put, NYT.

Read the New York Times Article…

“Dramatically Accelerate” businesses moving away from BPA

“The FDA has never, ever admitted before that it is has any concerns whatsoever,” said Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence, a Canadian advocacy group. He said the U.S. action also vindicates Health Canada’s earlier assessment and “will dramatically accelerate the market’s move away from this chemical.”

This is the statement from Environmental Defense, taken theglobeandmail.com. It’s an obvious direction you’re going to see in the United States. Health Canada made this decision in 2008 and stood by that plan to get rid of it in Baby Bottles, but still allows the harmful chemical to be put in canned foods and packaging as well as soda pops and plastic containers brought in from China.

It would be nice if this all changed and this chemical was being brought into the spotlight more often. It would be nice to see us all return to a time where our food containers weren’t leeching chemicals.

Chemical Industry “not happy with the news”

The chemical industry from whence the BPA originates, is also not happy with the news.

Hardly surprising, as both camps line up and defend their respective positions—the chemical industry saying that the FDA’s concerns are unfounded, while the safety advocates say the FDA hasn’t gone far enough. Then there’s the FDA, trying to come up in the middle and be fair to everybody.
- http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com

Quite amusing really… This blog, written by a lawyer or lawyer group is showing both sides of the FDA situation. The “nope, if we said BPA was un-safe we would have already pulled it from the market” version the FDA tells, and the “cause for concern” portion…

Interesting on the FDA take they show of the risk out weighing the benefit type argument used to validate whether a chemical should be deemed safe or unsafe. This blog is actually arguing that the FDA may very well have falsely kept consumers feeling confident about BPA in the interest of commerce and business.

And YET… The chemical organizations continue to disagree and push their side of the story…

The American Chemical Council, which represents companies that make and use BPA, issued a statement saying BPA was safe, praising the health agencies as confirming that there was no proof of harm to people by it, but also saying, “We are disappointed that some of the recommendations are likely to worry consumers and are not well founded.”

Strange as it is, this isn’t the end of the BPA situation, in the next year… This issue could explode in the United States…

(read More On Chemical Industry Not Happy)

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Forbes: “Chemicals lurking in your body”

…industrial chemicals found in plastics and other consumer goods could be harming our kids.

Forbes magazine is now reporting that BPA is only one concerning chemical out of many out there. Forgive me for being one of those skeptical types, but Forbes has often seemed to me like the brotherhood of business to business journalism, and that’s probably exactly what it is… Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a subscriber, have been for a while and I do love a ton of their writing. It’s good material…

But it’s obvious they’d never go live with an article that said “BAN BPA, DANGEROUS CHEMICAL” and loose 20% of their investor, manufacturer and distributor type subscribers… Just wouldn’t happen, and why would they? It’s a bad business move on their part… But, to write on a hot-button topic like this while keeping the business community that supports them happy… The angle is obviously that

“There are many chemicals to worry about, so why let this one that’s in the media right now bother you?”

Sorta seems like the idea is to downplay the dangers and potential dangers of BPA. What’s dangerous about a writeup like the one from Forbes is the deceptive language in it that – after reading it – may lead you to believe they’ve only done tests and studies on animals. False.

It may lead you to believe that this chemical “may cause… ” or “Could cause..”

As for BPA, study results have been confusing as to whether or not it really harms people.

Really? I’m not so sure about that… Parents? – Join in on this conversation!

P.S. The share button at the bottom works with your Facebook, Twitter and other applications… If you think other people should hear about this story, use the share button!!!

(Read full Forbes Article…)

BPA Risks Known since the 1930s…

Special thanks to MumMums.com for bringing up the BPA issue on their blog. Ashlee ate tons of MumMums when she was younger and loved them, so it’s great seeing a brand we used talking about this issue.

The Environmental Working Group actually released a study detailing the entire history of BPA as a chemical dating back to it’s first discovery in 1891.

1930’s: First evidence of BPA toxicity. Scientists discover that BPA is an artificial estrogen (Dodds 1938). Its use as a pharmaceutical hormone is precluded by the invention of another synthetic chemical, DES, with even more potent estrogenic properties. (DES was later taken off the market when it was linked to reproductive cancers in girls born to mothers taking DES during pregnancy, in retrospect an early warning signal for the similar toxic properties confirmed for BPA many years later).

Interesting… So, in 1930, they knew this was a hormone disruptor but I guess no one bothered to take into account that people would have microwave ovens? Or that tomatoes having high acidic levels would cause the dangerous chemical to leech into our food chain?

Interesting that BPA used to cause reproductive cancers… Makes you wonder if HPV levels in the United States would drop significantly if the levels of detectable BPA in our bodies were lowered or dropped completely.

(View BPA as a Chemical Timeline)

National Geographic “cutting bpa a no brainer”…

Bisphenol-A exposure is certainly not the only factor in heart disease, but reducing at least one possible risk is a “no brainer,” the University of Missouri’s vom Saal said.

For instance, people can limit their exposure by not microwaving polycarbonate plastic food containers (which normally have number sevens on their undersides), avoiding canned foods, and using BPA-free baby bottles, according to the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Recent article by the National Geographic, a publication that doesn’t often touch on health issues unless they become worldwide concerns, recently discussed the BPA issue and the chemical itself. Large levels of big media coverage are continuing to come to the surface as the FDA, researchers and other countries discover it’s harmful effects.

(Read The Article @ The National Geographic Website…)