Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has reportedly launched an investigation into chemical and packaging lobbyists who allegedly sought to thwart regulation banning the use of bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles, infant food jars and other products. Blumenthal is seeking details about a series of joint trade association meetings held in April and May 2009, during which industry officials purportedly discussed a public relations strategy to counter efforts to regulate BPA. According to Blumenthal, this “apparent campaign” aimed to use “fear tactics, political manipulation, and misleading marketing” to stymie BPA legislation pending in several state and local governments, including Connecticut. The attorney general has also called on the North American Metal Packaging Alliance (NAMPA) and other key stakeholders to denounce these efforts. “Colluding in a campaign of confusion and concealment – potentially endangering children and pregnant women – is appalling and possibly illegal,” Blumenthal was quoted as saying. “We are…
Tag Archives phthalate
Minnesota and Chicago have reportedly become the first state and municipality to prohibit the use of bisphenol A (BPA) in plastic food and beverage containers intended for children ages 3 or younger. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (R) recently signed legislation (H.F. 326) that would prohibit the sale of these products in the state as of January 2010, although manufacturers can sell existing stock until early 2011. Citing a failure by federal regulators to address this issue, the Chicago City Council has also approved a similar proposal that would take effect in 2010. Some research has purportedly linked BPA to developmental health problems, breast and prostate cancer in laboratory animals, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) previously ruled that the chemical does not pose any danger to children when consumed in minimal amounts. “The FDA continues to be very slow about taking any action on BPA,” stated Chicago Alderman Manuel…
A long-term study by the Mount Sinai Medical Center for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research has reportedly suggested a link between childhood obesity and endocrine disruptors, including phthalates and bisphenol A. Part of a study titled “Growing Up Healthy in East Harlem,” the project followed 520 children ages 6 to 8 for five years in an effort to determine “how the area where the children lived affected diet, physical activity and risk for obesity.” Researchers apparently found that study participants had “higher levels in their urine of three endocrine disruptors – 2,5 DCP, MBP and MEHHP – than a national sample of children the same age.” According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, approximately 43 percent of East Harlem kindergarteners were also overweight or obese for their age in 2003. “The heaviest girls have the highest levels of phthalates metabolites in their urine,”…
Mineral-water bottles made with PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, a chemical used in many food and beverage containers, particularly those marked with the number 1 inside a triangle, have been found to leach an unknown estrogen-mimicking chemical. Martin Wagner & Jörg Oehlmann, “Endocrine Disruptors in Bottled Mineral Water: Total Estrogenic Burden and Migration from Plastic Bottles,” Environmental Science & Pollution Research, March 10, 2009. Research from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, is apparently the first to find consistent contamination from PET bottles, once thought to be a better alternative to plastic bottles containing bisphenol A. The researchers have been unable to identify the substance causing the hormonal activity in exposed snails, but PET evidently contains minute amounts of antimony, which does have estrogenic effects. Mollusks cultured in PET bottles apparently exhibited significantly increased reproductive output. A news source indicates that the study authors are concerned about their findings because…
The California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program’s Scientific Guidance Panel decided at a December 4-5, 2008, meeting that it would designate diesel exhaust and flame retardants as the first substances the state will monitor in humans under a 2006 law (SB 1379) requiring the establishment of a state biomonitoring program. The panel also reportedly agreed that the program’s pilot project would focus on analyzing maternal-infant blood samples from 250 subject pairs. A spokesperson with the state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) apparently indicated that antimicrobials and synthetic hormones used in animal husbandry will be discussed at a future meeting. Environmentalists who attended the meeting reportedly urged the panel to prioritize other chemicals such as bisphenol A, nano silver and phthalates. According to a press report, panel members asked OEHHA legal counsel whether another 2006 law (A.B. 289) could be applied to the biomonitoring program. That law apparently authorizes a state…
Inquirer staff writer Faye Flam begins her piece on phthalates and possible human health effects by reporting that a Philadelphia surgeon is seeing double the number of baby boys, since he started practice 30 years ago, in need of repairs to their genitalia. Surgeon Howard Snyder hypothesizes that some of them have been exposed to phthalates in the womb. These “hormone-disrupting chemicals” are, according to Flam, found in everything from perfumes, hand and body lotions, nail polishes, deodorants, shower curtains, and children’s toys to IV tubing in hospitals. Phthalates apparently “interfere with the synthesis of testosterone,” and a study conducted by a University of Rochester researcher involving 134 boys born to women tested for compounds metabolized from phthalates showed that “boys whose mothers were most exposed to certain phthalates were more likely to have undescended testicles and to have smaller penises.” Chemistry trade groups reportedly challenge such research, saying the…
