Plastic bottles...are they safe?

[Zeus]

Debate rages over plastic bottle chemical's safety

[SIZE=2][SIZE=2]Reuters[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]WASHINGTON - Canada is moving to get rid of products with a chemical common in plastic baby bottles, the United States is expressing concern over its safety and some retailers are planning to stop selling these items.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]But whether the chemical bisphenol A poses genuine health risks in people remains a matter of debate, with industry groups defending its safety and environmental activists saying studies involving animals show otherwise.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Bisphenol A, or BPA, is used to make polycarbonate plastic, a clear shatter-resistant material in products ranging from plastic baby and water bottles to sports safety equipment and medical devices.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]It also is used to make durable epoxy resins used as the coating in most food and beverage cans.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]People can eat or drink the chemical when it leaches out of the plastic into liquid such as baby formula, water or food inside the container.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]"At this point, the writing is on the wall for bisphenol A. Major retailers and governments all across the country and the world are now recognizing that this chemical is extremely toxic at very low levels of exposure," Michael Schade of the U.S. environmental group Center for Health, Environment and Justice said in a telephone interview.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Critics of BPA said more than 150 scientific studies involving laboratory rodents show BPA to be harmful at even low levels. But some experts are not convinced.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]"For me, the big question is: what levels of exposures are we getting and are those levels of exposure sufficient to cause harm?" Carl Winter, director of the Food Safety Program at the University of California-Davis, said in a telephone interview.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]"There still does not exist strong evidence supporting significant impacts on human health for bisphenol A," he said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]"Negligible risk"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Steven Hentges of the American Chemistry Council downplayed the animal studies, saying they "have not been corroborated between labs and the entire data set is not coherent."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]He added: "We do believe that bisphenol A poses negligible risk to human health."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]On Tuesday the National Toxicology Program, part of the U.S. government's National Institutes of Health, issued a draft report expressing concern that BPA could cause neural and behavioral problems in fetuses, infants and children.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Relying on the results of animal studies, it expressed concern about possible links between BPA exposure and early puberty and prostate and breast cancer.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Dr. Anila Jacob of the activist Environmental Working Group said using rodent studies to assess toxicity is a well-established practice given that scientists cannot expose humans to possible toxins in research for ethical reasons.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement said on Friday his country intends to become the first to ban the import and sale of some types of plastic baby bottles because they contain BPA. He expressed concern that overexposure at an early age could cause later behavioral and neurological symptoms.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, announced on Thursday it plans to offer more BPA-free products and intends to stop selling baby bottles made with BPA early next year.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Rochester, New York-based bottle maker Nalgene said on Friday it will phase out production of bottles made with BPA. Nalgene is owned by Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]U.S. states including California, Maryland, Minnesota and Michigan are considering bills to ban or restrict bisphenol A in children's products.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]In Washington, Democratic Reps. John Dingell and Bart Stupak have been investigating BPA in products intended for use by infants and children. They are calling on the Food and Drug Administration to reconsider its view that it is safe.[/SIZE]
[/SIZE]

Source: www.abs-cbnnews.com
Apr. 20, 2008

Minsan bumbili pa naman ako ng Coke Zero in plastic bottles

[dbuzz]

pano ba yan, halos lahat na laman ng ref namin ay naka plastic. yakult, tubig(mineral water), pitsel, loaf bread, frozen meat, fish.. etc. ang dami palang naka plastic dito sa ref.. teka fruits at gulay pa pala hu naka balot sa plastic wrapper din ang mga ito.. tsskk.. tsskk..

eh iyong mga naka tetra-pack, safe ba ito. parang platic coated din loob nito? juice drinks, choco drinks, fresh milk... ayyy naku.

[iho250]

i havent seen any baby bottles made out of steel...
parang bigla akong natakot para sa baby ko...
why was this brought up just now?
all of us had been using plastic for the longest time...

[niky]

And funny, I don't remember having prostate or breast cancer as a baby... and I don't know anyone who has... and everyone I know has had those plastic bottles.

The big question is... what is the level of risk?

It's downright hypocritical to ban baby bottles for a 1 in 1,000,000,000,000 risk while we still allow the sale of cigarettes that are known to cause gum disease, lung cancer and a host of other respiratory ailments.

[Honda97]

as with almost anything in this world, there is a risk. but they say the risk is not significant. i just wish they could explain what it means not to be significant.

[uls]

here's a list of known and suspected carcinogens:

http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/carcinogens.html

Now try to avoid all of them if u think u can...

hehehe

[XTO]

According to my nanay, the evenflo feeding bottles that we used are made of glass. Talagang durog daw pag nalaglag sa kaka-sasayaw sa amin pag ayaw naming matulog.

Well sa dami ng tao it’s either plastic or plastic. Masyado nang mahal ang materials even ang papel that used to be the primary shopping bags not only in the US but also here pero now wala na, napalitan na ng sando bags.

[cutedoc]

out of topic but related...

there will always be new discoveries but we can never tell how safe it is to us and the environment, plastic bottles arent that safe, actually plastic itself isnt that safe if talk about how it is processed and what chemical are put together to cleate those plastics.

as the future evolve we tend to discover new ways to make out task easier yet diseases and illnesses mutates as well, they parallel our new breakthrough with their own.

as i was talking with my friend two night ago, the sws says that the life span of todays people ranges from 80-100 but they must equate that with the lifestyle of those during their post teen age which is 60-70 years ago where fastfood arent that rampant yet, microwave oven isnt that in demand yet, no plastic mineral water yet,no cellular phones, no instant noodles and coffee, most importantly less pollution maybe why they lived that long, most of them die of old age not of which are so common now which is cancer, young and old are inflicted with cancer...

do your part to save the earth!