All eyes on China

More Bisphenol A blowback, apparently, SF parents are switching to glass.

Glass baby bottles making comeback / Stores selling out after health alarms raised about plastics

Glass baby bottles, replaced decades ago by unbreakable plastic, are making such a comeback that parents can’t get their hands on them.

Online and brick-and-mortar retailers report a run on glass baby bottles in recent weeks that they say was spurred by reports that the most common type of plastic in baby bottles may leach a toxic chemical.

San Francisco resident Sean Mullins said he decided to switch his 6-month-old son, Mickey, from plastic to glass bottles last month despite manufacturers’ insistence that plastic bottles are safe.

Independent tests done for The Chronicle and reported in November found bisphenol A, a chemical that mimics estrogen, in a baby bottle and several toys. Bisphenol A is also found in the lining of food cans, some anti-cavity sealants for teeth, and electronics.

Watch for plastics manufacturers to fight back, this study ought to provide some ammo.

Comparison of six samples of each of three brands of water available in both glass and polyethyelene terephthalate (PET(E)) showed that the waters bottled in glass contained approximately 57, 30, and 26 times more Pb due to leaching from the containers. Our study includes 25 brands of bottled water from Canada, and the median Pb concentration in these samples was 15.9 ng/L (n = 25), with a range from 2.1 to 268 ng/L. For comparison with the bottled waters, pristine groundwater from six artesian flows in southern Ontario, Canada, where some of the bottled waters originate, yielded a median concentration of 5.1 ng/L Pb (n = 18). In fact, all of the waters tested were well below the maximum allowable concentration established by the EU, Health Canada, and the WHO for Pb in drinking water (10000 ng/L).

It all depends on which bolded sentence you chose to emphasize! So, glass bottles do leach some lead out, but nowhere near the amount needed to cause any effects whatsoever. I guess this is all the American Chemistry Council can come up with as a problem with glass.

It’s irrefutable that glass can shatter, Hentges said. But there is “no scientific basis to conclude that BPA is something to be concerned about … at the extremely low levels that people might be exposed to from use of consumer products.”

There is plenty of scientific basis to conclude that Bisphenol A has some very subtle effects at ambient doses. But science has never stopped the American Chemistry Council!

The LA Times features a study arising from the Silent Spring institute.

Common chemicals are linked to breast cancer – Los Angeles Times

More than 200 chemicals — many found in urban air and everyday consumer products — cause breast cancer in animal tests, according to a compilation of scientific reports published today.

Writing in a publication of the American Cancer Society, researchers concluded that reducing exposure to the compounds could prevent many women from developing the disease.

The research team from five institutions analyzed a growing body of evidence linking environmental contaminants to breast cancer, the leading killer of U.S. women in their late 30s to early 50s.

Experts say that family history and genes are responsible for a small percentage of breast cancer cases but that environmental or lifestyle factors such as diet are probably involved in the vast majority.

“Overall, exposure to mammary gland carcinogens is widespread,” the researchers wrote in a special supplement to the journal Cancer. “These compounds are widely detected in human tissues and in environments, such as homes, where women spend time.”

The scientists said data were too incomplete to estimate how many breast cancer cases might be linked to chemical exposures.

The resources to come out of this study include two databases, one that summarizes animal mechanistic studies, and one that summarizes human epidemiological studies. It’s a good start and I hope these databases are continually expanded. The study was essentially a big lit review and data organization project.

There are two major issues with the way carcinogenicity is studied. Firstly, animals other than humans are dosed at high levels to test for possible cancer outcomes. This leaves most researchers vulnerable to the charge that these high dose studies do not translate well to humans because the dose-response relationship at ambient levels is not well studied. So, the obvious criticism is that just because cancer endpoints were seen at high levels does not mean that the same thing will happen at low levels. This cuts both ways, though. We’re seeing with bisphenol A that low doses can cause more harm than intermediate doses. Another issue is the additivity of the interactions. Does 1 “dose” of PAH + 1 “dose” of PCB = 2 “doses” of PAH? We’re exposed to a whole host of chemicals all our lives, who knows which ones add, which ones subtract, which ones multiply, etc.

Of course, as with most diseases, some macro variables dominate. For instance, the US has seen 8-9% decline in breast cancer incidence recently due to a decreased use of hormone replacement therapy. So, as with all diseases, taking care of some of these big ticket items is very important. One discouraging story I read today reported on a four percentage point decline in mammograms (70 to 66%) in women age 40 and older. Why? decreased access to health insurance and dropping the ball on promotion.

The depressing fact of the matter is that the boring basics of good preventative healthcare, screening, good lifestyle and diet are the most important factors, and if we take care of these factors, we will make most health issues easier to deal with.