Vom Saal and colleagues aren’t giving up. From an article in this week’s Missourian: “One of the things that needs to change, vom Saal says, is the heart of the regulatory system. Its structure and its members are not organized to recognize new scientific discoveries….

Starting in December, 2010, the European Union required testing and classifying chemicals before they can be put into products.

“We have no law like that in the United States,” according to Vom Saal. “We are literally like a Third World country in terms of our chemical regulatory system, compared to the Europeans.

“I mean, most people think that the chemicals in the plastic you’re using or in the clothes you’re wearing or in the fabrics on the couch you’re sitting on — that they’ve been tested for whether they’re harmful or not. And the answer is no, they haven’t. There’s no law that requires that. And that’s crazy.”

For more, check out http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2012/01/31/mus-frederick-vom-saal-wants-fda-ban-bpa-endocrine-disruptors/

The study was released online today at the journal Pediatrics, and involves 244 Cincinnati-area mothers whose urine was tested for BPA twice during pregnancy and at childbirth. Then when the children reached age 3, the women evaluated their children’s behavior using questionnaires.

The researchers found a positive correlation between increasingly high urine levels of BPA in pregnancy and worse behavior in the daughters. For every 10-fold increase in BPA levels, girls scored at least six points worse on the questionnaires. Oddly enough, no such correlation was found for sons.

The lead author, Joe Braun, is a research fellow at Harvard’s School of Public Health. He warned that such behavior changes could have dramatic implications for the population as a whole.

But another BPA researcher, Charles McKay of the Connecticut Poison Control Center, criticized the study for not recording other factors that could also affect the results. For example, mothers with poor eating habits might the the ones with the highest levels of BPA, and perhaps they continue to eat poorly and feed their children poorly, causing behavior problems.

BPA is a plastics additive widely used in our environment in things like water and soda bottles and cans, tin can liners, cash register receipts, and on and on. The FDA is in the midst of a review of its safety.

Source: http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/article_9e185d93-ed15-58d0-a276-72c557d98d3d.html

That’s what a researcher from New York says. Kurunthachalam Kannan, PhD, a scientist at the Wadsworth Center and professor of environmental health and toxicology at State University of New York/Albany, discussed a study he co-authored, published Aug. 15 in Environmental Science and Technology.

The chemical BPA is a synthetic estrogen found in bottled water bottles, soda bottles and cans, food cans, dental fillings, and so on. Researchers have found it causes cancer as well as other health problems, but industry has succeeded so far in not having it banned. The chemical is in a review process at the FDA currently.

The study looked at BPA levels in 156 forms of paper money from 21 countries. All of them contained BPA. But while money may contain high levels of BPA, the skin provides an absorption barrier. Small amounts were found to be absorbed through the skin, said Kannan, according to WebMD.

He recommended that people rinse their hands after handling money, and that cashiers wear gloves to limit their exposure.

Meanwhile, an industry scientist scoffs. Steven G. Hentges, PhD, of the Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group of the American Chemistry Council, pooh-poohs Kannan’s investigation.

“Finding trace levels of BPA in currency is neither surprising nor a concern,” he told WebMD.  “Human exposure to BPA from contact with paper currency is minor and orders of magnitude below science-based safe intake levels set by regulatory authorities worldwide. Furthermore, available data suggests that BPA is not readily absorbed through the skin.”

Now Kannan and colleagues are looking at BPA levels in newspaper and toilet paper.

Sources:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21744851

http://www.webmd.com/news/20110812/study-paper-money-contains-traces-of-bpa

The EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, is getting into the act now. It’s concerned that BPA is harming aquatic life. In an announcement, the agency cites several studies that have found BPA to have an impact on the growth, reproduction and development of aquatic organisms, even in tiny amounts.

BPA, you recall, is a plastics additive that’s also an estrogen, providing all of us with plenty of unwanted exposure. It’s not only in water and soda bottles and cans, but in canned foods, on cash register receipts, and in a host of other products. More and more studies are questioning its safety.

The Federal Regulation Brief for July 27 contained the following announcement from the EPA, asking for public comment.

