Plastic Chemical BPA Declared Toxic In Canada 168
Julie188 writes "The Canadian government has formally declared bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical widely used to create clear, hard plastics, as well as food can liners, to be a toxic substance. Does this mean that you'll be tackled by the Canadian Mounties if you stroll around with some bottled water? Not exactly. Being a toxic chemical doesn't mean you can't get a little love. The government will at first try and set limits on how much BPA can be released into the air or water by factories that use the compound."
But asbestos is fine! (Score:5, Insightful)
So, our wonderful government declares BPA toxic, while at the same time continuing to deny asbestos's toxicity and exporting asbestos to the rest of the world.
It's all domestic politics. Banning asbestos would annoy Quebec, the major producer...
Re:But asbestos is fine! (Score:5, Informative)
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Everything not a singular element is a chemical compound of some sort or another.
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Re:But asbestos is fine! (Score:5, Informative)
Not exactly. Asbestos particles, when inhaled chronically, lead to mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is not lung cancer; it is a cancer of the pleura which cover the lungs. Asbestos particles, because of their form and other characteristics are especially capable of piercing the alveoli and reaching the pleura. Asbestos particles are only 3,000-20,000 nm long, and only 10 nm in diameter (a human hair is 17,000-180,000 nm in diameter; a red blood cell is 8,000 nm in diameter). Only rarely does exposure to any other substance lead to mesothelioma. Smoking, and exposure to other types of particulates, preponderantly leads to forms of lung cancer rather than mesothelioma.
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That really doesn't make it a toxin. That's a physical characteristic, doing physical damage to the lung.
You're right that those physical characteristics are somewhat unique, and thus cause somewhat unique symptoms, but that doesn't make asbestos a toxin. It's not some chemical, like BPA, that interacts on a molecular level, where that chemical interaction causes cancer.
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Absolutely. We should all be clear that the tissue insult is physical, not chemical.
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Exactly. It'd be a little like declaring a sharp knife to be a "toxin". A sharp knife can be very dangerous to your body's tissues, since it can easily slice you open, but it's not a toxin, just a physical object that happens to have a sharp edge.
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Whatever the mechanism by which asbestos damages your lungs, this is the real hypocrisy: Asbestos is strictly regulated in Canada, but Canada exports the stuff for use in countries with lax or no regulation.
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Is that hypocrisy? Canada can't control the laws in other countries, and asbestos still has many valid uses, as long as it's handled properly. Nitroglycerin is dangerous too, but handled properly is very useful. Is someone a "hypocrite" for exporting explosives to countries with lax regulation for use in demolitions?
If Canada refused to export to countries without strict regulation, how well do you think that's going to go over diplomatically? That's basically insulting the purchasing country.
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Is someone a "hypocrite" for exporting explosives to countries with lax regulation for use in demolitions?
Yes, absolutely.
If Canada refused to export to countries without strict regulation, how well do you think that's going to go over diplomatically?
People's health and wellbeing is more important than diplomacy, and if countries with lax regulation feel "insulted", well... too bad.
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Well then any foreign gun manufacturers should refuse to export to America where criminal gun violence is so rampant.
Japan and Germany must also also be hypocrites for exporting cars to the US, which mandates relatively pathetic levels of driver training and car maintenance.
Oh really? (Score:2)
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Actually it's very easy to keep it out of the air. Asbestos is like glass, once you break it, you get explosive contamination of it, with shards everywhere. Otherwise it's a cheap, effective, and very useful material.
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And how much glass is broken on any given day?
If glass was carcinogenic when broken, it too would be illegal to use.
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We use it every day, it's called 'pink' or fiberglass. And it's just as dangerous as asbestos when not used with proper breathing equipment.
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The real problem is that any good isolation is made up of small particulate matter(asbestos, fiberglass, blown cellulose), or is made from toxic chemicals(spray foam of all types). There's no real way to get around the whole 'toxic while applying' but there are ways to mitigate the damage it can cause you while you're applying it.
