BPA Leaches From Polycarbonate Bottles Into Humans

Linus the Turbonerd sends in the bulletin that BPA, a toxic chemical used in the production of polycarbonate, the plastic composing hard, clear water bottles, has been found to leach out of such containers, directly into the water that their users consume. "In addition to polycarbonate bottles, which are refillable and a popular container among students, campers and others and are also used as baby bottles, BPA is also found in dentistry composites and sealants and in the lining of aluminum food and beverage cans. ... 'We found that drinking cold liquids from polycarbonate bottles for just one week increased urinary BPA levels by more than two-thirds. If you heat those bottles, as is the case with baby bottles, we would expect the levels to be considerably higher. This would be of concern since infants may be particularly susceptible to BPA's endocrine-disrupting potential,' said Karin B. Michels, associate professor of epidemiology at HSPH and Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study."

Comments

Old?

[tulmad]

Isn't this extremely old news? Companies have been making BPA-free plastic bottles now for a long long time, including baby bottles.

Re:Old?

[Philip K Dickhead]

This is a new study, just published. It confirms earlier indications that BPA's are far from inert and it adds data to specific scenarios whereby they are transmitted for ingestion.

Many manufacturers have dropped BPA for reasons of public-relations.

Replaced by?

Other unproven, untested and highly suspect additives for 'softening' and 'pliability'.

Re:Old?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the resin identification code is a 3 or a 7, you are going to die!!!

Thankfully soda bottles are typically type 1.

Re:Old?

[Jane Q. Public]

It's still extremely old news. This study merely confirmed what people have known for years. If they hadn't, they wouldn't have dropped BPA-containing plastics from their product lines.

It should be noted that the more flexible plastics often used in water bottles, such as HDPE and PET or PETE, do not contain BPA.

Re:Old?

[Jane Q. Public]

And by the way: BPA was commonly present in rigid plastics, not plastics that contain "plasticizers" for flexibility.

Re:Old?

[Nick Ives]

Right, so as long as I avoid code 3 or 7 I won't die. All I have to do is stick to normal soda bottles and I'll live to see the end of time!

Re:Old?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in the USA. Here it Europe they said "feed it to your babies, we think its safe"

cunts

Re:Old?

[Philip K Dickhead]

Hey! I haven't seen an astroturfer here on Slashdot in two whole days! Thanks for keeping the faith!

Re:Old?

[drinkypoo]

Careful, this one has friends.

Anyway, anyone who can't read between the lines of Nalgene stopping their use of a material they've been claiming is the best thing ever isn't very smart, and deserves toxics in their pee.

The most hilarious part is that if you told people ten years ago that polycarbonates were dangerous they'd say that you were a big fucking idiot. Five years ago you'd be a conspiracy theorist. Today, you're vindicated. Tomorrow, you'll tell them about something else that's probably dangerous, and you'll be a big idiot to them again.

Re:Old?

[Hurricane78]

You mean like the industrial sugar that's in 99% of all American (and 90% of all European) "food"? ^^

Re:Old?

[Philip K Dickhead]

Corn Syrup.

Michael Pollan has got the number on that. Backed by European studies on endocrine dysfunction and appetite distortion.

Re:Old?

[zippthorne]

Ten years ago, if you'd said that, you *would* have been an idiot. Even idiots can be right once in a while, in the same way that a stopped clock is correct twice a day.

If, instead, your claim was simply that the bottles weren't proven not to leach anything, you'd be vindicated, and all the idiots who bitched that "you can't prove a negative" would still be idiots.

Re:Old?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes:
http://www.ewg.org/reports/bpatimeline

Re:Old?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone laughed at Einstein. But everyone also laughed at Jerry the clown. And, chances are, mister, you're not the next Einstein. Or should we also believe that Earth is flat and the moon-hoax people? Because you know, sice they're conspiracy theorists they must be right!

Re:Old?

[Hecatonchires]

Thankfully, here in Australia we have cane-sugar! And an obesity level approaching America's... Wait a second!

Re:Old?

[mozzis]

Your're a big fucking idiot. Nalgene is dropping BPA because they are, or think they will be, losing sales because people are afraid that BPA is dangerous. But their fears are contrary to 50 years of research which have not identified any toxic effects. Their statement http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/technical/bpaInfo.html/ says exactly this. Do you have any facts to back up your assertion to the contrary, or is disagreeing with your worldview enough to earn one of your epithets?

Re:Old?

[fractoid]

Isn't this extremely old news? Companies have been making BPA-free plastic bottles now for a long long time, including baby bottles.

Well I couldn't have told you exactly what chemical causes it, but I doubt you could find anyone who'd argue that fresh clean water left in a plastic container for a few days *doesn't* taste 'plasticky'. If the water tastes different when it comes out of the plastic container than when it went in, then either something has been removed (unlikely given that it's tap water in a sealed container) or there's something new in it, and unless you believe in homeopathy, that something new is a chemical.

The human sense of taste is fascinating, it's like 'the lab' from NCIS except it's made out of a few square inches of meat.

Re:Old?

[duffbeer703]

It is different because before, manufacturers claimed that BPA was released only when heated.

Re:Old?

[drinkypoo]

Thankfully, here in Australia we have cane-sugar! And an obesity level approaching America's... Wait a second!

HFCS is not precisely the problem.

Re:Old?

[Trongy]

You would also want to avoid cans. If you read the article, the plastic coatings used to line cans can contain BPA.

Code 3 is Poly vinyl chloride. It isn't used for food packaging. It has health risks associated with its use - for example, don't burn it.

Code 7 is "Other" It can be used on any plastic not in categories 1 to 6. It would include polycarbonate which contains BPA.

Re:Old?

[infosinger]

Of course, the soda might kill you.

Re:Old?

[zaivala]

They have also been replacing polycarbonate bottles with aluminum ones, which still have not been eliminated as a major suspect in Alzheimer's disease... why, when they could use stainless steel?

Re:Old?

[dgatwood]

No, the problem is far, far more complex than any of this. HFCS is one part. Increased amounts of carbs and decreased protein and fat in our diets is another part.

There's still a third, more insidious cause: artificial sweeteners. Studies have shown significant correlation between obesity and diet soda in humans. Also, in animal studies, consumption of artificially sweetened foods resulted in reduced metabolic rate, which led to weight gain. Just to reiterate, the animals in the artificial sweetener group consumed fewer calories, but gained more weight.

Ironically, our cultural quest for guilt-free sweets may ultimately prove to have been a significant causative factor in the obesity epidemic.

Re:Old?

[twostix]

We bought glass bottles for our little ones. Simple solutions are better solutions.

They've lasted and now we're using the same bottles for our second, they're cheaper over the long run far more sanitary and better for the environment. Also gives you that nice old school feeling.

Heavy glass bottles - the old school way.

Re:Old?

[twostix]

Various plastics will probably be this generations lead.

I'm sure the people who were the first to become sceptical of lead were called fucking idiots too.

Just like the poor bastard who tried to convince doctors to *wash their hands* before cutting people open was.

Just like the guy who tried to tell 19th century England that it's widespread disease was due to people living in and drinking their own raw sewage - rather than the 'miasma'.

Established norms are *hard* to dislodge until there's mass irrefutable proof that can't be hand waved away. To bad that mass proof equals mass amounts of people ill affected. History proves quite tidily that in any given area the general public lag significantly on acceptance when mainstream things are found to be very harmful.

Don't wait until the masses are ok with something, especially when It's just as easy to do things to protect yourself and family now - like buying glass bottles.

(Wait until we find out the long term effects of the new ways of growing meat feed lot style! I have two acquaintances who work in abattoirs who won't touch meat unless they know where it's come from because of what they are seeing coming out of feedlot beef.)

Re:Old?

[yabos]

I always have to laugh inside when I see an enormous person drinking a "diet" soda with their quarter pounder meal.

Re:Old?

[DarkOx]

Simpler is better. I agree in most cases. I try to drink from glass rather than plastic containers. Good luck buying juice in this country not shipped in plastic though. You can get some things in paper but I have yet to find cranberry. I also cook on iron when possible. It does not work well for very acidic foods but for everything else its the best "non-stick" you can get, and it gives you very even heat, although you have to know how its also easy to take care of it.

There are trade offs with simple though. Glass containers are heavy, not great if you are hiking or for infants to hold up for any period, although it might help develop muscle I don't know. Glass can also be dangerous if broken especially with children around. The iron cook ware cant be left in the sink overnight with water in it for cleaning in the AM, it has to be cleaned soon after use or your mess it up. No solution will ever be perfect. We started using plastic and teflon for a good reasons. Now that we know there are some dangers associated with both its up to or at least should be up to us as individuals to decide which to use and when. Like most things in life we just need to be informed and use good judgment.

Re:Old?

[drinkypoo]

Actually, it's been indicated that environmental pollutants may even be partially responsible, affecting the body's ability to regulate.

Some of the stuff in these plastics just look too much like hormones to me. It's fucking scary, as well it should be. And VOCs can combine in the atmosphere to make new and exciting chemicals. Often, perfumes actually contain chemicals known to combine in this manner.

Our toxic society is paying off. The rewards are not what many of us imagined.

Re:Old?

[Rue C Koegel]

i second this motion... simple sugars were not made to be eaten by man!

fruit sugars and some more complex carbs don't seem to cause any problems worth mentioning.

but my six year old is still brain dead three days after staying with grandma; where he eats sugary foods and drinks coke.

we don't eat sugared foods in our house, and only drink juice occasionally during the afternoon. and i home-school the boy so i definitely recognize the difference, every time!!

Note: when we do splurge and eat/drink junk at the movies (rare) we wait a few days before doing any school work.

Re:Old?

[ceoyoyo]

Actually, if you say BPA is dangerous you're still a bit on the edge. BPA has been shown to have negative effects on fetuses in particular phases of pregnancy and likely has negative effects on babies, but anything outside of that is pretty much speculation.

Should we prefer other additives to BPA for non-baby bottle/pregnant mom drink containers? Hard to say.

Re:Old?

[DuckDodgers]

I'm assuming that the Anonymous Coward was trying to make that joke and was just a little too subtle with it.

Re:Old?

[Anonymous Coward]

every baby bottle we've bought in 2 years, and the sippy cups and everything else have ALL said "BPA Free" either on the package, or online. I can't find a manufacturer of baby bottles that ISN'T using BPA free bottles that sells those bottles in common stores.

The only thing this BPA FUD is doing is causing people to buy baby bottles that have a more expensive price tag because they have easier to find and larger BPA Free information available.

Re:Old?

[DuckDodgers]

That's the point, though. There are some preliminary studies demonstrating that artificial sweeteners interfere with appetite regulation.

