Report Raises Alarm About Chemical Found in Plastics

Note from Health Lover, Ilena Rosenthal: No wonder the chemical
industry paid ACSH to pay Steve Barrett to write his industry cover up
of their dangers:
http://www.BreastImplantAwareness.or...WatchWatch.htm


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...041501753.html

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 15, 2008; 3:10 PM

For the first time, the federal government is raising health alarms
about bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical in plastics that is used in such
varied items as dental fillings, baby bottles and sports water
bottles.

The National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of
Health, released a draft report today that says exposure to the
chemical may be linked to breast cancer, prostate cancer, early
puberty in girls and such behavioral changes as hyperactivity. It
urged further study.

The report marks a significant departure from earlier positions taken
by the government, which had maintained there was a negligible human
health risk associated with BPA.

"This is breaking new scientific ground," said Anila Jacob, a senior
scientist at the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit public
health group. "It says that at very low doses, similar to what people
are exposed to now, BPA poses a risk of adverse health conditions."

Steven G. Hentges, executive director of the Polycarbonate/BPA Global
Group at the American Chemistry Council, said the new report does not
mean BPA is unsafe.

"It found no serious or high level concerns for human health," he
said, adding that the report called for additional research. "More
research is always considered valuable."

Infants are the population potentially most vulnerable to BPA exposure
because the chemical is used in baby bottles as well as the lining of
baby formula cans. "Formula fed infants are at especially high risk,"
Jacob said. "They get a double exposure."

BPA has also been found in breast milk because it is absorbed by
nursing mothers through their exposure to various plastics.

Although the National Toxicology Program has no power to regulate BPA,
its findings are used by other federal agencies such as the Food and
Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, which set
safe exposure limits to chemicals.

The agency's warning reverses the opinion of an earlier expert panel
that minimized the risk of BPA. That panel was assailed by public
health advocates and discounted after an investigation by the House
Committee on Government Oversight found that the scientific firm hired
by the federal government to perform the analysis was also working for
the chemical industry.