posted September 06, 2008 09:20 PM         

Chemical in Plastic is Connected to Health Problems in Monkeys
By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 4, 2008; Page A02

Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine have linked a chemical found in everyday plastics to problems with brain function and mood disorders in monkeys -- the first time the chemical has been connected to health problems in primates.

The study is the latest in an accumulation of research that has raises concerns about bisphenol A, or BPA, a compound that gives a shatterproof quality to polycarbonate plastic and has been found to leach from plastic into food and water.

The Yale study comes as federal toxicologists yesterday reaffirmed an earlier draft report finding that there is "some concern" that bisphenol A can cause developmental problems in the brain and hormonal systems of infants and children.

"There remains considerable uncertainty whether the changes seen in the animal studies are directly applicable to humans, and whether they would result in clear adverse health effects," John R. Bucher, associate director of the National Toxicology Program, said in a statement. "But we have concluded that the possibility that BPA may affect human development cannot be dismissed."

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Yale team exposed monkeys to levels of bisphenol A deemed safe for humans by the Environmental Protection Agency and found that the chemical interfered with brain cell connections vital to memory, learning and mood.

"Our findings suggest that exposure to low-dose BPA may have widespread effects on brain structure and function," the authors wrote. In contrast to earlier research on rodents, the Yale researchers studied monkeys to better approximate the way BPA might affect humans.

"Our goal was to more closely mimic the slow and continuous conditions under which humans would normally be exposed to BPA," said study author Csaba Leranth, a Yale professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences and of neurobiology.

BPA, in commercial use since the 1950s, is found in a wide variety of everyday items, including sports bottles, baby bottles, food containers and compact discs. One recent federal study estimated that the chemical is found in the urine of 93 percent of the population.

The American Chemistry Council, a trade group, maintained yesterday that "there is no direct evidence that exposure to bisphenol A adversely affects human reproduction or development."

The National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, has no power to regulate BPA, but its findings are used by other federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the EPA, which set safe exposure limits for chemicals.

The FDA plays a critical regulatory role because it regulates the compound's use in plastic food containers, bottles, tableware and the plastic linings of canned foods.

The agency last month issued a draft report that declared BPA safe for use in food packaging and bottles, based largely on the strength of two studies, both funded by industry.

"Unfortunately the regulatory agency charged with protecting the public health continues to rely on industry-based research to arrive at its conclusions, rather than examining the totality of scientific evidence," Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement yesterday. His committee is investigating the FDA's handling of BPA.

U.S. manufacturers make about 7 billion pounds of BPA annually. A ban would affect thousands of businesses and perhaps billions of dollars in profit for its largest manufacturers.

Canada has said it intends to ban the use of BPA in baby bottles, and state and federal lawmakers have proposed a variety of BPA bans. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is sponsoring a bill to prohibit BPA from children's products, while Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) wants to bar it from all food and drink packaging.

"The FDA's assurances of BPA's safety are out of step with mounting scientific evidence to the contrary," Markey said yesterday. "For the sake of the health of every man, woman and child in America, we should ban BPA in food and beverage containers, especially because there are alternatives already available."

Several major retailers, including Wal-Mart and Toys R Us, have pledged to drop BPA products next year while some makers of baby bottles and sports bottles have switched to BPA-free plastic.

Smart Plastics Guide

Of 115 published animal studies, 81 percent found significant effects from even low-level exposure to BPA. While none of the 11 industry-funded studies found significant effects, over 90 percent of government-funded studies did so. Adverse effects include:13
- Early onset of puberty, and stimulation of mammary gland development in females
- Changes in gender-specific behavior
- Changes in hormones, including decreased testosterone
- Increased prostate size
- Decreased sperm production
- Altered immune function
- Behavioral effects including hyperactivity, increased aggressiveness, impaired learning and other changes in behavior

Can’t help but wonder if the explosion of ADD/ADHD, or events like Columbine, might have been caused by BPA poisoning…..