Testing of Bisphenol A: Advance notice of proposed rulemaking, published July 26, 2011, comments by Sept. 26, 2011

Bisphenol A (BPA), a high production volume chemical, is a reproductive, developmental, and systemic toxicant in animal studies and is weakly estrogenic. The Environmental Protection Agency is requesting comments on requiring toxicity testing to determine the potential for BPA to cause adverse effects, including endocrine-related effects, in environmental organisms at low concentrations.

The EPA is also requesting comments on requiring environmental testing consisting of sampling and monitoring for BPA in surface water, ground water, drinking water, soil, sediment, sludge, and landfill leachate near expected BPA releases to determine whether environmental organisms may currently be exposed to concentrations of BPA in the environment at or above levels of concern for adverse effects, including endocrine-related effects.

This advance notice of proposed rulemaking is directed only toward the environmental presence and environmental effects of BPA. The EPA is working with the Department of Health and Human Services on potential human health issues, but is not considering any additional testing specifically in regard to human health issues at this time.

Source: http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/08/01/38622.htm

In the study, 130 volunteers consumed lots of canned food containing BPA for 24 hours. The study looked for BPA in the blood during that time, and found no detectable amount.

BPA, you remember, is the false estrogen found in large amounts on cash register receipts, and also in tin can linings, bottled water and soda bottles, and elsewhere. It’s everywhere, so much so that researchers have difficulty avoiding contaminating their samples. It’s also controversial.

I am wondering what other scientists might be saying about the new results. I wonder particularly about Frederick Vom Saal, the researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia who says that even tiny amounts of the false estrogen can have big consequences in our systems. I am wondering so much that I emailed the PR people at Mizzou today and asked them to find out what Vom Saal says.

Stay tuned!

Source: http://blogs.forbes.com/trevorbutterworth/2011/07/25/majestically-scientific-federal-study-on-bpa-has-stunning-findings-so-why-is-the-media-ignoring-it/

That flaw? Previous studies have relied on a single dose administered, then effects tracked.  Pretty soon, most of the BPA leaves the system. The toxicity levels are based on studies like this in mice. But in reality, our bodies are bombarded daily with the chemical, which is found in tin can linings, on store receipts, in plastic bottles for soda and water, in aluminum soda cans, and on cardboard food packages.

Rosenfeld decided to track effects in mice of chronic lower-dose exposure, comparing a large one-shot dose to a smaller amount of BPA administered daily over time. The results? The mice fed the chronic diet excreted most of the BPA after 24 hours, but 7 days later demonstrated a higher level of BPA in the blood than they had at the 24-hour point. So the body is holding onto the BPA under a chronic exposure.

A colleague, Gail Prins, summarized it this way: blood concentrations of the bioavailable form of BPA became higher when daily diet was the source, even though total BPA consumption was a bit lower in the mice dosed in food versus those given a single oral dose.

The FDA needs to take BPA toxic effects seriously and do a better job of protecting our health, rather than the interests of those who are producing 8 billion pounds per year of this stuff.

Source: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2011/2011-06-20-091.html

The controversial false estrogen is found in plastic soda and water bottles as well as in linings for tin cans, on store receipts, and in other places. It’s been found to cause cancer in animals, and the long-term effects of human exposure are unknown. Meanwhile, the FDA is considering whether to take action to regulate the substance, in the face of an outcry from the food industry, and various states have passed or are considering action.

Researchers at the FDA reported study results in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (May 20, 2011), reported Consumers Union. BPA in a variety of canned foods was checked. “The highest levels of BPA found in the FDA study were almost four times higher than the highest levels detected in a similar but smaller study published in Consumer Reports in 2009.”

The new study study of popular canned foods confirmed Consumer Reports’ findings that BPA levels can vary widely, even in cans containing food from the same lot. “Consumers have no idea how much BPA they may be exposed to from any given can,” said Urvashi Rangan, Ph.D., Consumers’ Union’s Director of Technical Policy .