So maybe if that person was drinking water instead of diet soda, they wouldn't even want a quarter pounder.

Re:Old?

[Sandbags]

FYI, BPA is only found in HARD plastic bottles, not common soda and water bottles... BPA is in the refillable bottles, not the disposable ones.

Yes, BPA CAN leech into your system from the plastic, in very small amounts, from a factory fresh new bottle. Of course, this only increased BPA by 2/3rds (not quite double), meaning you're still getting the other MORE THAN HALF of your BPA from other sources.

Also, a new bottle only has a fixed amount of BPA to leech. After several uses (especially after being washed in a hot dishwasher several times) the amount of BPA present should be negligible.

I'm not suggesting this additional BPA is safe, and I'm not suggesting we continue to use BPA in our plastics, but I AM suggestion you look at the facts not the FUD, and I AM suggesting you look very fucking hard at what they're using IN PLACE of BPA in order to make those plastics. (more unproven untested chemicals ahoy!)

I'm also suggesting that if you have BPA containing hard plastic bottles around your house, and if they've already been run through several dishwasher cycles, they're essentially safe at this point.

Re:Old?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad link, drop the trailing '/'.

Re:Old?

[Anonymous Coward]

Glass bottles? Don't they leak lead?

Like growing meat with bone flour? Ah, that got to madcow...

Re:Old?

[Eternauta3k]

Right, so as long as I avoid code 3 or 7 I won't die

That'd be true if he had said

Iff the resin identification code is a 3 or a 7, you are going to die!!!

Logic for the humor-impaired :)

Re:Old?

[Anonymous Coward]

The most hilarious part is that if you told people ten years ago that polycarbonates were dangerous they'd say that you were a big fucking idiot. Five years ago you'd be a conspiracy theorist. Today, you're vindicated. Tomorrow, you'll tell them about something else that's probably dangerous, and you'll be a big idiot to them again.

Re:Old?

[ConceptJunkie]

I would imagine stainless steel is much more expensive.

Re:Old?

[dfghjk]

Why laugh inside and keep it to yourself when you can laugh outside and let the whole world know what a dick you are?

Re:Old?

[yabos]

A little sensitive are you? Sorry but these people are oblivious to the fact that the so called diet soda isn't going to help them not be fat.

Re:Old?

[mpeskett]

Hold up, your kids are rendered incapable for days at a time by sugar? That does not sound natural...

I'm with you as far as free'n'easy sugar being a modern thing that's doing us no good, and that we're most likely better off without it, but even if a natural human diet is one of lean meat and complex carbs, we're supposed to be able to eat sugar.

Kinda reminds me of one of the suggestions for why Morgan Spurlock was so badly affected by his McDonalds diet - it's possible that his normal vegan diet had left him unprepared to handle a sudden influx of fat and protein, and accordingly he responded to it much more dramatically than a normal person.

I don't suggest you change anything if what you're doing is working, but it might be that being accustomed to small amounts of sugar would avoid a person being made 'brain dead' by sugary foods and coke.

Re:Old?

[mpeskett]

The human sense of taste is fascinating, it's like 'the lab' from NCIS except it's made out of a few square inches of meat.

You just won my "favourite sentence of the week" award.

Re:Old?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this extremely old news? Companies have been making BPA-free plastic bottles now for a long long time, including baby bottles.

I am sorry but companies have been making BPA free bottles for one year OR LESS, in what world is that a long long time?

Re:Old?

[Mr. Slippery]

HFCS is not precisely the problem.

The problem is mostly that American's caloric intake increased almost 25% between 1970 and 2000, while at the same time we became more sedentary. Any difference that the sort of calories (fat, protein, complex carbs, simple sugars, whatever) might make is swamped by the fact the we just eat too much gorram food and don't get our asses up and moving enough.

A couple hundred extra calories a day above your metabolic needs is going to make you a lard-ass whether you eat them as wheat germ and broccoli, or as bacon double cheeseburgers. (Though the bacon double cheeseburgers will probably still hit you harder in terms of cancer, heart disease, and other fun effects.)

As for Taubes and his famous "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie" story, he's full of crap.

Re:Old?

[MrResistor]

You guys make up the difference with beer.

Re:Old?

[drinkypoo]

As for Taubes and his famous "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie" story, he's full of crap.

As usual, you are behind the times:

in his second paragraph, Fumento characterizes my article as arguing "that the consumption of too little fat [Fumento's emphasis] could explain the explosion in obesity." He does not quote the article, which would have been easy to do had it included such a declaration anywhere in its nearly 8,000 words, but it doesn't. Rather my article challenged the accepted dogma that obesity and excess weight are caused by the excessive consumption of fat calories, and instead suggested that it was caused by the excessive consumption of calories from refined carbohydrates and starches.

Try again, troll.

Re:Old?

[Rue C Koegel]

but why would somebody want to become accustom to sugar? considering it's impacts on a persons health and mental abilities.

i've seen similar behavior from all the children i've known who didn't have regular sugar intake.

both when i babysat, while i was younger... and still now that i'm older and my friends and family members are starting to have children.

all it takes is a candy bar or a coke and their mental capabilities go out the window. most people only notice their hyper activity... i've always payed attention to how people think and respond to stimuli.

Re:Old?

[Rue C Koegel]

conversely, some juice and slow burning carbs, like granola can be used to increase energy and the speed of mental activities without influencing a drop in cognitive ability... at least from what i've experienced.

Re:Old?

[Rue C Koegel]

okay, i dont get why... but my first post got pushed down below my second post.... at least on the page i can see.... this is my third post.

this doesn't seem logical.

Re:Old?

[Mr. Slippery]

As usual, you are behind the times:

No, my friend, I'm afraid that's just the way things look when you're being lapped. Taubes did indeed make a lame attempt to defend his "work", such as it is, against Fumento's criticism, which Fumento then tore to bits.

Advocates of Atkins-style diets belong in the same bin with creationists, climate change deniers, and (to bring this back on point) the folks who told us for years that making water bottles out of a polymer of a synthetic hormone was perfectly safe because BPA couldn't possibly ever ever leach from polycarbonate.

Except that Atkins-style diets are more dangerous to human health than those other ideas.

Re:Old?

[drinkypoo]

The second Fumento article attacks numerous straw men, as did his first one. The most irrelevant point is that these various doctors do not give their personal support for the Atkins Diet. One of them even trots out that sad old "only under the influence of a physician" bullshit, which any physician would say about any diet for the twin reasons of liability and job security.

The article is also attacked for not including interviews with those he spoke with who don't support his position. This is a laughable assertion at best; not because it isn't true, but because if you're trying to prove a point you don't go around including a bunch of testimony that claims to contradict it, especially if you don't think it's relevant. Taubes' assertion is that most doctors and dietitians have bought the party line they were taught in school, and have a vested interest in parroting it, which gives them the tendency to simply speak and not actually think.

Here's a specific example of Fumento attacking a straw man: there is no empirical support for Taubes's assertion that high-fat intake can suppress hunger and he cited no such support. That's because he never claimed that a high fat intake can suppress hunger. In Big Fat Lie he instead specifically claims that consuming "high-glycemic-index carbohydrates" frequently can alter your response, leading to a downward spiral of ever-increasing fatness. He then quotes Michael Schwartz: "Although the concept that insulin triggers weight gain has little scientific merit, it remains a key selling point for advocates of diets that are low in carbohydrate and high in protein and fat" But Insulin's job is to regulate glycogen storage in cells, and insulin resistance is a real and well-known phenomenon.

Anyway, I could go on, but clearly you are in the same category as Fumento. I will address your final link though: Someone should tell your pet dietitian Rosenbloom that the rate of lean muscle loss is slowed during ketosis. During the normal process of your body you lose one part of muscle for every three parts of fat you lose; you actually lose half that or less in ketosis. Ignorance is a bitch, isn't it?

Re:Old?

[Muad'Dave]

You realize that aluminum cans have a plastic liner in them, right? If you're extremely curious, dissolve an aluminum can in a strong sodium hydroxide solution (outside, safety equipment, etc!). All that'll be left is the liner.

Re:Old?

[Verdatum]

I can't recall EVER seeing a polycarbonate disposable bottle. PET is just so much cheaper a material. The only polycarbonate food containers I see are Lexan measuring containers. I've always been under the presumption that after a few runs through the dishwasher, anything that is gonna leech out of that will have done so.

Re:Old?

[Verdatum]

Highly regulated 99.99% Sucrose, Oh lawd! If it's not from sugar cane, it just can't be trusted! It's a simple easily refined molecule. Besides, as other posters have already pointed out, it's all about the cheaper, sweeter, High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Re:Old?

[mpeskett]

It looks that way immediately after you post it, because the reply box drops down directly below what you're responding to - otherwise, on a discussion with a lot of threads, it might have to open it a long way down the page to show it in its proper place. Judging by the post times, it's all showing up as it ought to now.

As to why you'd want to be accustomed to sugar... because it seems an extreme reaction to be quite so debilitated by such a common type of food. For better or worse there are lots of things that contain a lot of sugar, and even if you choose to avoid them by preference, it'd be an advantage to have the option of getting a quick energy boost from something sugary without your mental capabilities disappearing.

Re:Old?

[Jane Q. Public]

I have to agree with drinkypoo on this one. A large part of Taubes' thesis is precisely that much of the entrenched medical community rejects the concept off-hand, without bothering to actually look at the issue. This is hardly unique to medicine: in recent decades it has become common in physics and other fields as well. It is a deplorable practice.

And in yet another place in that article, Taubes is mischaracterized: "He thus explicitly rejects the Atkins-Taubes thesis that only carbohydrates make you fat." Except, of course, that is not his thesis at all. Rather, he claims that most excess calories come from carbohydrates; he does not claim that they are the only kind of calories that can make you fat.

It is ridiculously easy to contradict someone else's statements, when what you are contradicting is not actually what the other person said at all (straw man).

Re:Old?

[Jane Q. Public]

First, you have to consider the source. Of course Nalgene would say that. What else would you expect them to say?

But, since you brought it up, here are a few papers that contradict what you say.

Endocrine disruptors and reproductive health: the case of bisphenol-A.

Bisphenol A (BPA) has been linked to damage in developing brain tissue.

Scientists issue group warning on plastic chemical's hazards.

The Real Story Behind Bisphenol A

That last one is perhaps the most telling: "... consider this: Of the more than 100 independently funded experiments on BPA, about 90% have found evidence of adverse health effects at levels similar to human exposure. On the other hand, every single industry-funded study ever conducted -- 14 in all -- has found no such effects."

