Dr. Mercola October 11 2008 117,583 views
The global chemical industry annually produces about 6 billion pounds of bisphenol A (BPA), an integral component of a vast array of plastic products, generating at least $6 billion in annual sales. The value of BPA-based manufactured goods is probably incalculable. Environmental Working Group studies have found BPA in more than half the canned foods and beverages sampled from supermarkets across the U.S.
Soon after scientists Frederick Vom Saal and Wade Welshons found the first hard evidence that miniscule amounts of BPA caused irreversible changes in the prostates of fetal mice, a scientist from Dow Chemical Company showed up at the Missouri lab. He disputed the data and declared, as Vom Saal recalls, "We want you to know how distressed we are by your research."
"It was not a subtle threat," Vom Saal says. "It was really, really clear, and we ended up saying, threatening us is really not a good idea."
The Missouri scientists redoubled their investigations of BPA. Industry officials and scientist allies fired back, sometimes in nose-to-nose debates at scientific gatherings, sometimes more insidiously. "I heard [chemical industry officials] were making blatantly false statements about our research," says Welshons. "They were skilled at creating doubt when none existed."
The industry's increasingly noisy denials backfired. By the turn of the millennium, dozens of scientists were launching their own investigations of the chemical. But the chemical industry can be expected to fight aggressively against more regulation. Earlier this year, the industry spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat a California legislative proposal to ban BPA in food packaging. The Chemistry Council and allied companies and industry groups hired an army of lobbyists. Tactics included an industry email to food banks charging that a BPA ban would mean the end of distributions of canned goods for the poor.
I often point out just how powerful and influential the pharmaceutical industry is. The global market for pharmaceuticals was worth more than $693 billion in 2007. But Big Pharma is easily dwarfed by the global chemistry industry, which lives somewhere in the $3 trillion-a-year-neighborhood.
About 6 billion pounds of Bisphenol A (BPA) is produced annually, generating at least $6 billion in annual sales alone.
BPA – which mimicks the sex hormone estradiol -- is a building block for polycarbonate plastics and tough epoxy resins. As I discussed earlier this week, BPA-containing plastic is so pervasive it shows up in many places you might not have considered, such as in the linings of canned goods, where it leaches into your food and drink.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) found BPA in more than half of the canned foods and beverages sampled from supermarkets across the U.S.
Cans of infant formula have been shown to be some of the worst offenders; just one to three servings can contain BPA levels that have caused serious adverse effects in animal tests.
Dow Chemical – Roughnecks in Suits
As described in the article above, chemical companies like Dow are not above using threats and forceful intimidation when plain money doesn’t do the job. (Monsanto’s ruthless “seed police” are another giant swinging a big club, with a reputation for suing small farmers out of their homesteads.)
But this is not the first time Dow Chemical’s less than ethical tactics have been exposed.
The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal has tried to get Dow to own up to its poisoning of the village of Bhopal for over two decades, and accuses the multinational of using strong-arm tactics to intimidate the habitants of Shinde Vasuli into submission to build another chemical experimentation facility near their Indian village.
In 2002, Dow Chemical interrupted internet use for thousands, and closed down hundreds of unrelated websites after intimidating Verio into shutting down the ISP of a critical parody website.
And more recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) forced Mary Gade to quit her job as head of the EPA’s Midwest office after her interactions with Dow Chemical. Gade had been locked in a heated dispute with Dow about long-delayed plans to clean up dioxin-saturated soil that extends 50 miles beyond its Midland, Michigan plant. The company had been dumping the highly toxic and persistent chemical into local rivers for most of the last century.
In an interview on May 1, 2008, Gade said of her forced resignation: "There"s no question this is about Dow. I stand behind what I did and what my staff did. I"m proud of what we did."
These examples are just a few drops in a very large bucket.
BPA and Your Immune System
That low-level exposure to BPA can be hazardous to your health has been established (but hotly debated and denied by industry) for over 10 years. It’s just now reaching the tipping point.
According to Washington State University reproductive scientist Patricia Hunt, “exposure to low levels of BPA -- levels that we think are in the realm of current human exposure -- can profoundly affect both developing eggs and sperm.”
