[Pharmwaste] THE BISPHENOL-A DILEMMA 'How is government responding? It's not'

[DeBiasi,Deborah]

http://www.insidebayarea.com/search//ci_5726815

THE BISPHENOL-A DILEMMA 
 
'How is government responding? It's not' 
 
By Douglas Fischer - Staff writer
Inside Bay Area 
Article Last Updated:04/22/2007 09:17:25 AM PDT 
 
Officially, Uncle Sam filters all decisions through the lens of improved
children's health. But in practice, some federal decisions subvert that,
critics note. 
Take bisphenol-a, a chemical developed as a synthetic estrogen in the
1930s. It never found much medical use, but industry chemists in the
1950s somehow discovered bisphenol-a's nifty ability to make plastic
shatterproof. 

Today the compound is found in baby bottles, Nalgene drink bottles and
other hard plastic products. It's also used to line tin food cans. 

Scientists lately have raised many troubling questions about the
comPLASTICINews 15pounds' abilities to scramble chromosomes and impair
reproductive health. Yet bisphenol-a has skirted President Clinton's
1997 executive order asking all federal agencies to focus on improving
the well-being of children. 

"How is the government responding? It's not," said Joy Carlson of
Oakland, who co-founded the Children's Environmental Health Network 

In the past few years, researchers studying laboratory animals have
found bisphenol-a acts like a hormone at exquisitely low levels,
scrambling chromosomes and impairing future reproductive health in the
very young. 

In March, two environmental watchdogs published two reports noting that
bisphenol-a leaches from bottles and food cans at levels near those
causing harm in animals, putting many Americans, particularly children,
at risk. 

Manufacturers use 6 billion pounds a year, yet the agency charged with
setting exposure standards to date has found no problems with its use. 

That agency is an obscure arm of the National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences called the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human
Reproduction. It is in the midst of assessing the chemical's health
risks. 

Leaking out of canned food samples 


In March, the Environmental Working Group announced it had found
bisphenol-a leaking out of half of nearly 100 samples of canned food
tested. Bisphenol-a is often applied as a coating inside food cans to
extend shelf life. But what caused the biggest stir in Congress was its
report that the government's health assessment was being compiled by a
contractor with ties to chemical companies manufacturing bisphenol-a. 

"The whole review panel is working with a 400-page document that was
compiled by an independent contractor," said Sonya Lunder, a researcher
with Environmental Working Group. "You have babies drinking formula who
are getting half the dose of lab rats showing permanent reproductive
defects. This is a sign we need to do something more serious
immediately." 

In a statement, the National Institute of Environmental Health noted
that the contractor, Sciences International Inc., was charged only with
finding and sorting the hundreds of scientific papers published in
recent years on bisphenol-a. It did not evaluate them or otherwise draw
any conclusions about the science; that work will be done by government
employees and scientists on the independent review panel. 

Sciences International, the agency said, had no "responsibilities that
would directly influence the outcome of (agency) decisions" regarding
the chemical. Nonetheless, the agency fired the company earlier this
month, six weeks after the conflict first came to light. 

And other governments, most recently the European Union in November,
have looked at the same data and found no reason for worry. 

"There's a huge amount of science," said Steve Hentges, executive
director of the American Chemistry Council's polycarbonate bisphenol-a
global group. "It's been reviewed by governments and agencies worldwide,
and they've all come out with the same range of conclusions." 

The Environmental Working Group study of canned food - canned beans,
soup, tomato sauce, tuna - found bisphenol-a in the food of 55 cans,
with some of the highest exposures - 10 to 18 parts per billion - in
chicken soup and infant formula. Researchers find that feeding rats a
daily dose of 20 ppb bisphenol-a alters their offspring's reproductive
systems. The EPA's "safe exposure dose," set in 1998, is 50 ppb per day,
and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's assessment is based on fewer
than 20 samples. 

'No margin of safety' 

The aim in the United States is for exposures to harmful products to be
from 1,000 to 3,000 times below levels that cause harm in laboratory
animals. "There's no margin of safety for the typical person who eats
one canned food product a day," Lunder said. 

Separately, Environment California measured the amount of bisphenol-a
leaking from commonly used shatterproof plastic baby bottles. To
simulate a bottle that's been repeatedly washed and dried in a
dishwasher, it cooked the bottles at 176 degrees for 24 hours and found
about the same amount of bisphenol-a leaching out as in food cans. 


The panel has suspended its work, citing the nearly 500 studies that
need to be assessed. Meanwhile, two California Democrats, Sen. Barbara
Boxer and Rep. Henry Waxman, have demanded to know more about the
contractor's role in developing the 400-page assessment. 

The panel is due to resume discussion "in the next few months,"
according to the agency.
 

Deborah L. DeBiasi
Email:   dldebiasi at deq.virginia.gov
WEB site address:  www.deq.virginia.gov
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
Office of Water Permit Programs
Industrial Pretreatment/Toxics Management Program
Mail:          P.O. Box 1105, Richmond, VA  23218 (NEW!)
Location:  629 E. Main Street, Richmond, VA  23219
PH:         804-698-4028
FAX:      804-698-4032