Sometimes it pays to spend just a few minutes on Google, rather than just arguing from ignorance.

Re:Old?

[Rutulian]

Of course, it should be noted that obesity isn't the only health problem to be worried about. A higher percentage of fat in the diet may lead to less weight gain, but, depending on the fat of course, it can also lead to a higher incidence of heart disease. We don't have a magic formula for diets yet. For me, the rule of moderation seems to apply more than anything else.

Re:Old?

[Rue C Koegel]

that energy boost you're referring to, you can get easily from the complex carbs in the 'healthy' food you eat, only this one comes without the nasty side effects. the energy from complex carbs just lasts longer--a good thing, and doesn't spike suddenly--also a good thing, so the difference isn't as easily perceived by the individual experiencing it. but then there's no crash... or side effects, cause the energy is easily maintained over long periods of time.

i just described a natural diet for human beings. consider the following:

sugar, as in the great white death, wasn't part of the human diet, globally, until when exactly?

Answer: Indians discovered how to crystallize sugar during the Gupta dynasty, around AD 350. And sugar wasn't produced in any decent quantity until the 1390s when the development of a better sugar cane press doubled the juice obtained from the cane during production (wikipedia).

the agricultural revolution took place around 13,000 years ago. we only started eating sugar on a regular basis around 600 years ago as a species, and our intake levels have skyrocketed in the last hundred year. so, people have been around forever in comparison to how long we've been eating sugar, especially at the levels we do today in the US of A.

do you really think behavior like this isn't going to have a severe effect on our health and abilities? the question is really whether or not it's a good effect or not. and from my experiences, i've concluded that it's not good at all, far from it.

you're argument that one should eat it anyway cause it's there anyway, is as good as saying one should wrap their lips around the tailpipe of their car and inhale, cause that crap is in your air anyway.

and i suppose my kids should do drugs occasionally too, cause the statistics suggest that at some point they'll be exposed to them anyway... and rugs can be fun, relaxing, or energizing.

no wait, we should all just pop vitamin and caffeine pills and work ourselves to death cause we can be far more productive when juiced up, and why eat real food when it takes longer than just popping a pill.

i used a lot of words, but all i just said was. you're stupid!!!

Re:Old?

[mpeskett]

Sigh... for a second there I thought we were having a discussion rather than an argument. All I wanted to say was that sugar is a readily available foodstuff and it's not exactly a normal reaction to be made mentally incapable for days at a time just from eating the stuff. After all, starch and other carbohydrates are digested into glucose before they can be absorbed in your intestines, eating sugar itself just speeds the process, which will have various effects but shouldn't be immediately damaging.

I am perfectly well aware that the refined sugar we eat today isn't a natural part of our diet, but it's still an energy source, it's not poison... so the whole "may as well breathe exhaust fumes and do drugs" thing was a tad unnecessary and a total misrepresentation of what I was saying.

Bottom line, you demonstrated your lack of interest in talking about the subject like an adult when you decided to put an infantile little insult in at the end there. I apologise for the misunderstanding.

Re:Old?

[Rue C Koegel]

exactly... the insult was an attempt to end the conversation. i get bored repeating the same thing to person after person. and yes, it infuriates me how people can go around living their entire lives without a basic understanding of the foods they eat on a daily basis.

yes, sugar is a poison! poison: a substance with an inherent property that tends to destroy life or impair health.

sugar intake, like nicotine is addictive and can at least encourage the development of major health issues, as well as emotional instabilities--that could eventually lead to both depression and violent behavior; and i assume has a hand in causing many other diseases 'diseases' like ADHD.

why? it's been suggested many diseases can be managed through strictly healthy diets (i don't feel like looking it up for you). but consider it, if a healthy diet can cure someones ailments, can't we assume an unhealthy diet could be the cause of those ailments?

BTW, you made no points by saying that sugar is common foodstuff, and can be used for energy... you just sound ignorant. it's use is still unwise; whether or not it's easily accessible, and whether or not it can also have a desirable impact. if you wanted to you could eat bark... big deal. and like i said, drugs get you high, provide energy, and can help people relax.

obviously you missed the point of my original comparison to drugs and supplements. it's not a question of what you can do, or what positive effects sugar has, or whether it's easily accessible... the important question is an economic one--and i don't mean financial: is the benefit worth the cost?

you're surrounded by the opportunity to make bad choices pretty consistently day by day... how often would you say you smoke a cigarette, drive drunk, run red lights, steal from the infirm, shoot up heroin, et cetera, et cetera... some of these things are done hundereds of times a day just in america, which ones are considered worse is unimportant, they're all bad choices.

the human body wasn't designed to digest and use simple carbs for energy (it's a fact). and we need to accept it, acknowledge it, and adapt accordingly.

Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Philip K Dickhead]

This could grow tits on a frog.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[gstoddart]

This could grow tits on a frog.

Hmmm .... so, do you mean that like growing a human ear on a mouse so you have an actual breast growing out of the back or a frog? Or do you mean a whole new market of cosmetic breast augmentation for frogs?

I'm just asking. Either way, I'm sure it would fast become a popular kind of porn for some people. ;-)

Cheers

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[wjh31]

excelent, ill start feeding my girlfriend soymilk from a polycarbonate bottle

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

You're dating a frog? Hey, whatever floats your boat mate...

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[No Grand Plan]

This could grow tits on a frog.

Hmmm .... so, do you mean that like growing a human ear on a mouse so you have an actual breast growing out of the back or a frog? Or do you mean a whole new market of cosmetic breast augmentation for frogs?

I'm just asking. Either way, I'm sure it would fast become a popular kind of porn for some people. ;-)

Cheers

Rule 34 strikes again...

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

He is referring to the susceptibility that frogs have to their environment combined with the estrogen-like properties of Soy. He didn't mean that frogs could literally grow tits, frogs are not mammals and completely lack the coding for producing milk.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

Your GF hasn't grown breasts yet?
Pervert.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[noidentity]

Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula, This could grow tits on a frog.

excelent, ill start feeding my girlfriend soymilk from a polycarbonate bottle

I think he meant a real one, not an inflatable.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Philip K Dickhead]

Exactly!

The absurdity of the proposition is targeted to illustrate the level of hormonal disturbance that is being courted.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know she's not French?

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

> frogs are not mammals and completely lack the coding for producing milk.

We'll see about that!

But i'm still not sure what markets there is for frogs with milk producing tits... besides weird Internet fetishes.
1frog2tits.com here we come!

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[RabidMoose]

This is Slashdot. Stealing a frog from the lab is the closest thing to a girlfriend he's likely to get for a long, long time.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[CarpetShark]

You're dating a frog? Hey, whatever floats your boat mate...

You're assuming he had a choice.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

With a tongue like a frog, who wouldn't want one as a girlfriend.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[areusche]

They can grow penises too! http://media.southparkstudios.com/media/images/1205/1205_mouse_return_2.jpg

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Maxo-Texas]

Look, I'm a computer programmer. I don't have time for a girl friend, but a talking frog is cool!

http://michelesworld.net/dmm2/frog/jokes.htm#Frog%20Joke%20IV

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[mr_lizard13]

Yeah he's dating a frog.

With tits.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

Must have been a really desperate frog...

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[tzot]

This could grow tits on a frog.

Hmmm .... so, do you mean that like growing a human ear on a mouse so you have an actual breast growing out of the back or a frog?

Who cares about such monstrosities? Now, a real human female breast growing out of the top of a computer mouse would sell like crazy.

Please, people, don't rush in providing links to images of existing breast-shaped mice.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[tzot]

Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula, This could grow tits on a frog.

excelent, ill start feeding my girlfriend soymilk from a polycarbonate bottle

I think he meant a real one, not an inflatable.

His inflatable doll has been for too long on a strict plasticizers diet for extra pliability. A little BPA can bring back some of the perkiness, and the soymilk some kinkiness. Let the children renew their love.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[gstoddart]

Who cares about such monstrosities? Now, a real human female breast growing out of the top of a computer mouse would sell like crazy.

Well, it certainly is the most intuitive interface we've got. Bet it'd be nice and ergonomic as well. ;-)

Hmmm .... I bet if you really did some R&D work, you could get a two handed setup to make a virtual keyboard or something -- jiggling and squeezing boobies to prevent RSI and have a more natural interface to the computer!

You should look into some venture capital on that one. ;-)

Cheers

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[gstoddart]

Rule 34 strikes again...

Well, yeah. But, loking at the rules, I should think that from 27-36 all stem from 34.

I mean, 27 through 33 starts with the quest for porn, and always have. ;-)

Cheers

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[fractoid]

Now, a real human female breast growing out of the top of a computer mouse would sell like crazy.

When I went to Singapore a few years ago, I brought back a mouse mat with an ergonomic wrist rest for a friend of mine... only the mouse mat was a picture of a woman's face, and the wrist rest was the lady's ample bosom. I don't think I've ever seen anyone (male or female) look at that mouse mat for the first time without copping a squeeze. :P

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't think french girls are hot?

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[gemada]

i'm French, you insensitive clod!

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[mgblst]

Well, he could have just accepted the frogs tits the size they are, like the rest of us.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

You're dating a frog? Hey, whatever floats your boat mate...

You're assuming he had a choice.

Frog-in-law scowling with a shotgun?

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

In mother Russia, the frog dates you!

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

But ... I *am* a frog, you insensitive clod!

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[daveime]

But the seven-assed Galapagos turtle is still giving them problems.

Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm.. big tits, or... ?

No!

[WillKemp]

What a surprise! Who would have guessed that nasty stuff would leach out of plastic into the liquids in the bottles...?

Delicious Uranium

[moniker127]

This is one of many reasons I take my soda in the form of glass bottles. Vivà IBC!

Well, either that or the enriched uranium canisters that mountain dew comes in.

Re:Delicious Uranium

[MicktheMech]

Soda bottles are made fomr PET. BPA is found in hard plastics like PC (as specifically stated in the summary.) There is absolutely no Bisphenol A in your soda bottles. Congratulations, you've fallen into the same form of mass hysteria that leads people to censor games or the internet (a la Thailand) whenever a kid shoots someone/commits suicide.

Re:Delicious Uranium

[RabidMoose]

I think that GP was kidding. I hope.
Regardless, his point stands: soda tastes best out of glass bottles, when available.

Re:Delicious Uranium

[Anonymous Coward]

did you actually read what the parent wrote? Congratulations, you've fallen into the same form of stupidity that leads people to write useless replies to something that wasn't written.

Blithering idiot.

Re:Delicious Uranium

[Waffle Iron]

At least RTF summary before you accuse people of mass hysteria. It says that aluminum beverage can liners contain BPA.