Even back in the 30's through to the 50's they knew asbestos wasn't really good for you. The solution then was to use asbestos weave(bandage), which was soaked or sprayed with wa
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I had gathered that asbestos is perfectly safe and fine as long as it stays out of your lungs
Essentially, yes. Too much of that--or the oft-feared Dihydrogen Monoxide--can kill you.
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Now, instead of killing people with toxic fibers in the air, we clog up their arteries instead.
Seriously, there was one study done on asbestos exposure to miners, and it turned out that the miners who smoked were 900 TIMES more likely to get lung problems.
Re:But asbestos is fine! (Score:4, Interesting)
100 years ago, lung cancer was so rare that doctors would tell their students to take a good look, because they'd probably never see another case in their lifetime. People were smoking back then, but we didn't have both bomb residues and high levels of asbestos dust (asbestos brake shoes meant that pretty much everyone has bee exposed).
Re:But asbestos is fine! (Score:5, Interesting)
Actinides (other than uranium and plutonium) are rare in bomb fallout. You are probably thinking of polonium.
Anyway, if biological fallout uptake were the principal driver for the relationship between smoking and lung cancer, then the dose-response relationship -- first measured in the 1950s -- should have changed by roughly a factor of two during the course of the 1960s.
One would expect both incidence and mortality of lung cancer to be rarer in Europe and the US prior the 1930s because mortality from other causes was higher. Furthermore, cigarette smoking became much more popular in the early 1900s, perhaps corresponding with the rise of the cinema. It's not that people didn't smoke tobacco before then... but they were almost always pipe-smokers.
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I don't think you need to look for anything quite so complex to see why lung cancer was barely ever diagnosed 100 years ago.
In 1910, a White US male who made it to 30 would live on average to about 65. According to the WHO, average age, today, for people to be diagnosed with lung cancer is 70. Take into account too that diagnostic science was much less advanced and it's hardly surprising that most doctors would never find a case of lung cancer.
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Of course, the total population has almost quadrupled as well - that means a much larger sample size to draw from.
Fortunately, we can't do a "live double-blind" test. What we *can* do is try to get people to stop, or at least reduce, the amount they smoke.
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The fact that the average age of diagnosis is 70 does not support the assertion that "50% [...] get lung cancer well under the age of 70", for two reasons. First it only shows that 50% of those diagnosed are under 70, not "well under". Second it confuses the ideas of "getting" lung cancer with being diagnosed - and this is critical when discussing why there were lower rates of diagnosis in the past. 100 years ago it was very difficult to diagnose lung cancer - more often than not, apparently, it was simply
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Think about it, and it should be obvious ... :-)
Sure, a lot of it was labeled "consumption" - but that was a catch-all phrase, same as today we say "cancer", when we could be dealing with cancers caused by cell mutation, by viruses, by chemical disruptors - all very different.
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Example - prostate cancer - if you're beyond a certain age, it's simply not worth treating because it's usua
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Re:But asbestos is fine! (Score:5, Funny)
Political asbestos maneuverings are indeed serpentine, aren't they?
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I think the reason for the BPA toxic classification stems from the Canadian governments agenda to use Maple Syrup as an alternative in plastic manufacturing.
I would expect similar measures put on the manufacturing of Asbestos following a solid breakthrough in the research and development of maplebestos.
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The problem with asbestos is not the material itself. It was how it was used and the conditions in which it was produced. The ban and fear of asbestos was purely emotional and political. Of course, I agree that it still requires proper toxicity and hazard classification to ensure proper handling. I do not know the current status of asbestos regarding hazardous material classification.
A nice parallel we could make is the one with lead, although lead is much more dangerous than asbestos. It has some very impo
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But for some reason, the political playground pushed for a total ban of the product, regardless of its handling, usage or type (because, yes, there are different types of asbestos having different effects when exposed to it).
