Unless you have lived on Mars these last few years, you will know the mounting concern over bisphenol A, a primary ingredient in plastics. In Letter From Serendipity issue #14 I reported on a straight bribe to get it through safety challenges with the FDA.
Nobody in their right mind could possibly interpret the current science as showing bisphenol A (BPA) is safe. Abundant studies have shown it to be deadly. But of course the FDA has ignored the science and followed the money (bribes).
Now a new study has shown that it is associated with hyperactivity and aggression in young girls [Oct. 6, 2009 online edition of Environmental Health Perspectives].
Of course the chemical lobby, with its total disregard for human health and safety, responded in the time-honored way, by rubbishing the study. “This type of study has no capability to establish cause and effect, only associations.” garbled Steven Hentges, executive director of the polycarbonate/BPA global group at the American Chemistry Council, which represents the chemicals industry.
He’s right in one respect at least: thanks to the chemical industry and its ways, more than 90% of people in the United States have detectable levels of BPA in their urine. The picture is becoming very murky.
The usual phoney assertion is that it’s present only as parts per billion and so can be safely ignored. ‘Scuse me? Where did that fake science come from? Hormones are active in parts per TRILLION. That’s at 1/1,000th of the concentration of bisphenol A.
Independent researchers in dozens of studies have linked trace BPA exposures in animal and test-tube experiments to conditions involving hormone imbalances, including breast and prostate cancer, early puberty and changes in brain structure, particularly for exposures during key points of fetal or early neonatal development.
Canada’s regulatory body, Health Canada, is the first in the world to declare Bisphenol A dangerous, the first step toward a ban.
Meanwhile the FDA has declared BPA safe at current levels and said the chemical poses no serious health risks to humans. The FDA is so out of line with scientific findings that its criminally reckless ruling was disputed by a different US federal agency, the National Toxicology Program of the Department of Health and Human Services, which concluded there was definitely reason to be concerned that BPA may cause developmental problems in children’s brains and hormonal systems.
Even as the FDA committed this sin, a study was published the same week showing that bisphenol A tripled the chances of a heart attack and more than doubled the chances of getting diabetes. This was in patients with levels less than the FDA says is safe!
These are basically inflammatory processes and I have been saying since the early 1980s that chemical pollution is one of the main causes of the epidemic of inflammatory diseases: atherosclerosis, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, ADD and fibromyalgia (ME to the Europeans) are all basically inflammatory in character.
What can you do? Not a lot. Avoid plastic wrap, cling film and especially plastic water bottles as much as you can. Get a stainless steel re-usable bottle (NOT aluminium) and fill it with filtered or reverse-osmosis treated water. Buy water bottled in glass if you can source it.