Re:Delicious Uranium

[drinkypoo]

Soda bottles are made fomr PET.

Oh, Good.

Re:Delicious Uranium

[computerchimp]

But his gut is right....plastics leach if not BPA they are leaching something else. Water out of plastic bottles tastes and smells funny. Some people can't tell but my senses can. Ban plastics for food stuffs? I am for banning it and not for reasons of hysterica. That lead, BHG in dairy cows and a wack of other stuff. CC

Re:Delicious Uranium

[Hurricane78]

And wanna know why?

Same reason, that oil tanks out of plastic are leaking trough diffusion. And also that industrial-strength toilet cleaner is diffusing trough the bottles it comes in.

Plastic & Co is never 100% leakproof. Oh, and it reacts with other hydrocarbons. That's why you can't combine them freely.

Re:Delicious Uranium

[rolfwind]

Soda bottles are made fomr PET. BPA is found in hard plastics like PC (as specifically stated in the summary.) There is absolutely no Bisphenol A in your soda bottles. Congratulations, you've fallen into the same form of mass hysteria that leads people to censor games or the internet (a la Thailand) whenever a kid shoots someone/commits suicide.

I'm in the same boat as your parent comment, I only drink from glass or aluminum containers (not cans, more like the containers for bikes). I don't know why it should be ridiculed. I don't even trust the claims anymore - expensive and "unbreakable" polycarbonate drink glasses from Target broke in the dishwasher within weeks. Cost 4x more than the normal glass.

I'm not a chemistry expert, but to me glass has always been a simple, very inert substance which is easy to clean, with little to go wrong as long as you're not drinking from lead crystal. Unlike most plastic, glass doesn't really fade in the dishwasher or scratch using steel wool, and nothing happens when you put in the microwave for a long time. That basic inertness is apparent to everybody.

Plastics, otoh, are extremely varied already in the basic consumer space, there are still new things to learn from it all the time (obviously, as this study shows) and is just more complicated a topic.

I miss the days when soda came in a glass bottle...

Re:Delicious Uranium

[tzot]

Recently, we had friends over for dinner, and as a game, we had glass, can and plastic bottles of Coke. We did a blind test, a triplet of small glass shots for every one of us, freshly served after all containers had been kept in the same fridge for 5 hours.

Out of 7 people, one correctly identified all three glasses; of course, this proves nothing, but it's too close to the "statistical" one-time-out-of-six correct. I couldn't find the difference in taste, but if the coke is freshly served, the one from the plastic bottle is much more frizzy than the one from the glass bottle.

Re:Delicious Uranium

[Bigjeff5]

I only drink from glass or aluminum containers (not cans, more like the containers for bikes)

If it's an aluminum container, it is likely coated with PC. You may want to check on that. More than just throw-away aluminum cans were coated like this.

Re:Delicious Uranium

[profplump]

What do you suggest instead of plastics? Metals -- most are much more reactive than the plastic you hope to replace. Glass would work for some things, depending on their shape and size, but is not terribly viable for large packages.

I'm honestly interested -- Is there some other economically feasible alternative? If not, is the health risk posed by BPA and the like larger than the health risk of not packaging our food at all?

Re:Delicious Uranium

[ctmurray]

I think the extra fizz is due to them charging plastic bottles with more CO2 because it slowly leaks through the plastic. To provide some shelf life they overcharge the CO2 initially. You must be purchasing "fresh" coke in PET bottles.

Re:Delicious Uranium

[sFurbo]

You are right, I have titrated the amount of CO2 in soft drinks at a soft drink makers laboratory, the plastic bottles had to contain 10% more CO2, for that exact reason.

Re:Delicious Uranium

[MobyDisk]

Almost as bad as the soda they put into the bottles in the first place!

Re:Delicious Uranium

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are valid points but then economically feasible was mentioned.

A proper alternative will cost more. People may have to allot more money to food and beverage containers and not be able to afford a few of the other frivolous things we have. Maybe people will have to work to make containers. Perhaps we will not be able to throw away containers and our lifestyles will be cramped because we have to carry around a container.

It should not be about the economy and convenience of it....but it is and that stupidity is something that sucks about human society.

computer chimp

Re:Delicious Uranium

[Sandbags]

Water in plastic bottles smells and tastes funny because of the contaminants. We're talking disinfection byproducts, wastewater pollutants (caffeine, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, minerals, arsenic, nitrates, ammonia, solvents, greases, even propellants). Many of these are from the bottle manufacturing process, others are from the failure of large scale water filtration systems to properly clean certain things from the water. Still others simply hover in the air in the bottling facility.

We won't need to ban BPA from bottles. That's happening by itself. (If we enforce it, who knows what they'll replace it with). I'd much rather see our country make bottled water illegal all together...

Bottled water tested from dozens of manufacturers failed to meet state minimum requirements across a panel of tests. It's simply no safer that tap water, even in some of the worst cities in america.

Get a sediment filter added to your home's main line. This will help clean certain contaminants out making all your home's water cleaner (this helps clean your dishes better, prevents staining in your laundry, and allows the use of less soap per load). Add high quality filters to each drinking tap. Ensure these filters add BACK the fluoride to the water post filtering (many from PUR do this as well as others). Use high quality bottles when necessary, but generally, drink from glass when possible. Not only use good detergents, but also a rinse agent, and use heated drying instead of air drying. Change your filters when they indicate, not when water is impeded, as the fluoride reserves are depleted at that point. If the water ever tastes funny coming through the filter (especially if you know your local water quality is poor), change the filters as the activated charcoals and other aspects of your filter may be used up even though it has not yet reached it's expiration.

I have filters on (actually under, not a faucet mount) the kitchen sink and in the fridge, plus a sediment filter for the house. The water I drink is perfect, and tastes better even that the expensive glass bottle name brand waters. I replace the sink filter about every 6 months (3 packs costs $40, that's $30 annually for clean tap water), the fridge about every 5 months ($34 filter, that's about $70 annually for cold clean water and ice). The house filter is a 5 year filter and it's $40. (that reduces our soap use by about a third, saving us at least that in detergent annually alone) We drink not less than 3 gallons daily at home. More on weekends and when family visits. These filters run hundreds of gallons during their life. I can't buy 48 bottles (less than 20 gallons) for that in a store!

Our office replaced their bottled water tanks with PUR tankless water coolers. Tastes better, costs less, and I don't have to change a 5 gallon bottle when some other lazy ass doesn't change it for us. With our staff of 14,000 people, we were going through as many as 300 5 gallon bottles a DAY across the company. Some locations were getting multiple trucks daily to keep up with the supply.

for a source on bottled water contaminants, see: http://www.ewg.org/reports/bottledwater

Re:Delicious Uranium

[rolfwind]

Was this used to protect from oxidation?

Re:Delicious Uranium

[matt20102]

Better yet, make soda (or beer, or wine) yourself. I make my own and nary a trace of corn sugar or industrial by-products (which, I suppose, would include HFCS) appears in my bottles.

And it doesn't hurt that my sodas include far less sugar than the big brands- about 100 calories/12oz. bottle.

Bulletin? Bulletin?

[btempleton]

These bottles were banned two years ago, though not in the USA. This is hardly a bulletin.

old

[Anonymous Coward]

really really old. they have been illegal to sell in canada since last year.

Nalgene

[HappyCycling]

Nalgene, one of, if not the biggest producers of the 'indestructable' plastic bottles with BPA, still does not acknowledge the health detriments even though they stopped producing those bottles. Probably because of liability reasons... http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/technical/bpaInfo.html

Re:Nalgene

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you suggest a way in which anybody's life would be better if they "acknowledged health detriments"?

They stopped producing BPA bottles. This looks like a success of market forces to me: people became concerned, companies changed their policies to adapt, and as consumers we got what we wanted.

Whether Nalgene Inc says they stopped making BPA bottles because they think there are health issues, or because consumers asked for it, I see no possible difference to my life at all.

This is even better than a government mandate. Market forces can change things really fast. Few things move as slowly as government health studies and legislation.

Re:Nalgene

[ceoyoyo]

Or possibly because the scientific data indicates that BPA at the kinds of doses you get from a plastic water bottle are more likely safe than not.

Re:Nalgene

[Fastolfe]

Companies avoided BPA because of the mass hysteria surrounding it, not because of any scientific studies that indicate BPA is actually harmful at the concentrations people are exposed to. This is neither a success of market forces nor better than a government mandate, IMO. The latter should be based on sound science, not mob panic.

You do, in fact, see a difference in your life when companies bend to this type of pressure. Either quality drops, or products get more expensive to produce, which means you get to pay more for stuff that isn't actually any safer.

I'm a huge supporter of the market economy, but this is one of the areas where it sucks (demand can change irrationally).

soy milk

[circletimessquare]

has genistein

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genistein

genistein is a potent estrogen mimic

Effects in males

Isoflavones can act like estrogen, stimulating development and maintenance of female characteristics or they can block cells from using cousins of estrogen. In vitro studies have proven genistein to induce apoptosis of testicular cells at certain levels, thus raising concerns about effects it could have on male fertility.[10]

soy has been used in many cultures for thousands of years

where is the faux outrage about how soy is going to destroy the world?

not that i think we shouldn't get rid of BPA. get rid of BPA, please. the positives it enables are outweighed by the negatives. same with transfats, same with DDT: get rid of these substances form our food supply and our environment. just do it without the drama

but i don't see why this pantytwisted fear-addled panic is supposed to help anyone or anything

Re:soy milk

[value_added]

"There's no such thing as soy milk. It's soy juice. But they couldn't sell soy juice, so they called it soy milk. Because anytime you say soy juice, you actually...start to gag. Know how come I know there's no such thing as soy milk? Because there's no soy titty, is there?"

- Lewis Black on Broadway

Re:soy milk

[symbolic]

There's no coconut titty either, but...

Re:soy milk

[bosef1]

I don't know...

When was the last time you said to friend "Hey, that's a nice set of coconuts on that blond over there, I'd really like to put her over a couple of rocks and pound a hole in her with my tool"

versus

"Hey, that's a nice set of soybeans on that blond over there, I really like to soak her overnight in water and then give her a wet grinding."

Re:soy milk

[jonbryce]

If she's only got soyabeans, rather than coconuts or melons, you probably aren't going to compliment them.

Re:soy milk

[fractoid]

"Hey, that's a nice set of soybeans on that blond over there, I really like to soak her overnight in water and then give her a wet grinding."

Pedobear approves without quite knowing why.

Re:soy milk

[defireman]

Lesson: BPA turns soyabeans into coconuts.