Impractical, for example, unless you magically train and regulate all illegal alien construction workers and demolition workers...
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So instead of properly identifying the risk of a product and for which applications it is suited or not, we should totally ban it because illegal alien construction workers may be put in arms way due to the use of the product over 3 decades ago? Amazing logic.
This is exactly the kind of logic, thoughts and statement we should keep out of product regulation processes.
The rest of the world needs to follow suit (Score:5, Informative)
Thermal Receipts have the most BPA (Score:3, Interesting)
If you get a receipt and then eat your burger is the receipt a food product regulated in the same way you might regulate a plastic fork?
In Canada regulation will all depend on if the receipt paper is made in Quebec or near Ottawa.
Re:Thermal Receipts have the most BPA (Score:4, Funny)
Oddly enough, I usually don't eat the receipt.
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Bisphenol A is a coating painted on thermal paper that readily comes off onto your hands and will transfer onto anything you touch. This stuff must be coating everything near the cash registers at your local supermarket. There's apparently 60-100mg of Bisphenol A on the average receipt. At least in polycarbonate it's bonded into the plastic and doesn't just come out.
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But you touch it, and then eat with your hands without washing them because hey it's just a receipt. If the concentration is high enough, this can matter.
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It also affects our reproductive systems. People really need to be aware that the use of plastics containing BPA is harmful and that use of this substance is currently ubiquitous throughout the world.
Given that our world is overpopulated, and the population is growing rapidly, would it really be such a bad thing if our reproductive systems were dampened a little? And I actually am not trying to be funny here. I'm somewhat half serious. Would mankind be better off if we started having fewer babies?
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Not this way. The parent said BPA "has now been linked to different types of breast cancer, heart disease and endocrine disorders." Any benefit you might get from slowing reproduction down a little will be much more than made up for by these other health problems.
If you want to find some insidious chemical to limit reproduction, find something that doesn't hurt peoples' health in other ways. We need a population that is stable, yet healthy. We spend way too much on healthcare as it is, as a society.
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We already do have fewer babies. Birthrates in almost all of the western world (Europe, Canada, and the US) are below replacement rate. The only reason the above countries are experiencing population growth is immigration. Some countries, such as Germany, Japan, and Russia, are currently experiencing negative population growth.
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Travel to any developing country (Score:3, Insightful)
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(note inside of cans is lined with BPA and prices WILL GO UP if it is changed. go up as in, consumers will stop buying it because the main point of buying it is low price and speed of preparation)
Non-BPA cans are barely more expensive. If consumers don't buy canned food because it's a cent more expensive then good riddance, it's mostly crap anyway.
Glass Brita Pitcher!? (Score:2)
Re:Glass Brita Pitcher!? (Score:5, Informative)
I hope Brita comes out with a glass pitcher...
I'm pretty certain they'll come out with a BPA-free plastic version instead, since that's all the rage in bottles and food containers for infants.
Personally, I'd be happy to have a world free of BPA. Unfortunately, that's going to be very difficult as it's found in many common items. For some, there are plastics that are good alternatives, but others, it will be some time before alternates can be found. In particular, epoxy binders used wood-based sheet goods production (particle board, chip board, flooring, etc.) are bad and are going to be around for a long time since there is so much of it installed.
My family and I have stopped eating anything that comes in a can. Not only are cans typically lined with BPA-bearing plastics, but the contents are in intimate contact for a very long time. Avoiding canned foods has been pretty easy with one exception: canned tomatoes. If anyone has a good solution for those, I'd love to hear it.
Re:Glass Brita Pitcher!? (Score:5, Informative)
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Okay, but going to McDonalds is practically begging for a multitude of other health problems.
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Canned tomatoes? Have your taste buds fallen off? Can em yourself in jars if you're planning for some nuclear winter.