But fetuses and infants are not the only ones at risk. Researchers are also finding that BPA exposure can affect adults.
A study published in the Environmental Health Perspectives in April 2008, discovered that BPA promotes the development of Th2 cells in adulthood, and both Th1 and Th2 cells in prenatal stages, by reducing the number of regulatory T cells.
This could have a profound effect on your health as Th1 and Th2 are the two “attack modes” of your immune system.
Based on the type of invader, your immune system activates either Th1 or Th2 cells to get rid of the pathogen. Th1 (T Helper 1) attacks organisms that get inside your cells, whereas Th2 (T Helper 2) goes after extracellular pathogens; organisms that are found outside the cells in your blood and other body fluids.
When your Th2 are over-activated, your immune system will over-respond to toxins, allergens, normal bacteria and parasites, and under-respond to viruses, yeast, cancer, and intracellular bacteria, because as one system activates, the other is blocked.
FDA Favors Industry Science… Again!
Pressured by a growing number of health and consumer advocates, lawmakers and scientists, an FDA advisory panel met on September 15th to decide whether BPA should be reassessed in terms of food safety. If the answer had been yes, it could have put an end to BPA-laced food packaging.
It was not.
True to form, the U.S. FDA upheld their decision that BPA is safe and can remain in food packaging, including infant formula containers and baby bottles, despite the more than 100 independent studies linking the chemical to serious disorders in humans, including:
The Scientists & Engineers For America Action Fund Website said about the verdict:
The agency based their decision on two large multigenerational studies funded by the American Plastics Council (part of the American Chemistry Council) and the Society of the Plastics Industry. As for the large body of literature on low dose effects of BPA that originally raised concerns about the chemical’s ability to disrupt reproductive, neurological and metabolic development and function at levels of exposure within the range found in humans, the FDA broadly found these studies to be inadequate or of limited utility in evaluating safety. By relying solely on the industry-funded studies, the agency reaffirmed the trade associations’ ability to control what is considered to be reliable, credible science.
The agency based their decision on two large multigenerational studies funded by the American Plastics Council (part of the American Chemistry Council) and the Society of the Plastics Industry.
As for the large body of literature on low dose effects of BPA that originally raised concerns about the chemical’s ability to disrupt reproductive, neurological and metabolic development and function at levels of exposure within the range found in humans, the FDA broadly found these studies to be inadequate or of limited utility in evaluating safety.
By relying solely on the industry-funded studies, the agency reaffirmed the trade associations’ ability to control what is considered to be reliable, credible science.
Where to Find BPA-Free Products
Clearly our regulators are either asleep at the wheel, or too busy planning how not to lose their hard earned bribes in a crashing stock market.
Fortunately, some companies are taking note of consumer demand and are increasingly offering products that don‘t contain BPA.
Personally, I too am doing everything I can to avoid this menacing chemical, and will be offering glass water bottles for sale later this year. (They have neoprene sleeves to protect them from breaking.) Glass is the safest and most inert way to store your water, and far better than ANY plastic.
Here are several other resources where you can buy various types of BPA-free products:
This article reports the way industry and industry scientists work against public health. This is the same way pharmaceutical companies respond. They are more interested in protecting their wallets and bottom lines. They can control officials and regulatory authorities through their pockets. How often we have heard about health regulatory authorities promoting pharmaceutical benefits over health benefits and the obvoius threats to doctors who prescribe natural antioxidants although the body's health is dependent on the integrated functioning of its L-form biochemistry through its antioxidant driven biochemical pathways.
Science cannot be distorted but data can be warped to dessiminate and project the type of info that supports the business interest of these corporations. Always be aware of this overiding concerns of corporations that produce chemicals for chemicals can cause a wide array of problems in the L-form biochemical system that supports life.
BELDEU SINGH
I'd like to know why we ever stopped using glass. We used to get our whole raw milk (but it was called MILK) delivered (way back when) in 1/2 gallon glass bottles by our local dairy. V8 used to be in glass bottles. OJ was in glass bottles. Even some fruits and vegetables were in glass jars....what happened???
Glass can be recycled and better sanitized than plastics, or broken down and remade into new glass bottles and jars. Everything tasted better when it was in glass. It seems to me it would be cheaper to manufacture and there is an abundance of silica sand to make it. Why aren't we calling for a return to glass?