Re:soy milk

[lmpeters]

Historically, soy has been used as a flavoring agent (e.g. soy sauce, bean paste), not as a primary source of food (soymilk, tofurky, etc.). I'm no expert, but my guess would be that until the last few decades, nobody consumed soy in large enough quantities to experience any negative effects from those isoflavones.

Re:soy milk

[sunspot42]

where is the faux outrage about how soy is going to destroy the world?

There have been hysterical articles all over the news regarding the estrogenic effects of certain soy products. Although keep in mind genistein doesn't just occur in soy - it's also in other products, like beer.

In vitro studies have proven genistein to induce apoptosis of testicular cells at certain levels

At what levels? Just about anything will kill cells at high enough concentrations - even water.

just do it without the drama

What drama? I've seen a lot less drama regarding BPA than regarding, say, non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And I can guarantee you BPA is more dangerous than something which doesn't even exist.

Re:soy milk

[sexybomber]

You magnificent bastard. Well done, sir.

Good old glass

[moon3]

I knew it, I knew it, glass bottled beer ftw.

Re:Good old glass

[Achromatic1978]

As opposed to, say, beer that comes in plastic bottles?!? WTF?

Re:Good old glass

[Plunky]

says right there in the fine summary, that this BPA is also present in the lining of cans..

Re:Good old glass

[fmobus]

As odd as it may sound, some German beer brands are sold in plastic bottles. They taste like crap, but they do exist.

Re:Good old glass

[32771]

Nothing beats the taste of alcohol and plastic, eh?

I've never seen this in Germany though, its only glass for me.

There are some in aluminium cans though, and they also taste like crap.

Re:Good old glass

[grrrl]

they sell American beer in plastic bottles around the pool in Vegas. neat, really :)

Re:Good old glass

[fmobus]

If I remember correctly, the "Tuborg" brand sold beer in plastic bottles. Regarding aluminium cans: never saw those in Germany, but they are quite common here in Brazil (mostly due to a strong recycling program).

At any rate, if wine has taught us anything, it is that the best container is glass. But I've seen plastic and Tetra Pak wine too.

Re:Good old glass

[32771]

Here is an example for canned beer:

http://einestages.spiegel.de/external/ShowTopicAlbumBackground/a1876/l20/l0/F.html#featuredEntry

Supposedly we had a surcharge on cans which drove them off the market until 2006 when they changed the law again. I don't buy beer frequently, so I really have no clue about our beer market. Maybe I should check whether I can find any plastic beer bottles.

Re:Good old glass

[nametaken]

I'm going to guess you're from the other side of the pond. There are quite a few beers that are sold in cans and plastic bottles here in the US.

But we all know glass bottles just make it taste better. :)

Re:Good old glass

[fractoid]

I knew it, I knew it, glass bottled beer ftw.

If you can't have it on tap, at least drink it from glass. Bottles or a pint glass, either or.

I've only tried canned beer a couple of times but it tastes fuggin horrible.

Re:Good old glass

[jonwil]

Here in Australia, I have seen beer in both glass bottles and aluminum cans. Never seen beer in plastic bottles. Only time I have seen alcohol in plastic containers is cheap cask wine.

Re:Good old glass

[BiggerIsBetter]

But we all know glass bottles just make it taste better. :)

They're also much better in a fight.

Re:Good old glass

[grub]

American beer in plastic? Didn't they hear about BPA leeching into water?!
Conversely, a good Canadian beer would leech into the plastic!

Re:Good old glass

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably too many lawsuits over broken bottles.

Very old news?

[brunes69]

BPA in plastic bottles was banned in Canada last year.

Re:Very old news?

[YesIAmAScript]

I believe it was only banned for use in baby bottles.

This is because babies are probably more susceptible to BPA and because baby bottles are heated, increasing the amount leached.

Re:Very old news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong.....how does being wrong get a 3 for informative? Oh yeah its slashdot.

As the other reply stated it was banned in baby bottles. It still is in the lining of alluminum cans and other bottles:

http://www.chemicalsubstanceschimiques.gc.ca/challenge-defi/bisphenol-a_e.html

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/05/21/bpa.chemical.used.make.plastics.found.leach.polycarbonate.drinking.bottles.humans

Re:Very old news?

[TubeSteak]

BPA in plastic bottles was banned in Canada last year.

To paraphrase one of my army buddies:
"Good thing we're not in Canada"
 
/He'd make that joke whenever he saw "Known To The State Of California To Cause Cancer"

It's offical

[Anonymous Coward]

Water causes cancer... News at 11.

And in other breaking news...

[Anonymous Coward]

In other breaking news, scientists have discovered that drinking lead paint from a non-BPA water bottle is bad for your health!

Seriously, welcome to at least 2 years ago.

Facts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya, resent developmental research has pointed out this as the most probable cause as the "straw that broke the camels back" as it were in causing the turning on of certain genes that are linked to the association of being gay. As a young gay biologist I will be following this story further in the future.

a mere 2/3's bfd

[Anonymous Coward]

ooo 2/3's I'm shakin in my boots. There is no mention of the safe levels of bpa anywhere in the article.

Good News

[PingPongBoy]

This is the justification of beast feeding that I've been waiting for. Now, if you don't mind, I'm off to find a tit.

Unitil I return, all the breast, to you and yours.

Re:Good News

[c6gunner]

This is the justification of beast feeding that I've been waiting for. Now, if you don't mind, I'm off to find a tit.

Um. You do realize that beastiality is illegal in most countries, right?

Re:Good News

[teknognome]

This is the justification of beast feeding that I've been waiting for. Now, if you don't mind, I'm off to find a tit.

Um. You do realize that beastiality is illegal in most countries, right?

Its ok though; he'd have a hard time breast feeding since tits don't have tits.

Re:Good News

[TheCycoONE]

I don't think that word means what you think it does...

Re:Good News

[db32]

Please don't. We don't want you to starve to death!

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[QuoteMstr]

Can the US government finally get on the fucking ball and ban BPA? I'm sick of catering to business interests.

Great! Science Schmience

[forgot_my_username]

Great! I think we should all go back to lead plumbing and lead pewter cups.... After a couple of generations, we won't have all these fancy "scientific" reports.... Instead we will have... "wite paint tastyer than blu paint"

refinance cost

VitaMix downplayed, Rubbermaid came clean

[scorilo]

Vita-Mix.com, who have been making high-performance mixers with polycarbonate containers forever, deny any such adverse effects and encourage their customers to "mix" as long as it takes to make hot soups (that is, starting with a cold mixture, keep mixing until the liquid is hot). Rubbermaid, OTOH, has had on their website an interview with a Johns Hopkins University scientist who states that heated or boiling liquids will accelerate BPA extraction (quite obvious, if you think about it).

FUD? Doesn't seem to harm infants...

[Anonymous Coward]

There was an interesting article on NPR recently where they looked at premature infants who were on heart-lung machines whose tubing all used such BPA. These kids had much higher levels than other kids in their systems. 15 years later there were no detectable problem with their reproductive systems. Granted the study size was small, but there is clearly no dramatic effect from significantly larger levels than adults get from using water bottles.

Re:FUD? Doesn't seem to harm infants...

[mozzis]

What is most disturbing about this is that in this "highly technical" (ahem) community, only one poster noticed that what is important is not whether or not BPA is present in the urine or blood of people who use the bottles, but rather it is what are the health effects if any when it is present? A related question still unasked here is, how far away does a 69% increase in BPA levels put us from FDA-posited unsafe levels? Since the normal level in the population is thousands of times less than the unsafe level, this is an important piece of data that was missing from TFA.

Re:FUD? Doesn't seem to harm infants...

[djfuq]

Actually that was a report on phthalates not BPA specifically.

Re:FUD? Doesn't seem to harm infants...

[Wrath0fb0b]

Indeed. The most obvious example of the inability to consider threshold doses is the ubiquitous warning "This chemical is known to the State of CA to cause cancer" without noting "By the way, the amount in this product is 10 times lower than the threshold does and 1000000 lower than the LD50.

Re:FUD? Doesn't seem to harm infants...

[matt20102]

What is most disturbing about this is that in this "highly technical" (ahem) community, only one poster noticed that what is important is not whether or not BPA is present in the urine or blood of people who use the bottles, but rather it is what are the health effects if any when it is present? A related question still unasked here is, how far away does a 69% increase in BPA levels put us from FDA-posited unsafe levels? Since the normal level in the population is thousands of times less than the unsafe level, this is an important piece of data that was missing from TFA.

Although I can't recall the name of the documentary, I do recall having seen one some time back regarding farm runoff and native critters (frogs, in this particular case). One of the results of the study described in the documentary was that those frogs who lived in water with high concentrations of farm chemical runoff were able to tolerate it; those frogs which lived in water with extremely low levels of the same chemicals all showed health problems. The conclusion of the study was that the frogs' bodies were able to sense and properly restrict the consumption of chemicals when they were of high concentrations; low concentrations were able to "sneak in under the radar".

While not all chemicals are intrinsically evil, don't assume that you are safe from unnatural chemicals because the chemicals' concentrations are low...

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[c6gunner]

I know, eh?? For fucks sake, they haven't even banned dihydrogen monoxide yet!! Bunch of anti-science weirdos, if you ask me ...

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[Mr_eX9]

Companies have been ditching BPA on their own...government intervention is unnecessary. If you wanna whine about government catering to business interests, you're definitely barking up the wrong tree.

Removing it from the environment

[RandomChars]

http://2008.igem.org/Team:University_of_Alberta This project was about creating a synthetic organism that would be able to detect and destroy this stuff

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[QuoteMstr]

Not anywhere near quickly enough, considering that the vast majority of polycarbonates still contain BPA. As long as the cost saving of BPA exceeds the sales lost, companies won't move a bit. Parents with young children tend to be hyper-vigilant, so sure, companies will remove BPA from baby bottles. But people don't pay as much attention to other products.

It's so great...

[viyh]

That the people most at risk (infants) happen to use them in the worst possible way (heated). Now it will be interesting (and scary) to see some studies on the long term effects of the exposure to the population. No wonder this generation will die younger than their parents!

Re:It's so great...

[Albanach]

That the people most at risk (infants) happen to use them in the worst possible way (heated).

There's no need to warm infant formula.

Re:It's so great...

[viyh]

Maybe so, but parents do it anyway for comfort of the child.

Re:It's so great...

[fractoid]

No wonder this generation will die younger than their parents!

That's a pretty big call there.

Re:It's so great...

[viyh]

No it's not. It's already been widely reported due to the obesity epidemic.

Re:It's so great...

