Slashdot Mirror
Studies Prove BPA Can Cross Placenta To Fetuses
Totes McGotes writes "From canned food to plastic bottles, Bisphenol-A seems to be cropping up everywhere, and now two new studies show that BPA freely crosses the placenta from pregnant mother to fetus. Plus, the research found that chemical transformations occur in the fetus allowing inactive BPA to be converted to the active form."
...what is this Bisphenol-A and why should I care?
BPA! It cures cancer! Now it can cure your unborn fetus' cancer, too!
-SaNo
So now that companies have stopped using BPA, what other additives should we investigate? Plastics still contain various chemicals that define the type of plastic...
I've moved to using glass for food storage. Although heavier, it's chemically safer since it's non-porous, and much easier to clean.
Studies don't "prove" anything. All they do is add a little weight to one side of an argument or another. Exactly how much weight depends on what was studied, how it relates to existing science, the methodology of the study, etc., etc., etc.
This study seems to add a little evidence to the belief that BPA is dangerous, of which there's already a lot. But only scientifically illiterate journalists and pundits (and, unfortunately, not a few opinionated doctors) look a single study and jump to big conclusion. You really need to look at the whole body of research.s
Apparently we don't really know:
The JAMA study measured urinary levels of BPA in 1455 adults aged 18-74 years, in relation to 8 conditions: arthritis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, respiratory disease (eg asthma, bronchitis, emphysema), stroke, thyroid disease. Higher BPA concentrations were found only in association with heart disease, diabetes and liver damage. This is a preliminary study, and “association” is not proof of causation but it does give grounds for concern. Bottom line: The significance, if any, of high urinary levels of BPA is not yet known, but long-term studies are certainly needed.
http://envirolaw.com/how-dangerous-is-bpa/
Personally I think it's a bad idea to cook food in plastic containers, or store things in plastic that can act as a solvent. The fact that you can taste the plastic container in the food is something I find disturbing and we primarily use glass and stainless, if only for that issue.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
it was your cup that was poisoned. They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to BPA.
I read somewhere that BPA does delay the onset of puberty... but only in boys, and that it speeds it up in girls. I was under the impression that this was happening, but then again I'm nowhere near that field of work so I could be completely wrong.
After a little digging I find that it is suspected in everything from breast cancer to obesity in children. It has been suspected as being bad sense the 1930's but there is no direct link to it causing any notable issues.
So in 80+ years of research the best they can come up with is "There may be an issue with Bisphenol-A"
It also seems to me that in 3 generations we would have seen a difference or at a minimum science should be able to say "It causes XXX"
It acts like female hormones once it gets inside the human body. Not good for adults, but really bad for babies.
Actually, it is fixing the issue. Practically overnight an industry of BPA-free containers sprang up to service those people who wished to avoid exposure to the chemical. Media and research exists in a free market, so, it's not like we wouldn't have known any link.
Those that don't care (as in, not caring about their health, not caring since they're using the container to store stuff they don't intend to drink, etc) could still buy it and the prices the market will bare.
There's a lot of stuff the Free Market can't fix. This isn't one of them.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Assuming they are properly labeled. Unfortunately, the free market only works in a 100% informed populace that can weigh the costs and benefits of any product and have the option to choose. And the fairy tale land of perfectly informed people hasn't yet been made real. Clearly a failure of the free market and government regulation!
While BPA has alternatives, it's not always 100% clear. Many metal cans and bottles use a plastic lining that happens to contain BPA. Many "glass" products are actually layers of glass and plastic, or just plastic. With no labeling requirements on products composed of mixed materials, I couldn't make informed decisions even if I wanted to.
Finally, not related to BPA (where alternatives exist if you're willing to look hard enough for them), sometimes the free market fails to provide an alternative. I was trying to find beef stock the other day to make Swedish Meatballs. I generally prefer to avoid MSG and corn syrup in my food products. Of the ~8-10 different varieties of beef stock on the shelf at my local supermarket, all but one of them had MSG (and in large quantities) and a majority (forget the exact number) featured corn syrup (and yes, the only one without MSG had corn syrup). I ended up going with the MSG-free variety (the sodium content was roughly 1/8 that of the standard beef stock from any other brand, and 1/4 the sodium in the "low sodium" varieties), but the free market wouldn't let me avoid corn syrup as well. Nor for that matter do I know if the can itself had a lining containing BPA; even if I wanted to avoid BPA I had no way of making that decision.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Unfortunately, the industry of "BPA free" products sprang up at pretty much exactly the same time that the industry of BPA free products did. It turns out that printing new labels is much easier than actually reformulating your products.
Also, the "Contains BPA; but nobody except professional toxicologists studying the subject and hardcore supply chain wonks knows that" industries have been largely unaffected.
Pretty much as theory would predict, the areas closest to ideal markets with zero barriers to entry and equally informed participants achieved something close to a free market solution. The areas that deviated from those assumptions, whether by fraud, subterfuge, imperfect information, or existence of externalities did not.
For those of you that don't want to dig through the links in the summary blog, here is a more in-depth discussion of the papers.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Except for all the people who will continue to use these products because they didn't hear.
So, we're supposed to craft a society to pander to those who are unwilling or incapable of doing their own research? Yeah, that should work out well....
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
According to Wikipedia you remember it wrong. And it wasn't the '90s, it was two years ago.
Also, later in the wiki article it says there's a link between BPA and both obesity and drug abuse.
Free Martian Whores!
We are simply "selecting" for people who stay well informed and actually have a decent IQ. We need to compensate for all dumbasses we are keeping alive despite their own unintentional efforts to put themselves out of the gene pool.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
The opposite of Idiocracy? We definitely need more products like this!
Sterilize the stupid, kill off the uneducated, yay!
No sig today...
Science is pretty good at detecting problems that kill you instantly. In this case, it would be a correlation between BPA exposure while pregnant and breast cancer your children get forty years later. It's difficult to make studies that prove this firmly.
The article didn't say that the study proved that BPA is dangerous. It said that they proved that BPA can cross the placenta. All it takes to prove that something possible is to record a single incident of it occurring. That is definitely within the realm of what a single study can do, and assuming that these studies were performed correctly, that is exactly what they did. There are a lot of things that cannot be conclusively proven with a single piece of evidence, but the use of the word in this headline here is perfectly legitimate.
I'm sure your grandfather's doctor said the same thing to him in the 1950s about cigarette smoking. "Bad for you? Nonsense, we'd have overwhelming evidence by now. Have a Camel, they're good for you!"
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
hmm. That on the off-chance that you reproduce (you are a slashdotter/geek/asexual), your sons will be female-ish. Unless you are seriously perverted this will not bring you or your androgynous children any joy. Female-ish, is not female, it is just, not-very-male.
Only I can judge you.
BPA as a chemical was discovered in the 19th century and it was investigated as a synthetic estrogen in the 1930s. However, it was never pursued as a production estrogen replacement (unlike DES). The question is, why not? Try to find an answer online--it's very difficult.
My understanding is that while it appeared to act like estrogen in the test tube, it turned out to have very little measurable estrogen-like effect in humans. My understanding is based on reading I did on BPA several years ago, but I have misplaced the citations. If anyone has a link to a detailed history of the pharma research involving BPA in the early 20th century, I'd be interested to read it. The Wikipedia article, for instance, is pretty much silent on anything involving BPA before a few years ago.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.