“We need male leadership at this college,” she told the five students on the tour, all male. “If you can provide leadership, please come here.”

In this study, human placenta cells from five new mothers were cultured in a laboratory, and BPA was added in a variety of doses found in the blood of pregnant women and fetuses. The doses ranged from .002 to 200 micrograms per milliliter. The placenta cells were exposed to the BPA at these levels for 24 hours and then examined for damage.

Significant damage was found. Three types of damage were measured; all were significantly higher than the control. But one type of damage measured much higher at the lower dose of BPA, a particularly troubling finding.

On the USA Today BPA page, Frederick Vom Saal, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, speaks on an audio recording. While the BPA concentrations used are low, he says, “this is a phenomenally potent chemical.” BPA has been linked with cancer and with late puberty in boys, early puberty in girls. The FDA has maintained that it thinks it is safe, but is currently reviewing its position, in the face of growing outcry.

The Environmental Working Group, which advocates for clean water and other topics, announced it is troubled by the study’s results because it indicates BPA affects not only children, but adults.

In an opinion piece Aug. 25, Derrick Z. Jackson reported a 5 percent drop in
Nestle bottled water sales in North America and Western Europe. Suppliers Pepsi and Coke reported
drops in sales too. These drops come from a variety of brands: Nestle’s Poland Spring, Perrier, S. Pellegrino, and Deer Park; Pepsi’s Aquafina; and Coke’s Dasani.

Jackson finds that the sad part of this news is that “ending the bottled-water fad took a recession, when common sense should have kicked in long ago.”

Currently, it’s the other way around: compounds are allowed to proliferate in our food and water until they are proven unsafe. And what constitutes proof? In the case of BPA, there are many more studies showing it unsafe than safe, but the compound continues to be approved by the FDA, at least for now.

The problem with BPA, wrote Lee, is that it is an unstable polymer. This means that molecules can easily fall apart, responding to conditions such as heat, acid, or base. Once the bonds break, the BPA is free to leach out of the plastic and be absorbed into the food or beverage, and into the person consuming the food or beverage.

The Washington Post published an article May 31 describing a strategy session involving bisphenol A (BPA) packaging manufacturers and large users, such as Coca Cola. The Post obtained notes from the meeting and corroborated them with a second attendee.

Strategizers suggested a $500,000 public relations campaign, ideally captained by a pregnant young woman willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA.

Adults in a study who drank most of their cold beverages from Nalgene polycarbonate bottles for a week experienced nearly a 70 percent increase in urinary levels of bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic estrogen found in plastic beverage bottles.

Manufacturers say they are moving to take BPA out of baby bottles. But the rest of us are at risk as well. The product not only leaches from soda and water bottles, but it lines metal cans and “microwaveable” packaging. BPA was originally developed as an estrogen replacement, according to Kissinger’s article, and is now found in the tissues of nearly every American tested.