[Anonymous Coward]

The obesity epidemic is a load of bullshit. BMI doesn't even measure fat. You know what's worse than obesity, the real epidemic killing people around the world? Malnutrition and famine. In fact, being overweight can improve your lifespan over normal weight and significantly over underweight individuals.

http://www.scientificamerican.com

The three surveys--medical measurements collected in the early 1970s, late 1970s and early 1990s, with subjects matched against death registries nine to 19 years later--indicate that it is much more likely that U.S. adults who fall in the overweight category have a lower risk of premature death than do those of so-called healthy weight. The overweight segment of the "epidemic of overweight and obesity" is more likely reducing death rates than boosting them. "The majority of Americans who weigh too much are in this category," Campos notes.

Counterintuitively, "underweight, even though it occurs in only a tiny fraction of the population, is actually associated with more excess deaths than class I obesity," says Katherine M. Flegal, a senior research scientist at the CDC. Flegal led the study, which appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association on April 20 after undergoing four months of scrutiny by internal reviewers at the CDC and the National Cancer Institute and additional peer review by the journal.

great news.

[DragonTHC]

first and foremost, you can suck it, FDA! suck it hard!

You knew this all along and you put us all in danger due to corporate influences.

We should now be able to see the FDA chief, who allowed BPA to continue in products, put in jail for gross negligence.

Re:great news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh shut up, retard.

They said BPA leaches into the water in the bottle. We've known this for years.

What nobody has determined yet is if BPA any effect at these levels. So chillax a little sweetheart, you're gunna live.

Re:great news.

[djfuq]

Welcome to capitalism, cronyism, consumerism and your government "protecting you".... all working hard to make a quick buck asap with total disregard to how it will impact us and our planet.

And when you get cancer or any other health problem you may as well be a millionaire to pay for life - as insurance companies and doctors dont give a shit about you either unless you have millions to pay for your own health care in a place that has lost all good and honest morals and ethics.

To become a millionaire to pay to protect yourself, make sure and take something that is expendable, has minor use, and sell it asap.

Nothing is made to last. Everyone and everything is expendable. - This I have discovered through deep contemplation, is the problem with, and downfall of, our "civilization".

I recently saw "the day the earth stood still" and it resonated this hatred I have for the way our so-called progress is achieved.

There are consequences to everything....

Re:great news.

[DragonTHC]

you can relax.

when your wife gets thyroid cancer from who knows what exposure, you can't relax!

I don't want to make light of this, but...

[93 Escort Wagon]

The linked report was less than useful, since the reporting was done in relative terms - e.g. "increased by two thirds". Okay, but two thirds over what? There are generally specific concentrations above which a chemical is identified as harmful by the government (or by a watchdog agency, if you don't trust the government). Why not say "BPA levels increase from the background level of xxxxxxx to a ppm/ppb of yyyyyy in individuals who drank from these bottles for one week"?

So really, even if the shift away from BPA plastics wasn't already well on, there's no indication from this report whether I should actually be concerned or not. And frankly, as someone with a science background, this sort of thing makes me LESS likely to be concerned. When I see fuzzy reporting, my first though is it was done intentionally because they can't support their case using objective numbers. I've seen this happen in honest-to-goodness scientific papers way too often to not notice.

Re:I don't want to make light of this, but...

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

The linked report was less than useful, since the reporting was done in relative terms - e.g. "increased by two thirds". Okay, but two thirds over what? There are generally specific concentrations above which a chemical is identified as harmful by the government (or by a watchdog agency, if you don't trust the government). Why not say "BPA levels increase from the background level of xxxxxxx to a ppm/ppb of yyyyyy in individuals who drank from these bottles for one week"?

...And frankly, as someone with a science background, this sort of thing makes me LESS likely to be concerned. When I see fuzzy reporting, my first though is it was done intentionally because they can't support their case using objective numbers. I've seen this happen in honest-to-goodness scientific papers way too often to not notice.

It makes me skeptical as well, but I think there are at least two other reasons things get reported this way:

• Reporters are afraid that if they mention more than one number, Joe Sixpack's eyes will glaze over and he'll think some gawl-durn science geek is trying to talk down to him, and he's less likely to read news from this source again.
• The reporters themselves have such a poor grasp of science and math that they don't know that anything matters other than the relative increase.

Re:I don't want to make light of this, but...

[drew]

I wondered about that too. I also noticed that it specifically mentioned urine concentrations. Now, I'm far from an expert on the subject, but as I understand it this means that my kidneys are doing their job, and filtering the stuff out of my blood stream. It seems to me that how much of this shows up in my urine is less interesting than how long it sits in my body before my kidneys take care of it, and what problems it's causing there.

That small amounts of BPA are capable of leaching out of bottles and into the liquids that they contain has been known for years. What's less well understood (at least the last time I really bothered to read up on this at all) is what it actually does, if anything, once it's there.

Re:I don't want to make light of this, but...

[grep_pdx]

The linked report was less than useful, since the reporting was done in relative terms - e.g. "increased by two thirds". Okay, but two thirds over what? There are generally specific concentrations above which a chemical is identified as harmful by the government (or by a watchdog agency, if you don't trust the government). Why not say "BPA levels increase from the background level of xxxxxxx to a ppm/ppb of yyyyyy in individuals who drank from these bottles for one week"?

Good thing the linked article linked to the abstract and the abstract linked to the actual report (surprisingly you don't have to pay to see). There you can see in the results section that the concentration went from 1.2 micro g/g to 2.0 micro g/g.

Amazing stuff this linking. It's almost as if the Web was created to link scientific documents

Re:I don't want to make light of this, but...

[EdZ]

According to the paper, the concentration increase was from 1.4 micrograms per gram (after washout) to 2.0 micrograms per gram (after 1 weeks use). Average concentration among the general population is 2.6 micrograms per gram. There is no information of what constitutes an unacceptable level, but after mentioning the voluntary removal of BPA by some manufactureres, there was this:

However, such actions have been largely preemptive, as no epidemiologic study has evaluated the physiological consequences of polycarbonate bottle use.

Re:I don't want to make light of this, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Still not terribly meaningful without a threshold for health effects.

Re:I don't want to make light of this, but...

[grep_pdx]

Still not terribly meaningful without a threshold for health effects.

Technically that's beyond the scope of the study. Unless those numbers have been reasonably established then it would be irresponsible to list them in this specific study.

Re:I don't want to make light of this, but...

[bartwol]

Here is the study.

According to the study, subjects first went through a one week "washout" period in which they were advised to avoid use of any containers using BPA (the study indicates that BPA is almost totally eliminated in the urine with 24 hours of ingestion). After the washout period, urine samples were taken to establish a baseline which, by my understanding, I would define as the typical trace amounts of BPA that you'd expect to find in the urine of a person who avoids BPA exposure. After the washout period, the subjects were then advised to drink all fluids from BPA laden containers, and the urine samples resulting from that relatively high level of exposure were compared to the baseline samples. That comparison showed a 69% increase over the baseline, from 1.2 to 2.0 "ug/g creatinine."

Personally, I don't feel threatened by trace levels of BPA (especially with its high propensity to be excreted quickly and lack of significant evidence of toxicity at trace levels). So it's hard for me to feel significantly more threatened by 1.69 times trace levels.

Re:I don't want to make light of this, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a Score:6 for the single most important comment about an article. :)

Re:I don't want to make light of this, but...

[ceoyoyo]

Because when you have to measure something in parts per billion it doesn't sound nearly as scary as when you say 2/3.

Badscience.com has a nice article about other places where that particular measurement style is used to great, uh, effect.

Re:I don't want to make light of this, but...

[notonthegrid]

Or, maybe because if you knew what the normal concentrations were, and you were able to compare, you would soon realize that BPA from plastic bottles is just the tip-of-the-iceburg, and that there are many other sources that should also be banned. Banning them all could put China out of business.

Re:I don't want to make light of this, but...

[DigitalCrackPipe]

Unfortunately, most publicly available medical science in this realm (alternative or mainstream) seems to suffer from this lack of precision. You can read all about hundreds of chemicals and products that are bad for you, but you'll be hard pressed to find out *how* bad. As an engineer, I would prefer some real data to decide if the problem is bad enough to warrant the cost of avoiding it. For instance, it's somewhat difficult to avoid all plastics in the microwave, but I don't even know how dangerous they are. For all I know, my health is more adversely affected by the air pollution in my city and the toxins in the air in my office.

If I avoided everything that was "bad" for me, I'd live in a bubble and probably die from something caused by said bubble. That said, I've been leisurely transitioning my water bottles away from BPA-ambiguous containers on the optimistic notion that the alternatives are healthier.

ACtually...

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a gf is not unheard of, even here... but dating a frog... SU-GOI!

half-life

[spikenerd]

So what's the half-life of one of these bottles when full of water? Eventually, most of the BPA will be leached out, and the bottle will become safer. Does this take months, or years?

Re:half-life

[man_ls]

The bottle itself is a polymer of Bisphenol-A sub-units. As the bottle itself naturally breaks down from exposure to light, heat, etc. the polymer sub-units are liberated into the free BPA that is a problem. As long as there's a bottle made of polycarbonate, the water stored in it will have BPA.

Re:half-life

[Dahamma]

Not as long as the half life of this story, apparently! (I tossed my Nalgene bottle a year ago, and my coworkers were stunned I hadn't already heard of the hazard...)

Re:half-life

[Obispus]

You'll be drinking a lot of BPA until the bottle runs out of it, and it's not clear that the bottle will be usable as such by the time BPA release drops to a reasonable level. See this paper for the effects of repeated cleanings in a dishwasher: the bottles released an average of 31 times the amount of BPA released by a new, unwashed bottle during the first 169 washes--and that's when the scientists stopped measuring, so there's no reason to believe that concentrations would plummet after any known, higher number of washes.

Re:Auntie Em...Auntie Em....help help help!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it brainless crybabies like you have to link everything back to the President of the United States of America somehow?

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[Rick Bentley]

...and replace it with what, Genius?

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[Anonymous Coward]

THE product we saw this in was Nalgene bottles and look-a-likes. While us backpackers used them for many years, they became very popular with college kids.

They all stopped making polycarbonate bottles and switched to BPA-free materials a long, long time ago.

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[nametaken]

From Nalgene... I've bolded the part I found interesting.

Question: Why is Nalgene transitioning from polycarbonate to other materials?
Answer: [Blah, blah, blah] Our decision to phase out production of the Outdoor line of polycarbonate containers is in response to consumer demand for products that do not include Bisphenol-A (BPA).

We are confident that the bottles which contain BPA are safe for their intended use. However, because of consumer requests for alternative materials, we have decided to transition our polycarbonate product line to Eastman Tritanâ copolyester. This product joins our family of bottles and containers made of various non-BPA materials such as HDPE, PP, LDPE and PET.

