Letters to the Editor
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Children Of Men
"If we wait for comparable human data and it comes out like animal data, we aren't going to be breeding as a species."
I think I saw a movie about this . . .
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Heh, yeah
and isn't spring supposed to be silent, now, too?
statement like that always strike me as a bit hysterical, but i'd still to see less plastic in the environment, and i'll take any available excuse that drums up a little backlash.
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This will be shown to have a connection to Breast Cancert
I think that it is inevitable that bisphenol A will be shown to have a role in the steady increase in Breast Cancer. Breast Cancer is intimately related to hormones, especially estrogen, the estrogen receptor positive version of the disease actually "feeds" on estrogen, and here we are saturating the environment with a synthetic estrogen.
While I am not a Doctor, in my opinion women with ERP Breast Cancer should avoid all contact with bisphenol A, and every woman over the age of 13 should think seriously about limiting their exposure. I know that I don't look at those plastic water bottles the same way.
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The American Chemistry Council
is a lobbying and public image advocate for the chemical and plastics industries.
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Even Nalgene
is soaked in Bisphenol A, as it turns out. I hope that all that diligent water-drinking I did while pregnant doesn't turn out to have gone awry.
While I expect (read: hope) that we don't need to get too hysterical about the plastic we have drunk in all that cleansing, healthy drinking water, I am going to buy some of those nice stainless steel bottles (like Kleen Kanteen) for my whole family. They are light and clean, only slightly more expensive than Nalgene, and don't appear (so far, at least) to screw with animals' hormones.
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If I had children ...
I would be beside myself reading this. I'm 46, and I figure that the damage is done. I enjoy my health and don't take it for granted. But for parents, these kinds of findings must leave them in a constant state of worry.
It is so upsetting and disturbing to think of the giant experiment we're performing on ourselves. I longed for children for so long. Now, I think I couldn't bear the reality of what they would inherit, and I'm grateful that I'll die without descendants.
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Bisphenol A.. not in every plastic
Elizabeth should distinguish between plastics as not all plastics contain the possibly damaging Bisphenol A. Polycarbonate does and these bottles are the heavy-walled ones that you buy empty for multiple use. It is also the material most, but not all, water-cooler bottles are made of. PET water and soda bottles on the other hand do not contain Bisphenol A and are safe. When re-using plastic bottles consumers should make sure that the bottles are thoroughly cleaned as bacterial contamination can become a health risk.
Full disclosure: I am a consultant to the plastics industry.
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Credulous aren't we, and one-sided on the science?
Thanks, Salon, for fomenting hysteria on a topic that is vastly more complex than you seem to realize. Of course, when you a rig a story by putting "scientists" on one side and "industy" on the other, it's no wonder that the letter writers ahead of me are scandalized - it does seem like a scandal the Bisphenol-A is unregulated given the "evidence" about low-dose effects.
The problem with the thesis - which would have been obvious if you did more reporting on the toxicology - is that it is far from accepted within mainstream toxicology. Frederick Vom Saal has been fighting the battle to persuade his colleagues that something is happening here - and he has been conspicuously unsuccessful. This isn't because of politics, or industry lobbying - although Vom Saal and the Environmental Working Group seem to be working in concert to raise public awareness about this topic- it's because the science ain't there.
Take Europe, a continent where the precautionary principle has been enshrined in law, and where, as a consequence, regulation of chemicals is much stricter than the United States. Earlier this year, the European Food Safety Authority a body charged with providing “objective scientific advice” to the European Parliament, delivered a report on the safety of bisphenol-A.
Here's what they concluded about the "science" driving the Salon article:
“The Panel considered that low-dose effects of BPA in rodents have not been demonstrated in a robust and reproducible way, such that they could be used as pivotal studies for risk assessment. Moreover, the species differences in toxicokinetics, whereby BPA as parent compound is less bioavailable in humans than in rodents, raise considerable doubts about the relevance of any low-dose observations in rodents for humans. The likely high sensitivity of the mouse to oestrogens raises further doubts about the value of that particular species as a model for risk assessment of BPA in humans."
Toxokinetics folks - it's not a word taught in journalism schools, or bandied about the newsroom but it's crucial to understanding why something can be toxic or not. Strangely, the European review concurred with several other comprehensive risk analyses of BPA - including one by Harvard's Center for Risk Analysis.
Um - maybe that's why the studies cited by Vom Saal and the Environmental Working Group were largely ignored by the National Toxicology Program's safety review of BPA, which prompted Vom Saal to say to the LA Times that "none of them have expertise with this chemical,” which is such a dopey comment, you've got to wonder about his agenda and credibility (The NTP panels are made up of the top scientists in the U.S.; Vom Saal, himself, is not a toxicologist).
Still - as long as there are credulous publications like Salon, Vom Saal will get his message out, untroubled by the scientific evidence that doesn't support what he's saying.
Trevor Butterworth
ps - to the letter-writer who thinks BPA might be behind breast cancer: think first about other factors including more mammograms, an aging population (more cancers being caught early, plus more being found due to relative aging of population), increased alcohol consumption, later age of first birth, increased IVF treatments - all of which significantly distinguish Marin County in CA from the rest of the U.S., and probably explain its higher incidence of breast cancer.