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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/bpa-is-still-everywhere-and-mounting-evidence-suggests-harmful-effects/2013/12/06/2ff4a462-5b5d-11e3-a49b-90a0e156254b_story.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/bpa-is-still-everywhere-and-mounting-evidence-suggests-harmful-effects/2013/12/06/2ff4a462-5b5d-11e3-a49b-90a0e156254b_story.html</a></span><o:p></o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="6" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:24.0pt;color:windowtext;font-weight:bold">BPA is still everywhere, and mounting evidence
suggests harmful effects<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext"><img border="0" width="606" height="403" id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.jpg@01CEF65C.EF77E800" alt="http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/12/05/Production/Health/Images/iStock_000012079349Medium.jpg"></span></font><font color="black"><span lang="EN" style="color:windowtext"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">iStockphoto - BPA is found in such common items as receipts from ATM
machines.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="4" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:13.5pt;color:windowtext;font-weight:bold">By Amanda Mascarelli, Published: December 9<a href="mailto:health-science@washpost.com?subject=Reader%20feedback%20for%20'BPA%20is%20still%20everywhere,%20and%20mounting%20evidence%20suggests%20harmful%20effects'"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">E-mail
the writer</span></font></a> <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">These days the baby aisle shelves are lined with products proudly announcing:
“BPA-free.” As a mom and a consumer, this is reassuring. BPA (bisphenol A), a chemical used in the production of plastics and many other products,
<a href="http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm297954.htm"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">has been linked to a variety of health problems such as reproductive disorders, diabetes and cardiovascular disease</span></font></a>. A 2003-2004
national health survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found BPA in more than 93 percent of 2,517 urine samples from people age 6 and older.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">In 2008, the Food and Drug Administration<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/26/ST2008042602242.html"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">
stated that BPA was safe for use in food-related materials </span></font></a>such as plastic food containers and the linings of food and beverage cans, including containers for liquid infant formula. Last year, the FDA ruled that BPA could no longer be used
in the manufacturing of baby bottles and sippy cups; this action came after the chemical industry and major manufacturers had abandoned the use of BPA in those products.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">But the chemical is found in many other common items: medical devices,
dental sealants and compact discs, to name a few. Even paper receipts from the grocery store and ATM machines often contain BPA. In short, it’s pretty hard to avoid the chemical.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">In the past few years, the FDA has expressed greater concern about
BPA. In 2009,<a href="http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/sya-bpa/"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue"> the National Institutes of Health launched</span></font></a> a $30 million, five-year program in collaboration with the FDA and the CDC
to examine long-term health outcomes associated with developmental exposure to BPA. Research from this effort will be pouring out over the next few years. But the studies already emerging continue to add to the evidence that the safety of BPA is highly uncertain.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">These and many other studies have converged on a central message: Even
at low levels and particularly during prenatal development and early childhood, exposure to BPA — known to mimic the hormone estrogen — can have subtle but detrimental effects.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">When chemicals such as BPA mimic hormones, it leads to what’s called
endocrine disruption. “The effect is not necessarily toxic in the traditional sense,” says
<a href="http://www.edf.org/people/sarah-vogel"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">Sarah Vogel</span></font></a>, director of the health program at the Environmental Defense Fund and author of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Is-It-Safe-Struggle-Chemicals/dp/0520273583/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1386169904&sr=8-2&keywords=is+it+safe%3F"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">Is
it Safe? BPA and the Struggle to Define the Safety of Chemicals</span></font></a>,” but it is a disruption.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Hormonal signals work the way a lock and key work. We have receptors
(the locks) that receive signals from hormones (the keys). “[BPA] is almost like a little master key because it can fit into many of these little locks that are in your body and in your cells,” says
<a href="http://people.virginia.edu/~efr2f/rissman.htm"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">Emilie Rissman</span></font></a>, a behavioral neuroendocrinologist at the University of Virginia.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Rissman and other researchers are finding that when humans and other
animals are exposed to BPA during critical developmental windows such as in the womb and in infancy, the chemical can scramble cellular signals and leave lasting biological effects.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">For instance,
