The issue: underperformance by men. Bovinet identifies the situation as something much larger and more important than the Civil Rights Commission’s concern about equal treatment in higher education admission. The US is in the midst of the creation of a “matriarchal economy,” he says. Women influence the purchase of 80 percent of all goods and services.

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.

But complete disclosure is rare. An EWG study released at the hearing checked 188 bottled water brands and found that less than 2 percent disclose all three basic facts about their water, on the label or in a Web site. Those facts are the water’s source, how it was purified, and what contaminants remain.

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.

For the first time in its 93-year-history, the organization issued a scientific statement a few days ago and declared its itention to engage in lobbying. The subject of both the statement and the lobbying is their hope to “decrease human exposure” to BPA and other endocrine-disrupting agents.

Previous studies had demonstrated adverse health effects from BPA. But none had demonstrated whether polycarbonate bottles might be an important contributor to the amount of BPA in the body, said Carwile. Meanwhile, the FDA is saying that BPA in products is safe. Because of this situation, states (Minnesota) and cities (Chicago) are starting to ban BPA in household products, said the article.

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.

They rinsed plastic and glass bottles, added water and snails, and waited. After a period of time, the snails housed in the plastic bottles generated significantly more baby snails than the ones in the glass bottles. This suggests that the plastic packaging is a source of active estrogen hormones.

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.