BPA Leaches From Polycarbonate Bottles Into Humans 251
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."
Old? (Score:5, Informative)
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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Hey! I haven't seen an astroturfer here on Slashdot in two whole days! Thanks for keeping the faith!
Re:Old? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like the industrial sugar that's in 99% of all American (and 90% of all European) "food"? ^^
Re:Old? (Score:4, Interesting)
Corn Syrup.
Michael Pollan has got the number on that. Backed by European studies on endocrine dysfunction and appetite distortion.
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Thankfully, here in Australia we have cane-sugar! And an obesity level approaching America's... Wait a second!
HFCS is not precisely the problem [nytimes.com].
Re:Old? (Score:4, Insightful)
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? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.)
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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? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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It is different because before, manufacturers claimed that BPA was released only when heated.
Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula (Score:5, Funny)
This could grow tits on a frog.
Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula (Score:4, Funny)
Hmmm .... so, do you mean that like growing a human ear on a mouse [kidzworld.com] 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
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Hmmm .... so, do you mean that like growing a human ear on a mouse [kidzworld.com] 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...
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Well, yeah. But, loking at the rules [encycloped...matica.com], 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
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Exactly!
The absurdity of the proposition is targeted to illustrate the level of hormonal disturbance that is being courted.
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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 tha
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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 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula (Score:5, Funny)
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With a tongue like a frog, who wouldn't want one as a girlfriend.
Re:Combined with Phyto-Estrogens from Soy Formula (Score:5, Funny)
You're assuming he had a choice.
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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 [michelesworld.net]
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I think he meant a real one, not an inflatable.
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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.
No! (Score:2)
What a surprise! Who would have guessed that nasty stuff would leach out of plastic into the liquids in the bottles...?
Delicious Uranium (Score:3, Funny)
Well, either that or the enriched uranium canisters that mountain dew comes in.
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Regardless, his point stands: soda tastes best out of glass bottles, when available.
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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 (Score:5, Informative)
At least RTF summary before you accuse people of mass hysteria. It says that aluminum beverage can liners contain BPA.
Re:Delicious Uranium (Score:4, Interesting)
Soda bottles are made fomr PET.
Oh, Good. [nih.gov]
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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 shou
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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.
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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?
Bulletin? Bulletin? (Score:5, Informative)
These bottles were banned two years ago, though not in the USA. This is hardly a bulletin.
Re:Bulletin? Bulletin? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can the US government finally get on the fucking ball and ban BPA? I'm sick of catering to business interests.
Re:Bulletin? Bulletin? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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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 o
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Translation:
;-)
Don't expect to see a well founded anaysis with references here on Slashdot
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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
Nalgene (Score:5, Informative)
soy milk (Score:4, Interesting)
has genistein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genistein [wikipedia.org]
genistein is a potent estrogen mimic
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: (Score:3, Funny)
"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
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There's no coconut titty either, but...
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If she's only got soyabeans, rather than coconuts or melons, you probably aren't going to compliment them.
Re:soy milk (Score:5, Funny)
"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.
Good old glass (Score:2, Interesting)
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As odd as it may sound, some German beer brands are sold in plastic bottles. They taste like crap, but they do exist.
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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.
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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.
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Here is an example for canned beer:
http://einestages.spiegel.de/external/ShowTopicAlbumBackground/a1876/l20/l0/F.html#featuredEntry [spiegel.de]
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.
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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.
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they sell American beer in plastic bottles around the pool in Vegas. neat, really :)
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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. :)
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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.
Very old news? (Score:4, Informative)
BPA in plastic bottles was banned in Canada last year.
Re:Very old news? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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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"
Good News (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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Please don't. We don't want you to starve to death!
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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.
Great! Science Schmience (Score:5, Funny)
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 [erefinancing.org]
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FUD? Doesn't seem to harm infants... (Score:4, Interesting)
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
Removing it from the environment (Score:2, Interesting)
It's so great... (Score:2)
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There's no need to warm infant formula.
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No wonder this generation will die younger than their parents!
That's a pretty big call there.
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great news. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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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... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:4, Insightful)
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:
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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
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However, such actions have been largely preemptive, as no epidemiologic study has evaluated the physiological consequences of polycarbonate bottle use.
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Here [ehponline.org] 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 washo
half-life (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:half-life (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
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...)
Can linings (Score:4, Interesting)
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 :-(
Understanding dose-response (Score:2, Interesting)
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 c [phdcomics.com]
...Into Humans (Score:2)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
'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.
Great (Score:2)
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.
Just out of curiousity... (Score:3, Interesting)
What kind of symptoms would someone experience or exhibit if poisoned by this?