[Blah, blah, blah]

Based on the findings of the Food and Drug Administration, The Environmental Protection Agency, The European Food Safety Authority, The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, The Japan Ministry of Health, Labor & Welfare, The American Plastics Council and other reliable sources from around the world, we continue to firmly believe in the safety of our products containing BPA. However, we intend to carefully monitor the results of the National Toxicology Report and the Canadian government's inquiry into this issue and any other relevant scientific information.

Now I'm not sure the Plastics Council is a group I'd want to get my info from, but the rest sound somewhat compelling. So what's the deal, yes it leaches, but it's not necessarily harmful? I wouldn't want to be a sucker for some company's BS, but what's the deal with groups above?

Can linings

[Bloody Peasant]

Most canned foods (soups, beans, etc.) have a BPA-laden liner too. There was one company whose name escapes me right now that used a safer natural* lining. It's for this reason I swore off any canned soup (even the so-called healthy ones) well over a year ago.

* If you like beans, beans and more beans, this was fine, but the company didn't make the chicken soup I wanted :-(

Re:Can linings

[Anonymous Coward]

Eden foods:

http://www.edenfoods.com/faqs/view.php?categories_id=5#faq43

"Are Eden Beans packed in cans with enamel lining that contains bisphenol-A?
No. Eden Organic Beans are packed in steel cans coated with a baked on oleoresinous (a natural mixture of an oil and a resin extracted from various plants, such as pine or balsam fir) c-enamel lining, that does not contain bisphenol-A. These cans cost 14% more than the industry standard cans, which do contain bisphenol-A."

leach?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it me or does the story say "leach" rather than "leak"? Did I miss something? No mods on today?

Re:leach?

[navyjeff]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=leach+dictionary&l=1

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[Psyborgue]

Yup. Fear of civil suits does far more than government regulation ever will. I really feel for the people who want the government to hold their hand through everything. They never see what the other hand is doing.

So what?

[Narcocide]

Nobody is drinking any of my urine anyway. Why would I care if there is BPH in it?

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[Mr_eX9]

Uh...not sure where you're getting that idea. In addition to getting people a (hopefully) healthier product, selling BPA-free bottles is an excellent way for the businessmen to get people to replace their "indestructible" bottles!

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[AHuxley]

http://sev.prnewswire.com/chemical/20090513/DC1672113052009-1.html
PR Newswire (press release) - âZMay 13, 2009
"This new Chicago law is contrary to the global consensus on the safety of BPA and ignores the expert evaluations of scientists and government bodies from around the world. These particular restrictions on the sale of baby bottles and sippy cups, intended for use by children under the age of three and which contain bisphenol A (BPA), are unwarranted. "

Really depends on your part of the world and if you have to wait a few more years or more ...

"'With regard to BPA generally, based on all available evidence, the consensus of regulatory agencies in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan is that the current levels of exposure to BPA through food packaging do not pose an immediate health risk to the general population, including infants and young children"

"Within the last few months government agencies in France, Germany, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand all have issued statements"

Re:Great! Science Schmience

[Bootarn]

I wish I hadn't already used up my mod points, since this is one of the funnier things I've read today.

Understanding dose-response

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people here seem to think that the BPA in bottles and linings is harmful. I work in a lab that tests the low-dose exposure effects of BPA on mice. I personally drink from cans lined with BPA-laden plastics all the time, because the dose-response curves I've seen indicate that the risk of harm from BPA is negligible.

There are plenty of other estrogenic compounds that you all consume in much higher quantities, so if you care about your BPA intake, you are misinformed. I'd like to thank the science news cycle for that.

Re:Understanding dose-response

[epoxide]

questions for you: Does BPA get whizzed out pretty quickly, or does the liver get a chance to turn it into all sorts of other nasty stuff first? If a baby mouse is dosed with BPA, is it still in its system when it hits puberty? As opposed to drinking soda, how about people (adults, hopefully) who work with epoxy? Epoxy generally starts as two liquids you mix together, one of them is generally practically pure BPA or a related compound. Would skin exposure be an issue - likesay molding that JB weld using your hands? Or dripping the stuff while you're doing the 'glassing' step of making fiberglass? How about inhalation of partly cured epoxy sanding dust? Inquiring surf board makers want to know. (this one wears gloves, a respirator, long sleeves, etc)

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[anarchyboy]

Now I'm not sure the Plastics Council is a group I'd want to get my info from, but the rest sound somewhat compelling. So what's the deal, yes it leaches, but it's not necessarily harmful? I wouldn't want to be a sucker for some company's BS, but what's the deal with groups above?

Well you could be right, from the summary it looks like the study found that BPA levels in urine increased, not that increased BPA levels in urine are harmful. What this means is that it looks like nobody has actually looked or performed a study to see if drinking from containers made with BPA is actually harmful but are instead infering a risk from the fact that BPA does indeed leach from the containers and that there is a plausable action for BPA to damage your health. The key here is that while people may have performed experiments where they pour a load of BPA on some cells or see if it reacts with some enzyme or something the summary doesn't actually mention any link with BPA and health issues. It has "endocrine-disrupting potential" but what exactly do they mean by potential? does it disrupt endocrines in real people in the levels that are associated with the leaching from drink containers? would you have to drink everything out of such a container to be at risk? does your health suffer imdeiatly after just one sip? basically this study doesn't tell you and you would need to look at studys conducted looking at how BPA levels effect health and then compare the effects to the levels leaching out of the containers.

So yes they are probably not very harmfull and the assessments of those organisations can be trusted so long as you can find out what they actually have to say on the matter rather than taking the companys word (they could be outright lieing/missinterpruting results in the press release). The only way to really be sure is to actually do some research and find the appropriate studys (which may or may not exist). Since the plastics companys don't seem that bothered about using alternatives suggests its not actually a big deal for them just to switch so probably there won't be much more research into BPAs if they are just phased out anyway, so we may never know.

...Into Humans

[Helmholtz]

I love the "...Into Humans" part of the byline. As if the chemical(s) in question do not leach out into the liquids if they are consumed by anything but humans. Leaching and ion exchange is a well known phenomena among chemists, which is why glass is still the most common container material when dealing with chemicals.

Junk Science

[thethibs]

'We found that drinking cold liquids from polycarbonate bottles for just one week increased urinary BPA levels by more than two-thirds [from nearly zero to 1.6×nearly zero] . If you heat those bottles, as is the case with baby bottles, we would expect the levels to be considerably higher. This would be of concern since infants may be particularly susceptible to BPA's endocrine-disrupting potential,'

This is propaganda, not science.

Re:Junk Science

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey trollie, we're discussing long-term effects of low-concentration chemicals in common-use products (water, food...) here. It's not propaganda, it's science with all the required "maybe" and "perhaps".

Re:Junk Science

[ceoyoyo]

The study is science. That's why all the bits you highlighted are in there. The news article is propaganda, and the Slashdot summary, as usual, more so.

See, scientists are pretty good at doing their own highlighting. Journalists and the general public, not so much.

Re:Junk Science

[Locklin]

Science is reported in journal articles not news outlets (even one with science in the name).

From http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.0900604

Furthermore, we assessed the impact of polycarbonate bottle use in a normal use setting.
The present study could be considered a conservative estimate of true use, as students did not
have access to dishwashers and were instructed to use their containers for cold beverages only,
whereas the storage of hot liquids is common, especially in outdoor recreation settings. Because
heating is thought to increase the amount of BPA leached from the polycarbonate (Le et al.
2008), we would anticipate higher urinary BPA concentrations after ingestion of hot beverages
stored in the same bottles.

Much more conservative in the actual paper.

Great

[jonpublic]

I replace my mercury fillings for this?

"BPA is also found in dentistry composites"

I don't need pliability in my fillings.

I also don't need my fillings to be made in China, but I bet that's where they were made. Out of the reach of the legal system, so they don't have to worry about any pesky legal problems.

Keep outsourcing. Eventually everyone will realize that their food (melamine) , medicine (heparin), or building materials(dry wall) will be poisoning them. It's cool because you get 20% off.

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"The only way to really be sure is to actually do some research and find the appropriate studys ..."

Translation:

Don't expect to see a well founded anaysis with references here on Slashdot ;-)

Re:Auntie Em...Auntie Em....help help help!

[Tycho]

Because it could never be the market's fault, ever, as it is more perfect than God herself, not that I am a theist. Also, analysis that stating the same thing over and over again gained their party popularity in the past and thus had a positive effect. Also, after 2000 election, there were various insults about Bush tossed about regularly and that made the Republicans lose in 2006 and 2008. Thus, the correct action to take is to say that, Obama iz ebil, more often than it is possible. Further analysis of any other causes is inconceivable and treason. Those are the only actions necessary to bring the Bachmann/Palin ticket to power in 2010 (yes, I actually intended to write 2010).

Re:Great! Science Schmience

[averner]

Could you please enlighten me here? The refinance joke whooshed over my head - I still can't figure it out.

Just out of curiousity...

[Bones3D_mac]

What kind of symptoms would someone experience or exhibit if poisoned by this?

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[ceoyoyo]

Well, if you managed to eat 260 kilos (573 lbs) of it, you'd have a 50% chance of dying (assuming rat data applies to humans).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A#Health_effects

Re:Just out of curiousity...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lowered sperm count, decrease in testicle size, development of breasts, etc.

Oh, and the extinction of mankind: http://urban.decay.us/archives/000046.php

ONLY SMALL COMPANIES , ONLY PARTIALLY

[Anonymous Coward]

its goverment business, and BPA isn't food-grade chemical

Protip

[Anonymous Coward]

Protip: Slashdot inserts nofollows in anchors in comments.

Re:Old?- Why YES, Waaay old.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently I'm still an idiot, since I've been pointing out for well over a decade that all plastics leach toxic chemicals into whatever is stored in them.

If that happens to be food or drink, than it's not a good thing for the consumers.

It started in 1963 with two female researchers (can't find my sources right now), who presented information that the plasticizers in soft plastic containers leached into the contents, and they were laughed at and not taken seriously.

You need some serious study of the history of toxicology, because a common theme throughout that history is that the "messengers" are almost always "shot" for years before the common mind awakes to the realization that whats been said is actually true, disruptive as it may be.

And if you can open your mind enough you also might want to read this: Chemical Safety Bibliography -- Risk assessment and management and Chemical Exposure and Human Health, C. Wilson, McFarland.

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[PAStheLoD]

Not to crash your party or anything, but have a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A#Health_effects

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[P0ltergeist333]

I know, eh?? For fucks sake, they haven't even banned dihydrogen monoxide yet!! Bunch of anti-science weirdos, if you ask me ...