I cook. A lot. About 5-6 dinners per week for my family (yes, married with kid --- geeks can get lucky) plus lunches on weekends. Many recipes work best with canned tomatoes, and tomato paste. Tomato pasta sauce would be an alternative, since it's nominally available in glass jars still, but what we've been able to find in our area is a lot more than just tomatoes so can't be used in many recipes. That is, unless you want your chicken cacciatore, briam, or arni kokkinisto to taste like pasta sauce (hin
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Here's a protip: you are way less cool than you think you are. Recipes with canned ingredients and everything. Although it sounds like you've already arrived at my suggestion, so thanks for coming out.
I'll continue buying tomatoes of varying freshness from CSA to farmer market to nice grocery store to ghetto grocery store all season till they repeat per your enlightened holy schedule... And 90% will rot before I use em.
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Ignore the weirdos, normal people use canned tomatoes all the time. In the UK you can now get chopped tomatoes in cardboard cartons, so that's one option if you can find that. Also lookout for Passata and/or sugocasa, usually in large glass jars though may cost a little more.
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Eh, most likely, they are plasticised!
Glass jars or fresh toms then. Problem solved.
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Next summer, though, I'm going to try to buy a boatload of tomatoes from the good organic farm we recently found and try canning our own sauce for the off season.
Hint: "Organic" just means that the farm has paid for and passing a type of certification process.
Hint: "good" means "good"
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Ok, but try finding a local farm that isn't organic. Seriously, go down to the farmer's market and peruse the farms and try find ONE that's not a advertising they're "organic."
Hint: organic means that more people will buy it (people who are easily fooled by worthless labels AND people who want local foods but don't care about the label). So the prices are higher, and small local farmers need all the price help they can get, since they can't make up for it in volume.
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One other major use of BPA you may not know about is as a coating on sales slips. BPA is easily absorbed from these coatings just by handling them without gloves. For shoppers, the exposure is not much, but for someone working a cash register all day, it's a problem.
The sickest part of all this is that we guessed BPA could be trouble as far back as the 1930s! It's frightening how special interests have managed to keep these rather important safety questions from being answered for almost 80 years. BPA
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Sorry, I have to disagree about executive pay. While I think it's ridiculous when CEOs are giving hundreds of millions in bonuses or salaries, those are privately-owned companies, and they're free to (over)pay as much as they want to. The last thing we need is the government telling people how much money they can pay each other.
If you want to do something about executive compensation, get government out of the business of favoring big companies (and bailing them out when they fail due to their own incompe
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No I do not advocate having the government just arbitrarily cap executive pay. However, threatening to do so might be useful. And might not be. That sort of thing is exactly the wrong move, as it gives credence to all the screaming over government interference. One area of government interference I'd love to seen the end of is patents.
Another idea, to make companies put pay packages up for a vote with all the stockholders, has some promise. Employees should have a say as well, and it seems the only w
Re:Glass Brita Pitcher!? (Score:4, Insightful)
but outsiders so seldom win office (the most recent one I can think of is Ventura in Minnesota), that I feel it's usually better to try for the lesser of the 2 evils than throw my vote away on a futile protest.
This is exactly the mentality that prevents outsiders from ever winning office. If you vote for evil, then you will surely get evil.
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While I think it's ridiculous when CEOs are giving hundreds of millions in bonuses or salaries, those are privately-owned companies, and they're free to (over)pay as much as they want to.
Yes. And then their overpaid executards buy off Congress, loot their companies and run them into the ground, wreck the economy and demand trillion dollar bailouts funded by people who actually do productive work.
So no, letting a bunch of obvious crooks and psychopaths steal all they want doesn't actually work in practice.
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Yes. And then their overpaid executards buy off Congress, loot their companies and run them into the ground, wreck the economy and demand trillion dollar bailouts funded by people who actually do productive work.
Right; if you have a problem with that, you need to take it up with Congress (by voting better), so that wrecked companies are not bailed out at all. No failed company should EVER be bailed out by the government; there is simply no good reason for it, and it only rewards failure and mismanagement.
