The Washington Department of Ecology has implemented the second part of a statewide measure “banning the sale of certain products containing BPA,” which now includes sports bottles with capacity up to 64 ounces. As of July 1, 2012, sport bottles containing bisphenol A (BPA) can no longer “be made, sold or distributed” in the state in accordance with a 2010 law passed by the state legislature. The first phase of the law, which took effect July 1, 2011, already prohibits “bottles, cups or other containers intended for children under age 3 that contain BPA,” although “cans designed to hold or pack food will still be allowed to contain BPA.” “A number of national and international scientific organizations have expressed concerns that BPA can interfere with the body’s hormonal system,” said the department in a July 11, 2012, press release. “Recent studies suggest some children may be exposed to enough BPA…
Tag Archives BPA
A recent study has reportedly claimed that the first generation of mouse offspring exposed to bisphenol A (BPA) before birth “displayed fewer social interactions as compared with control mice, whereas in later generations… the effect of BPA was to increase these social interactions.” Jennifer Wolstenholme, et al., “Gestational Exposure to Bisphenol A Produces Transgenerational Changes in Behaviors and Gene Expression,” Endocrinology, June 2012. After feeding BPA-laced chow to female mice during mating and pregnancy, researchers evidently noted that the brains of embryos exposed to BPA “had lower gene transcript levels for several estrogen receptors, oxytocin, and vasopressin as compared with controls,” with decreased vasopressin mRNA persisting into the fourth generation, “at which time oxytocin was also reduced but only in males.” According to the authors, their results “demonstrated for the first time… that a common and widespread EDC [endrocine-disrupting chemical] has transgenerational actions on social behavior and neural expression of at…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has notified Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) that it has accepted his petition seeking to prohibit the use of bisphenol A (BPA) in canned infant formula. If the agency is able to complete its scientific review, it will file his petition in the Federal Register within 90 days seeking public comment on whether the industry has actually abandoned this use of the chemical, the ground on which Markey sought the ban. As noted in Issue 433 of this Update, while FDA has confirmed the chemical’s safety for continued use in food-packaging materials, the American Chemistry Council has asked the agency to prohibit its use in polycarbonate bottles and sippy cups, contending that industry no longer uses BPA in these products. Markey’s petition echoed that rationale in relation to infant-formula packaging. According to a news source, the “abandonment” focus allows government to “sidestep the debate over…
Researchers with the University of California, Irvine, have allegedly demonstrated that low doses of bisphenol A (BPA) diglycidyl ether (BADGE) can turn adult stem cells and pre-fat cells into fat cells, raising questions about the obesogenic effect of a chemical commonly used in food packaging materials. Raquel Chamorro-García, et al., “Bisphenol A Diglycidyl Ether Induces Adipogenic Differentiation of Multipotent Stromal Stem Cells Through a Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor Gamma-independent Mechanism,” Environmental Health Perspectives, May 2012. The study’s authors evidently used multipotent mesenchymal stromal stem cells (MSCs) to evaluate BADGE’s effects on “adipogenesis, osteogenesis, gene expression and nuclear receptor activation.” Their results purportedly indicated that BADGE, a combination of BPA and epichlorohydrin, can induce adipogenic differentiation in both MSCs and preadipocytes at low concentrations “comparable to those that have been observed in limited human biomonitoring.” “There is an urgent need to understand the mechanisms underlying the predisposition to obesity and related disorders.…
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued a call for data as part of its ongoing risk assessment of bisphenol A (BPA) that includes an exposure assessment from both dietary and non-dietary sources. Spurred in part by a September 2011 report published by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety, EFSA has asked member states, researchers and other stakeholders to submit (i) “occurrence data in food and beverages intended for human consumption”; (ii) “migration data from food contact materials”; and (iii) “occurrence data in food contact materials.” According to EFSA, its latest BPA assessment will consider the “most vulnerable groups of the population (e.g. pregnant women, infants and children, etc.)” and rely on occurrence data “available in the public domain and from scientific literature” as well as any available biomonitoring data. The agency will accept data submissions until July 31, 2012.
