What We’ve Learned About BPA in 2011
We’ve all heard of BPA and the dangerous effects it can have on our bodies and developmental systems, but did you know just how easy it is to find and just how harmful it actually is? Neither did the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, until recently.
In 2011, thanks to a series of lab tests and studies, we learned how easily BPA leaches onto and off cash-register receipts (made from BPA coated paper), metal water bottles, and money. Chemists at the New York State Department of Health in Albany found that when a twenty-dollar bill is sandwiched between BPA-laced receipts in your wallet, the chemical only needs twenty-four hours to leach most of itself onto the currency, making it extremely easy to pass on.
Additionally, lab tests conducted by research investigator Cheryl Rosenfeld of the Bond Life Sciences Center at the University of Missouri this year show that BPA exposure through diet has been severely underestimated in the past. Rosenfeld found that even though BPA can be passed through our systems within twenty-four hours, a chronic dietary exposure to BPA still creates an accumulation of unprocessed and harmful BPA in our bodies. These new findings challenge an often-cited 2002 study that showed BPA to be easily digested, processed and passed from our systems within twenty-four hours.
In a related lab test using deer mice Rosenfeld found that even low-dose exposure to BPA could result in reproductive system issues including sterility, subtly altered gender-specific behaviors like aggression and anxiety, and the possibility of genetic mutation.
So what does all this extra exposure mean to you (other than keep drinking that bottleless water), and what exactly does the EPA plan on doing about this? After soliciting public comment through the web, the agency decided against taking any regulatory action but did call for new toxicity testing of the chemical and its effects. A full plan of action can also be found on the EPA’s website. Some countries aren’t taking chances though. Canada, while acknowledging that exposure levels are still below “potential health effects levels”, has taken steps to ban BPA use in baby bottles, just in case.
Sources:
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2011/2011-06-20-091.html
http://www.epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/actionplans/bpa.html
http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/executive_summary.html
http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/BisphenolA_FactSheet.html