But the highest levels in the FDA study increase CU’s concerns about health impact. “As we previously reported, just one to a few servings of some of these foods can expose consumers, especially children, to levels of BPA that have caused harm in animal studies,” Dr. Rangan said. “We believe this is an unacceptably slim margin of safety and that consumers should not have to ingest BPA.”

The Consumers’ Union press release “urges federal action to ban BPA in all food and beverage containers so that all consumers will be protected.”

Source: http://www.consumersunion.org/pub/core_food_safety/017777.html

Last month, 26 percent of Coca-cola shareholders expressed concern about BPA, asking the company to reveal its plans for the future concerning the chemical. But that wasn’t a large enough proportion for the top brass to do anything about it. Muhtar Kent, CEO and chairman, told shareholders the company did not believe there was sufficient scientific evidence to stop using BPA in the linings of its cans.

But there’s no scientific evidence showing it’s safe to use it, either.  To the contrary!

BPA, the synthetic estrogen that stiffens water and soda bottles and lines tin cans, is also found lining beverage cans. The use of the chemical, found to cause cancer in laboratory animals, is being called into question by many these days. There are researchers who are calling for a legal overhaul, so that the government will stop permitting chemicals in our environment without testing them first.

Source: http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/On-your-radar/BPA/Coca-Cola-rejects-growing-calls-for-bisphenol-A-disclosure

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryan_fung/

Adam Spanier, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics, followed 367 children, monitoring maternal BPA level through gestation and monitoring wheezing up to age 3. Ninety-nine percent of the children were born to mothers who had detectable BPA levels in their urine during pregnancy.

Spanier correlated higher maternal BPA levels with wheezing at age six months. The odds of wheezing at that age were found to be twice as high for children with mothers who had higher BPA than those who had mothers with lower BPA levels.

Spanier also found that higher BPA levels at 16 weeks’ gestation were associated with wheezing, while high levels at 26 weeks were not. The researchers reported their findings at the May 1st Pediatric Academic Societies’ meeting.

“This suggests that there are periods of time during pregnancy when the fetus is more vulnerable,” said Spanier. “Exposure during early pregnancy may be worse than exposure in later pregnancy.”

Source: http://live.psu.edu/story/53096

The signers, representing 40,000 researchers and clinicians, want federal regulators to use to better and broader assessments of new chemicals.  Prompting the letter is the controversy over BPA, the plastics additive that is being blamed for a host of ills in the population, including erectile dysfunction, delayed puberty for boys, early puberty for girls, and higher rates of diabetes, along with cancer. BPA is commonly found in soda and water bottles, store receipts, and tin can linings.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, the regulators in charge of permitting new chemicals, often lack information about the hazards of chemicals produced in high volumes, charged the scientists. “The need for swifter and sounder testing and review procedures cannot be overstated,” the letter states.

Rather than using outdated toxicology, the regulators need to be relying on scientists who have studied the effect of substances on the body. “We need geneticists, we need developmental and reproductive biologists and we need the clinical people on board to actually help interpret and evaluate some of the science,” said Patricia Hunt, a professor in the Washington State University School of Molecular Biosciences and corresponding author of the letter. “As things stand now, things get rapidly into the marketplace and the testing of them is tending to lag behind.”

Hunt said the letter was driven in particular by growing concerns about chemicals like the plasticizer bisphenol A, or BPA, subject of more than 300 studies finding adverse health effects in animals. Because such chemicals look like hormones to our body, they’re like strangers getting behind the wheels of our cars, Hunt said.

“Hormones control everything—our basic metabolism, our reproduction,” she said. “We call them endocrine disruptors. They’re like endocrine bombs to a certain extent because they can disrupt all these normal functions.”

Hunt’s testimony last year helped make Washington the fifth state to outlaw BPA in children’s food containers and drinking cups.

The organizations signing the Science letter are: the American Society of Human Genetics, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the Endocrine Society, the Genetics Society of America, the Society for Developmental Biology, the Society for Pediatric Urology, the Society for the Study of Reproduction, and the Society for Gynecologic Investigation.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-03/wsu-scf030111.php