Ban dihydrogen monoxide? Gee, that is SO original. Pretty sad how the same tired old crap gets brought up over and over, yet adds nothing to the discussion. I mean, from your post you are saying that all potential material safety dangers are akin to this laughable e-mail hoax, right? That seems quite an indefensible stance to me.

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[c6gunner]

Who done the what now?

I didn't catch all that ... but, just to clarify, I'm rather upset over the governments constant kowtowing to Big Water over the DHMO threat. Maybe before worrying about what bottles are made of, we should worry about what's in them! People are putting this stuff INTO THEIR BODIES, and all because politicians keep bowing to pressure from lobbyists. It's gotta stop!

Waistline fat is part plastic.

[ImitationEnergy]

Waistline fat is part plastic.

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Vioxx was found to be "safe" by the FDA... using studies that Merck had carelessly redacted.

Pumping men full of female hormones is the first step to turning them into women. Isn't it an amazing coincidence that a few years after we started pumping babies full of "fake" female hormones, we've invented terms like gay marriage and metrosexuals?

Journal article available for free

[Pigeon451]

For those wishing to read the actual scientific study (peer reviewed):

http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2009/0900604/abstract.html

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[ceoyoyo]

How's that crashing his boat? Quoting the very first two paragraphs (emphasis mine):

Bisphenol A has low acute toxicity, with an oral LD50 of 3250 mg/kg in rats,[9] but it is an endocrine disruptor.[10][11] Low doses of bisphenol A can mimic the body's own hormones, possibly causing negative health effects.[12] There is thus concern that long term low dose exposure to bisphenol A may induce chronic toxicity in humans.[13][14][15]
In October 2008, the US Food and Drug Administration noted in a statement[3] that âoeConsumers should know that, based on all available evidence, the present consensus among regulatory agencies in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan is that current levels of exposure to BPA through food packaging do not pose an immediate health risk to the general population, including infants and babies.â

There aren't any really good studies on the effect of long term exposure to low doses. Speculatively, there might be negative effects on fetuses, potentially on infants, and possibly on adults, with probability decreasing drastically from former to latter.

Food and plastics

[Anonymous Coward]

Just think about all the plastics food and water come in contact with. You can use CPVC piping for hot water these days...I'd hate to see what leaches out of that

1mg = 1/1000 g = 1E-6kg

[beleriand]

1mg = 1/1000 g = 1E-6kg Thus your Result is too high. Should be 0.26 kg i guess. Which would still be a lot of plastic to eat..

Re:1mg = 1/1000 g = 1E-6kg

[ceoyoyo]

Whoops. My bad. That's what you get posting before coffee.

Plus, it's not just the plastic, it's the BPA itself. Figuring out how much water bottle leaching water you'd have to drink to get that dosage is left as an exercise to the (fully awake) reader.

Stop Drinking

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see,
Plastic poisons me with BPA.
Brand new Stainless steel bottles and my Grandfather's WW II metal canteen poison me with heavy metals in the alloys they were stamped from and braised or welded together with.
Aluminum cans give me alzheimers. It's not even safe to drink beer
Clay pots leak, break, or poison me with lead-based glazes.
Water from the stream gives me Giardia if it's upstream, and poisons me with no end of industrial and human toxic waste if it's very far downstream.

But no matter what they bottle it in, it's all recycled dinosaur piss, anyway. Think about it: The dinosaurs were around for a billion years or so in one form or another. There were tens, if not hundreds of millions of them alive at any one moment in time, lots of them bigger than elephants today. Do you have any idea how many gallons an elephant pisses at one time? Tens or hundreds of millions of dinosaurs had to go pee every single day of those billion years, so what do you think the oceans have filled up with? Even pure distillates like rum, vodka or single malt scotch are no alternative because they were made by fermenting with recycled dinosaur piss. So stop worrying and drink up.

Not exactly surprising

[smchris]

Take your bicycle out for a long ride on a hot day and tell me the water from bottle doesn't have a "plasticy" taste.

There's plenty of BPA in bottles

[Obispus]

Also, a new bottle only has a fixed amount of BPA to leech.

True, but...

After several uses (especially after being washed in a hot dishwasher several times) the amount of BPA present should be negligible.

that depends on your definition of "several". This study showed that bottles exposed to a normal dishwasher process leaked an average of 36 times the amount of BPA released by new bottles during the first 51 washes, which went down slightly to an average of 29 times the baseline for the subsequent 118 wash cycles.

Those don't seem acceptable levels of leakage to me.

Re:There's plenty of BPA in bottles

[Sandbags]

OK, considder the context of your study, and then don;lt takwe the numbers themselves for granted, compare the numbers to what's actually considdered safe and dangerous:

That was "simulated" dishwashing (using BOILING water), followed by brushing (physical aggitation of the surface), followed by rinsing in an alcohol solution (which may or may not have assisted in BPA extraction from the plastic).

The "dishwashing" included the use of BOILING water, which is significantly hotter than any dishwasher can achieve (typically 50C). The bottles were then filled with MORE boiling water, and allowed to sit for 24 hours before being tested... Does this sound normal for clear plasic containers?

Though they used BPA containing baby bottles (which I can't even find in a store at all) in this testing system, they admit IN THE ARTICLE that this would NOT be a close comparison to daily use, and the article even states this would be restricted likely to "cold weather outdoor activities such as alpine snow sports, climbing, and mountaineering" where hot beverages would be stored and consumed. Well, tell me what NON-insulated bottle you'd ever put hot liquids in for use outdoors, especially to keep for 2 days?!? Every thermos I've ever owned has been glass or metal inside, NEVER plastic.

Their simulated tests are evaluating the BPA levels in the bottles present after both cold and high temperature washing. It should also be noted they "immediately filled" the bottled with boiling water, meaning the bottles were still hot from washing when filled. In a REAL dishwasher, the extended exposire to heat would in fact cause the BPA to leach faster, yes, but that leaching would happen inside the machine, and the enzymes present in most modern dishwashing detergents (not used in this experiment) would have absorbed much of that BPA (they USED enzymes to COLLECT the BPA as part of their testing methodology), and the rest would have left the machine in the rinse cycle. The exposure to the hot water cleaning cycle for (in most machines) an hour (as opposed to a few minutes of hand washing with boiling water) would actually leach the BPA many times faster, greatly lessening the human impact over time. Further, those clean bottles would have typically been stored for some time before being filled. In my house, I don't know about yours, we rinse everything again before filling it. (do YOU want to drink something containing the dust from inside your cabinets?)

And again, as pointed out earlier, BPA in bottles, under normal use and cleaning, has been shown to increase BPA in urine by only 1/3rd (aka, less than half of the BPA you take in, even using NEW BPA plastic bottles DAILY, as did the study, would still be less BPA that you already take in now through other sources.

It should also be noted, the sample size was 3 BOTTLES!!!! 2 new and only 1 used, and there was NO CONTROL BOTTLE. Oh yea, the bottles didn't just sit there either, but were ROLLED CONSTANTLY BY A MACHINE for the duration of the incubation!!!

Here's some other data for you:
"The European Food Safety Authority in 2006 set a tolerable daily intake (TDI) level for BPA of 50 micrograms/kg body weight/day - but stressed that current exposure levels were just 30 per cent of the TDI."

OK, 50ng/kg of body weight is acceptible, most people are averaging 15ng/kg. In this experiment, used bottles added 0.7ng/ml after 7 days of incubation! Baby bottles are filled, used, and cleaned, and rarely stored except under refrigeration for more than 4 hours. Even a NEW bottle only gave up 1.0ng/ml after 7 days. Using boiling water and a 24 hour sample time, BPA only doubled to a hair less than 2ng. The BPA leaking per hour stored is 0.42ng.

Even to get to 30ng/day/kg of body weight, your baby would have to drink DOZENS of MICROWAVED BPA containing bottles, and this is still LESS than the prescribed safety limits set by the european government in 2006, AFTER all this BPA bullshit started.

This is FUD. Yes it's a slight risk, bu

Re:There's plenty of BPA in bottles

[Blenster]

Wait a second, you're using logic to evaluate this and completely ignoring the proper response which is to panic and repeat the article's over-simplified bylines as if they were facts... :-) I did notice that they have been focusing on the "percentage of increase" but not showing whether or not this impacts the amount we can reasonably tolerate. Even a large percentage increase is meaningless if it's still well below the amount that has an effect on us. But why bother with details when the sensationalist approach can be taken?

Re:There's plenty of BPA in bottles

[Sandbags]

LOL, you need to be modded up. I'd spend my points to do so if I hadn't already posted a comment in this space...

Re:There's plenty of BPA in bottles

[Obispus]

Sandbags (964742), if you were replying to my post, then you did a great job at coming up with a rant full of caps that is as long as it is irrelevant. If you were not, disregard what follows.

Your statements, which I quoted in my post, were that (a) a bottle has a fixed amount of BPA to leach (fairly obvious), and (b) that after several uses and cleanings in a dishwasher, the BPA present (i.e., remaining) in the bottle should become negligible.

The study I cited found that a regular bottle has the capacity to generate big amounts of BPA during a long lifetime. So your point (a) is obvious and your point (b) is false. QED.

Regarding the separate and orthogonal discussion about whether realistic household usage would result in the release of significant multiples of the BPA released when the bottle gets used at standard room temperatures: the evidence we have is that exposure to high-temperature liquids is positively correlated with BPA release. You have any evidence that lower, but still high, temperatures such as the ones applied to dishwasher loads do not result in significant increases in BPA release? Let's see it.

That explains it!

[alexo]

There have been hysterical articles all over the news regarding the estrogenic effects of certain soy products. Although keep in mind genistein doesn't just occur in soy - it's also in other products, like beer.

So that's why after drinking too much beer people start talking nonsense and have trouble driving.

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[PAStheLoD]

Funny thing happened. Wikipedia changed.

Now ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bisphenol_A&oldid=292773107 ) most of what you've quoted is gone.

Also, most of the "Health effects" section is very worrying. (Note the Lang study from 2008 September.)

Plus, the lack of long term exposure studies doesn't disprove the short term ones.

Re:Bulletin? Bulletin?

[P0ltergeist333]

I feel like I'm locked in a Monty Python sketch, except this guy isn't even contradicting me, just spouting some foul refuse. Again, just because some idiots fell for some email hoax encouraging a ban on 'dihydrogen monoxide' (water) does NOT mean that all materiel safety issues are baseless. And I think it is completely ignorant and irresponsible to make such an allusion, as you are obviously doing.