Think you’re safe from false estrogens because you’ve got a “bpa-free” plastic water bottle? Think again.

The FDA and the EPA are using outdated testing and review procedures for chemicals, according to scientists representing societies from eight fields who signed a letter in the journal Science.

With all those 8 billion pounds of synthetic estrogen BPA produced every year, some is in the air, researchers have found, and some is, yes, on our money.

Vom Saal’s lab has been testing fetal exposures that are far, far lower than the levels the FDA’s toxicologists are thinking about, and finding adverse effects in animal studies. The reason BPA acts in such tiny doses is that that is the way the body is designed to work, responding to tiny doses of hormones in the bloodstream. “We are between 10 and a hundred to a thousand-million times lower than whatever toxicologists were thinking about,” said Vom Saal.

A new study in the journal Pediatrics found puberty starting in girls at the age of 7 at roughly twice the rate found 10 years ago. The researchers from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital examined 1,200 girls between ages six and eight, in 2004 and 2006. They lived in Cincinnati, San Francisco, and East Harlem, N Y.  [...]

Japanese researchers Pingqing Fu and Kimitaka Kawamura published their results recently in the journal Environmental Pollution. They concluded that the BPA, clinging to breathable particles, could pose a hazard to humans, and that its origin was no doubt the common practice in Asia of incinerating trash including plastics. They suggested controlling these emissions to limit worldwide exposure to the chemical.

* The journal Reproductive Toxicology published a Harvard University study of 190 men that found correlation between BPA levels in men’s urine and damage to their sperm counts and DNA.
* Store receipts in many cases are loaded with BPA dust which rubs off onto your fingers. The Environmental Working Group tested receipts from a variety of stores and governmental units, and found large amounts.

And others, like me, sidestep the obesity question and point out that earlier puberty for females (and later for males) is a logical outcome for a BPA-rich environment. BPA, a synthetic estrogen, is used as an additive in clear plastic bottles, as liner for tin cans, and liberally covers credit card receipt thermal paper. It’s in the tissues of every one of us.

A leading environmental group filed suit Monday against the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), charging it with foot-dragging in protecting the public from bisphenyl A (BPA). BPA is a synthetic estrogen used in food packaging, widely believed to be damaging to health, especially for children and fetuses.

I don’t know about you, but I am very tired of getting email spam about Viagra. Apparently one reason for it, indirectly of course, is the use of BPA, bisphenyl A, in our environment: in plastic water and soda bottles, in tin can liners, and on our credit card receipts, and other places probably. Everyone has some levels of this contaminant in their urine. Now there’s proof that BPA, a synthetic estrogen, is adversely affecting male sexuality, according to a study by Kaiser Permanente, a health care provider in California.