Canada first to label BPA as dangerous

Hello all,

Since earlier this week Health Canada officially labeled bisphenol-A as a dangerous chemical, I was wondering what some of your thoughts are on this topic and perhaps plastics in general.

I know the BPA debate has been going on for quite some time now and it is good I think that finally a large country has stepped up and brought attention to what could be a dangerous product to a lot of people's health, especially babies.

And yes of course the plastic companies were quick to jump all over this saying you'd have to consume something like 600kg of it in some amount of time to make a difference....but we know where they are coming from.  With out bodies sometimes tiny amounts of something result in big changes and negative outcomes and when it comes to hormones and hormone disruptors - that is definitely true.

You can read one article here on this news from the Globe and Mail - however I am sure the internet is crawling with articles on this now.

Thanks for sharing that, Evita!

"U.S. tests have found that more than 90 per cent of the population carries in their bodies trace residues of the chemical, whose molecular shape allows it to mimic the female hormone estrogen. Small amounts of BPA can leach from food and beverage containers during use, such as when they are heated, exposed to harsh dishwashing chemicals, or contain acidic substances. Health Canada is testing Canadians' BPA levels, but the results will not be available for several years." (from the Globe and Mail article)

I don't know about you guys, but I'd definitely rather err on the side of the precautionary principle when it comes to endocrine disruptors and their potential effects on reproductive systems and human/animal development.

Yes I completely agree. I have stopped using plastic containers all together for leftovers, drinks, etc. no matter what number they are. I know #2,4 and 5 are considered safe, but plastic is extremely synthetic and people got by without it for so many years, I found that it really is not hard to eliminate plastic food containers out of my life.  There are some odd exceptions like when we buy yogurt but that is about it. We don't buy canned food either, aside from the odd canned fruit, so that I feel cuts down our BPA levels significantly.

A hormone disruptor is definitely nothing to take lightly. What I find so backwards is the plastic companies who of course are fighting this every step of the way. I understand that to them it is about money and staying in the business, but what a unique mentality:

a) you are not working towards the greater good, but causing harm to people's health and the environment, including their own too I am sure

AND

b) there is still money to be made if they were just intelligent enough to reformulate and switch over to say corn based plastics.

It is just too bad that so many businesses out there today have the all or nothing mentality and are so stubborn to change especially for the greater good of all humanity.

It sounds to me like it's mostly an issue for infants due to formula and the packaging it's contained in.  Adults get extremely low levels of BPA (less than 1.5 ppb per day).  The EPA says 50 ppb per day is safe, and while that's not based on animal studies, I can tell you from experience that the EPA is conservative when setting exposure limits like this.

Until more research is done, the precautionary principle is always a safe bet.  Personally I'm not concerned about it though.