<a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/18/1207854109.abstract"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">a 2012 study</span></font></a> found that when female rhesus monkeys were exposed to low doses of BPA during their second or third trimesters
of pregnancy, the chemical caused defects in egg formation in the offspring. In <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23757601">
<font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">other studies </span></font></a>of the same rhesus monkeys, researchers found abnormalities in the development of other organ systems including the
<u><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">brain</span></font></u>, lungs and
<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22566636"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">reproductive tract
</span></font></a>following prenatal BPA exposure.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">BPA has also been linked to
<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=10.1289/ehp.1205063"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">obesity</span></font></a> and
<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0031109">
<font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">Type 2 diabetes</span></font></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Researchers have also found that newborn rats that were exposed to
low doses of BPA for a short period <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2276876/">
<font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">had a significantly higher risk of prostate cancer
</span></font></a>(an estrogen-induced cancer) later in life. “It’s as if early life exposure [to BPA] programmed a memory in the prostate gland,” says Gail Prins, a physiologist at the University of Illinois in Chicago who led that research. In soon-to-be
published studies, Prins’s group has found nearly identical results with human prostates created from stem cells and exposed to BPA during development.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Prins’s work and that of others is finding that BPA is causing alterations
at the level of the epigenome — the modifications, or tags, that tell genes when to turn on and off. For instance,
<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23716699"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">a study published this year found that BPA disturbs the epigenetic programming
</span></font></a>of gene expression in the brains of mice.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Most concerning, recent studies suggest that these epigenetic changes
may be heritable between generations. Rissman and her colleagues have found that low-level exposure to BPA in pregnant mice suppresses
<a href="http://endo.endojournals.org/content/early/2012/06/15/en.2012-1195.abstract">
<font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">gene expression of two proteins</span></font></a> that are important in
<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24100195"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">regulating social behavior
</span></font></a>— oxytocin and vasopressin — and alters social behaviors in the fourth generation (the great-great grandchildren) of the exposed mice. The implications of Rissman’s work are “profoundly disturbing,” says Pete Myers, chief scientist at Environmental
Health Sciences, a nonprofit research organization in Charlottesville. The levels of BPA that Rissman is experimenting with, he notes, are in the same range as those found in most people.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">We can reduce our BPA exposure
<a href="http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/sya-bpa/"><font color="blue"><span style="color:blue">by making choices</span></font></a> such as opting for electronic receipts, using fresh and frozen vegetables rather than canned, choosing glass and
stainless steel containers and not microwaving food in polycarbonate plastic containers. (The heat in a microwave can cause plastic to break down, allowing BPA to leach into food or liquids.) Still, the chemical is all around us, and there is controversy around
whether current replacements are any safer.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">Deborah L. DeBiasi</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><b><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy;font-weight:bold">Email: Deborah.DeBiasi@deq.virginia.gov</span></font></b><b><i><font size="2" color="red"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:red;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic"><br>
</span></font></i></b><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">WEB site address:
<a href="http://www.deq.virginia.gov/">www.deq.virginia.gov</a></span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">Virginia Department of Environmental Quality</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">Office of Water Permits
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">Industrial Pretreatment/Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) Program</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">PPCPs, EDCs, and Microconstituents<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><a href="http://www.deq.virginia.gov/Programs/Water/PermittingCompliance/PollutionDischargeElimination/Microconstituents.aspx">http://www.deq.virginia.gov/Programs/Water/PermittingCompliance/PollutionDischargeElimination/Microconstituents.aspx</a></span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">Mail: P.O. Box 1105, Richmond, VA 23218</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">Location: 629 E. Main Street, Richmond, VA 23219</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">PH: 804-698-4028 FAX: 804-698-4032<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
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