If you are like many of our visitors and customers, you try and choose foods that are as free as possible of harmful chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides & fingicides. But if you consume canned soups, beans and soft drinks, organic or not, you may also be swallowing residues of a very controversial chemical called bisphenol A (BPA) that can leak out of the can linings into your food. BPA has also been found to escape, under certain conditions, from polycarbonate plastic water bottles - like leaving your bottle of water in the car and the sun hitting can be a major one.
Depending on whom you talk to, BPA is either perfectly safe or a dangerous health risk. The plastics industry says it is harmless (obviously), but a large and growing number of scientists from around the world are concluding, from some animal tests, that exposure to BPA in the womb raises the risk of certain cancers, hampers fertility and could contribute to childhood behavioral problems such as hyperactivity. In fact, it is of such a concern that baby bottles containing BPA were banned recetly in Canada - read news article in Washington Post in April.
According to its critics, BPA mimics naturally occurring estrogen, a hormone that is part of the endocrine system, the body's finely tuned messaging service. "These hormones control the development of the brain, the reproductive system and many other systems in the developing fetus," says Frederick vom Saal, Ph.D., a developmental biologist at the University of Missouri. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals can duplicate, block or exaggerate hormonal responses. "The most harm is to the unborn or newborn child," vom Saal says.
Plastic water and baby bottles, food and beverage can linings and dental sealants are the most commonly encountered uses of this chemical. Unfortunately, it doesn't stay put. BPA has been found to leach from bottles into babies' milk or formula; it migrates from can liners into foods and soda and from epoxy resin-lined vats into wine; and it is found in the mouths of people who've recently had their teeth sealed. Ninety-five percent of Americans were found to have the chemical in their urine in a 2004 biomonitoring study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).