When we can and preserve foods, we use glass. Not aluminum, not tin, not plastic. We use canning jars until they can't be used anymore, and then recycle them to be made into new jars. Ball and Kerr wouldn't be in the canning business if those glass jars were too expensive to make.
We need to get rid of all this garbage that is polluting our planet. Landfills are FULL of plastic that will NEVER degrade! Well, maybe they will end up being the new fossil fuel in 2000+ years...just a big puddle of plastic goo to go into a plastic car....
Glass indeed, I wash my empty nut butter jars and use then instead of a plastic water bottle. People think I'm weird, but at least I don;t have plastic leaching into my purified water.
To Irish... the only explanation I have heard, ironically, is that plastic is safer for kids because if they break a glass container they can cut themselves, and plastic doesn't break.
Of course, the enlightened of us here know that very few cuts from dropping a glass jar would be serious enough to merit the side effects of plastic phytoestrogens constantly leaching into what we eat and drink. Especially purified water, which absorbs anything around it... I shudder to think.
'healthiswealth', I think you are preaching to the choir:-)
Use soap nuts or Seventh Generation. They work. I have used them since we moved to the US three and a half years ago. We have lived in quite a few countries, but no-where did I feel that I had to read labels and get knowledgeable about stuff I never would have imagined people are capable of doing like we do here in the States. Is this our future? What planet will we leave behind for our children and their children? I feel that we are approaching a tipping point from where there's no return... we won't be able to fix it... and then all the money in the world will not have served anyone.
I've been using laundry magnets for three months now, and I'll never go back to chemical detergents. I'm getting everyone on my Christmas list a set this year!They clean much better than anything else I've ever used! Just wish I'd known about this years ago!
I totally agree. Laundry detergent is the simply the most devastating health and environmental toxin on earth. DETERGENTS ARE NOT NON-TOXIC SOAPS FOLKS!! They are toxic petrochemicals, and virtually EVERYONE uses them and flushes them into the water supply. And these poisons are absorbed into our skin all day long--and we wonder why cancer is at a historic high. Read that detergent article.
And BTW, I totally agree with the other two posters. That patented magneticlaundry.com thing REALLY works. I don't know why I have only read about it here and a few other places. It should be everywhere. But you know what? That is what makes Mercola's site so awesome. You will find out about amazing stuff here that you will not hear about anywhere else. Especially in the corrupt mainstream media. Thanks Doc. This site is one of a kind.
You know I always say we can cure cancer - one person at a time!
itsnotjustforsex.blogspot.com/.../she-said-my-knife-piercing-pain-is.html
But it looks like these plastics are causing cancer and other ailments...such as delayed puberty for boys...one hundred at a time.
I was looking around at people the other day at the mall once again. It's clear that we in the US are practically dead people walking...yes, that's overstated but my goodness are we a sick looking lot!
When I was a child I was usually the only fat kid in class. Today, half the teens are fighting extra pounds. The adults are doing worse.
There comes a point where the cliff appears. I wouldn't guess when that will be, but it's getting closer. We really need to make some great changes, or down we go.
Sorry to be so dismal...it just that it's so obvious yet it's so ignored.
The best to you.
Kelley Eidem
Together we can cure cancer - one person at a time!
Here in France, as well as our brilliant markets everywhere every week, we have foods in glass jars, organic stuff everywhere, raw milk in the local supermarket, organic eggs and meat. All the fruit and veg is locally grown, boring in the Winter but who cares. AND the pesticides that kill bees (CCD) have been banned since 2002!! Some countries can get it right. Come on USA you can too!!
It's early afternoon on Saturday in Maine, and so far, 29,700 people have read this article. If every one of them voted with their dollars not to buy cans, plastics, cosmetics and cleaners loaded with chemicals...and urged their friends and family to do likewise...eventually manufacturers would follow the money, as they have always done.
Today, while in the supermarket, I educated 4 separate groups of people, in such a way that they were glad to get the message. What have you done today?
Islander, how did you do that? Educate four groups of people? I can't even get my kids to listen - it is seen as criticism no matter how tactfully I phrase it, so I have given up, for the sake of family relations.