S
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http://www.heyamy.com/blog/ [heyamy.com]
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You have any references for those numbers?
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It seems pretty obvious that there would be varying levels of re
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I was going to say "You must not have any idea how much work that is", but reading your comment, that's clearly wrong.
It is still true, however, that that's a lot of intensive work during a couple of months of the year, and you need to have enough space to store the results. (I've done it, and didn't like it. Others seem to get into it. YMMV. But remember that you need to be able to store the results of your efforts. It makes loads of sense if you live on a farm where space is cheap. A lot less sense
Bottled water (Score:2)
You already can't bring bottled water into an airport anyway; this won't make any difference. :P
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Fine, Canada (Score:5, Funny)
Fine, Canada. We're going to declare Justin Bieber a toxic substance.
Your move.
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We're going to declare Justin Bieber a toxic substance.
Don't encourage him. - Or he'll drive 11year old girls even more crazy.
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You mean exposure to Justin Bieber presents neurological symptoms in children? Ban him! Ban him immediately!
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We wholeheartedly agree, but recycling him would require a major effort to ensure safe disposal. Would you be willing to help with that?
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An empty threat, since you've allowed extensive exposure to Celine Dion for decades now.
Re:Fine, Canada (Score:4, Funny)
Fine, Canada. We're going to declare Justin Bieber a toxic substance.
Justin Bieber is living proof of the fact that BPA mimics the effects of estrogen.
Warning label is in order (Score:2, Insightful)
Warning label is in order (Score:2)
Do not eat the bottle.
All plastics, including BPA-free varities, leach into liquids stored into them, even though they are often made of multiple layers of plastic with different properties designed to prevent this. Period, the end.
As a wise man who was once a physics professor at UCLA said to me, I don't trust plastics. They look a little too much like hormones.
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Do not eat the bottle.
Or perhaps:
Do not eat bottle with remaining mouth.
Being a father with a paranoid mother... (Score:4, Informative)
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What about #7? (Score:2)
Wait, I heard #7s have BPA.
Define "toxic" (Score:2)
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I realise reading is hard, but:
"""
This includes substances
* that were found to meet the categorization criteria for persistence, bioaccumulation potential and inherent toxicity to non-human organisms, and that are known to be in commerce, or of commercial interest, in Canada; these substances are considered to be high priorities for assessment of ecological risk; and/or
* that were found either to meet the categorization criteria for greatest potential for exposure of Canadians or to present an intermediate
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I agree wholeheartedly that the summary is not very fine, and the word 'toxic' out of context is meaningless.
In this case it is a designation that means that the chemical will be regulated by the CEPA. It has nothing to do with a finding of actual toxicity at some particular level, only that there will be regulations issued to control exposure to BPA, primarily occupational exposure in this case since of course that's where the greatest risk is.
In reality there is no particular evidence that current US EPA
Canada bans BPA (Score:5, Funny)
or was it just misheard, maybe they wanted to ban BP Eh
Concentration? (Score:2)
Does anyone out there know what kinds of concentrations of BPA start causing (significant) harm to humans and how it compares to what you get from plastic bottles? Whenever I hear about the horrors of BPA, my inner cynic tells me that it's the new secondhand smoke.
BPA declared toxic in Canada (Score:2, Insightful)
but the vast oceans of residue from tar sands mining has now been proven both nutritious and delicious, eh!
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Which residue would that be?
http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2772627 [fortmcmurraytoday.com]
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Those statements *aren't* contradictory.
Many (most?) medicines are poisons when taken improperly, which usually means excessively. Actually, many are even poisons when taken at the proper dose. It's just that the poison does less damage than that which it is medicating.
That said, it's pretty clear that BPA is a estrogen mimic that is damaging especially to children, but also to adults. It doesn't appear to have any redeeming biochemical effects. I *think* that it's also been linked to cancer, and is th