A recent study has reportedly claimed that bisphenol A (BPA) alters mammary gland development in rhesus monkeys, raising concerns about the chemical’s alleged link to breast cancer in humans. Andrew Tharp, et al., “Bisphenol A alters the development of the rhesus monkey mammary gland,” PNAS, May 2012. According to the study, researchers fed fruit containing 400 µg of BPA per kilogram of body weight to pregnant rhesus monkeys to achieve BPA serum levels “comparable to [those] found in humans.” The authors then examined the mammary glands of female offspring after birth, noting that “the density of mammary glands was significantly increased in BPA-exposed monkeys, and the overall development of their mammary gland was more advanced compared with unexposed monkeys.” Based on these results, one study author told media sources that the sum of scientific evidence suggests that BPA is also “a breast carcinogen in humans” and that its use should be…
Sweden has banned the use of bisphenol A (BPA) in food packaging intended for children younger than age 3. Mainly affecting the lids of baby food jars, the April 13, 2012, edict also gave the Swedish Chemicals Agency three months to investigate whether the chemical should be prohibited in certain types of thermal paper, such as tickets and receipts, and other relevant agencies the opportunity to determine the extent of its use in drinking-water pipes, toys and other children’s goods. Minister for the Environment Lena Ek, who said she plans to raise the BPA issue soon with the European Commission and European Union (EU) member states, noted that the ban ensures that the country’s current voluntary phaseout of BPA-free packaging becomes permanent. “As a matter of caution, we are now acting in all areas that the agencies believe play a significant role in the exposure of young children,” she said.…
First synthesized by a Russian chemist in 1891 and deemed safe by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1976 when grandfathered in along with 62,000 other chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act, bisphenol A (BPA) was today confirmed for continued use in food packaging materials by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to news sources, the agency rejected the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) petition to ban the chemical, finding that the scientific evidence cited in the petition cannot be applied to humans, and the studies were too small or involved injecting BPA into animals rather than ingested over time, which is how human exposure occurs. See The New York Times, March 30, 2012. Produced at an annual rate of more than 8 billion pounds worldwide, BPA has been detected in the urine of nearly every adult and child tested in the United States, and, while it is quickly…
The U.K.-based Chemicals, Health and Environment Monitoring (CHEM) Trust has issued a March 2012 report claiming that recent studies have linked “hormone disrupting chemicals in food and consumer products” to obesity and Type 2 diabetes in humans. The report apparently analyzes 240 research papers offering epidemiological or laboratory evidence to suggest that certain chemicals—such as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates—are obesogenic or diabetogenic. “The chemicals implicated include some to which the general population are typically exposed on a daily basis,” states the report, which also speculates that some “endocrine disrupting chemicals” (EDCs) stored in body fat “may play a role in the causal relationship between obesity and diabetes.” Based on its findings, CHEM Trust argues that obesity prevention strategies like dietary interventions “should not obscure the need for government policies within and outside the health sector” to reduce chemical exposure through the food chain, food containers…
A recent study has allegedly backed previous research suggesting that higher exposures to bisphenol A (BPA) may elevate the risk for coronary artery disease (CAD). David Melzer, et al., “Urinary Bisphenol A: A Concentration and Risk of Future Coronary Artery Disease in Apparently healthy Men and Women,” Circulation, February 2012. Relying on data from the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer—Norfolk, .K., researchers evidently compared the urinary BPA concentrations of 758 “initially healthy” participants who later developed CAD, with the BPA measures of 851 participants who did not develop cardiovascular disease. Their findings apparently suggested that respondents with the highest urinary BPA concentrations at the outset were more likely to develop CAD over a 10-year follow-up period, with each 4.56 nanogram per milliliter (ng/Ml) increase in urinary BPA concentration associated with a 13 percent rise in CAD risk. According to the study, these results parallel the “cross-sectional findings in the more…