Other discussions at main link:

"Large effects from small exposures.
Not only is industry's (chemical manufacturers) own research flawed, but they have repeatedly chosen to ignore all but a handful of the studies on low level effects of Bisphenol-A that have been published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. This is a classic ploy, perfected by representatives of tobacco companies, to undermine progress toward better health standards. They focus on a small piece of the overall picture, focus on creating the impression that that piece is flawed, and then argue that because of that flaw the entire body of literature is invalid..."

"Bisphenol-A at extremely low levels causes changes in brain structure and behavior in rats.
Bisphenol-A-based polycarbonate is used as a plastic coating for children's teeth to prevent cavities, as a coating in metal cans to prevent the metal from contact with food contents, as the plastic in food containers, refrigerator shelving, baby bottles, water bottles, returnable containers for juice, milk and water, micro-wave ovenware and eating utensils..."
Neuroscience Research 45: 345-356.

"In Utero Chemical Exposure Linked to Obesity.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals, the ones that affect the way our bodies circulate hormones, are perhaps the most ubiquitous and the most dangerous of the pollutants we encounter each day ... even at low levels, these chemicals are affecting the way we develop and store fat..."
Dr. Pete Myers, head of Environmental Health Sciences.

"Bisphenol-A (BPA) has been linked to damage in developing brain tissue.
The chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), widely used in products such as food cans, milk container linings, water pipes and even dental sealants, has now been found to disrupt important effects of estrogen in the developing brain..."
Medical Research News.

posted September 06, 2008 09:56 PM         

Parents needn't wait for legislation to shield kids from toxins in products
Shanna H. Swan
Monday, January 9, 2006

State legislators will hear testimony Tuesday on an issue that should attract the attention of parents everywhere: How to improve the safety of numerous toys and baby-care products that contain toxic chemicals.

These important hearings could lead to California becoming the first state in the nation to ban several toxic chemicals in baby products. If such legislation passes, California would be following in the footsteps of the European Union, which already recognizes that phthalates (such as DBP and DEHP) simply don't belong in baby bottles, rubber duckies or teething rings. The EU is also re-evaluating the use of bisphenol-A in children's products.

Assembly member Wilma Chan, D-Oakland, has taken up this issue because a wealth of research links these chemicals to birth defects, cancer, abnormal genital development, early puberty onset and other problems. Recent biomonitoring studies have found high levels of these chemicals in the blood of mothers and children, and other studies confirm the presence of phthalates and BPA in common baby products, such as teethers, sleep accessories, bottles, sip cups and bath toys.

Children and adults in the United States are regularly and unknowingly exposed to phthalates, which are used to make plastic more flexible and to bind fragrances and color to personal care products. Bisphenol-A, a hormone disrupter, is also used in dental sealants and in the resins that line food cans, in addition to hard, clear plastic products, such as baby bottles. Because of their body weight, children are far more susceptible to adverse affects from chemical exposures than adults, even at very low doses. Chan's legislation (Assembly Bill 319) targets children under age 3 -- one of the most vulnerable populations by far.

But children are also highly vulnerable long before they are even born. In-utero exposures to phthalates can lead to birth defects and genital malformations, as numerous studies have shown in laboratory animals and, as suggested most recently, in a study of baby boys.

A government-funded study I recently led in collaboration with scientists and physicians from several universities and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was the first to find a significant relationship between human exposure to phthalates and adverse changes in the genitals of baby boys. Our work, published last spring in Environmental Health Perspectives, built upon highly reproducible effects observed in animal studies, including demasculinization of the male reproductive tract, increases in the likelihood of undescended testes and lowered sperm counts in adulthood. This cluster of effects has been termed the "phthalate syndrome."

Our study examined pregnant women, mothers and children from Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Columbia, Mo. We found that the higher the level of phthalates in the mother, the more likely we were to find that a sensitive genital measure (the length of the perineum) was less masculinized (i.e., shorter). When this occurred, boys were more likely to have incomplete testicular descent and smaller penises. That is, they appeared to exhibit the phthalate syndrome. The changes occurred at phthalate levels that have been measured in about one-quarter of women in the United States.