Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reversed its position on the safety of a chemical used especially in canned food and drink packaging, plastic and baby bottles – Bisphenol A.

Sounds like a jazz cover of a Radiohead album? It’s so much worse, if that’s possible.

Bisphenol A, also referred to as BPA, is harmful to human health, the FDA finally admitted if not wholeheartedly. With human adults, exposure to BPA has been associated with everything from erectile dysfunction to miscarriages. In animals, it has caused breast cancer and development problems.

While the Bush administration all but ignored previous studies, at least the FDA is beginning to change its course. Sadly, both the FDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are delaying an all out ban on this questionable-at-best chemical.

The feds have rallied on behalf of industry, though, promising to help manufacturers of baby bottles and sippy cups find BPA-free materials they can use, and to find new ways to line infant formula cans with research and dollars.

Our green blogosphere has been fiercely a-tweet and a-post about this toxic mixture of plastics and food, politics and science. Study up with the links below, and take action if inspired.

We think a BPA ban might remain a hot, green topic online for a while. Especially since health is priced at a premium here in the U.S. – and hopes for an affordable public option are likely dashed by the election of Republican Scott Brown, now Massachusetts senator-elect.

BASIC READING

“Recent research has linked BPA to disruptions in the endocrine system, an issue that can cause reproductive, neurological, and behavioral problems, causing a growing number of consumer and health advocates to push for greater regulation of the chemical’s use in food containers. In 2008, near the end of the Bush Administration, the FDA conducted a toxicology review of the chemical and maintained that foods containing low levels of the chemical were safe. New research and increased public concern has caused HHS and the FDA to reevaluate the safety of the chemical.” – From a news feature for FoodSafetyNews by Helena Bottemiller

“The FDA is going to punt, and spend $30 million on research over the next two years, while the industry scrambles to find some kind of affordable and effective substitute for BPA in cans. And they better find one, because I suspect that the studies will prove that feeding birth control pill hormones to babies has never been a particularly good idea.” – A Treehugger post by Lloyd Alter parsing the FDA’s press release, and its BPA “concerns.”

“While this announcement is an improvement from their previous conclusion that [BPA] was safe in our food supply – it is too little, too late… The FDA [has] not acknowledged the impacts of BPA on adults. Biomonitoring data shows that babies are being born with BPA already in their blood, which means that they are being exposed through their mothers before they are born. Furthermore, BPA exposure in adults has been associated with miscarriage, erectile dysfunction, heart disease and diabetes.” – An article by scientist and writer Sarah Janssen for GreenAndSave.com

FURTHER RESOURCES

A blog feature by S.L. Baker for NaturalNews.com recounting various studies that link BPAs to heart disease, and other health problems

A blog post by Dr. Ari Brown that guides parents to products for babies that are free of or very low in BPAs, and discusses the harmful effects of BPAs on child development via WebMD

OMBWatch.org, a blog focused on “open government” looks into the regulatory issues surrounding the BPA controversy of Jan. 2010

An activist, Mary Olivella, writes for HuffingtonPost and calls for the immediate, all-out ban of BPAs in food and beverage containers

This is the latest installment of EcoMeme, a column featuring eco news, tech and business highlights by columnist Lora Kolodny.

Image: Timlewisnm

Everyone knows that shopping can be dangerous to your bank balance. But did you know it could also be dangerous to your health?

A little history. Last year, researchers in Switzerland decided to find out what happens when the flu virus is put on banknotes. So they got some nasal secretions from children, mixed it with some flu virus and placed it on some Swiss franc notes. Sounds pretty gross. But the results, as far as I’m concerned, are even more gross. Turns out that on some of the banknotes, the flu cells lasted up to 17 days. Sure, it was a controlled study, but when I think about the hygiene habits of the general population, it almost makes me want to avoid money altogether.

Then earlier this year, researchers at the University of Massachusetts tested banknotes from 30 cities around the world and found an increase in the number of banknotes with traces of cocaine on them. Cocaine! Makes sense when you consider that banknotes are used as a tool for users to get the cocaine from whatever surface it’s into the nose. Which means that not only could that note you are holding have traces of cocaine on it, but it could also have traces of someone’s nasal secretions.

For future reference, by the way, the cities with the highest cocaine levels on banknotes were Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Boston and Detroit. Salt Lake City had the least.

However, it’s not just the money that’s the problem for shoppers.

Now researchers are saying that shopping receipts could also pose a health risk.

Not from viruses. Not from cocaine. But from bisphenol-A (BPA), the hormone-altering chemical found in primarily in plastic bottles.

Research done at the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry has determined that many of these crisp, clean shopping receipts are coated with a powdery layer of bisphenol-A (BPA). Furthermore, lead researcher John Warner believes we are getting much more exposure to BPA through shopping receipts than through bottles or cans.

Receipts that use BPA technology (applying a powdery layer of BPA to one side of thermal imaging paper so that when heat or pressure is applied, printing will appear) will, on average, have 60 to 100 milligrams of free BPA on them. And unlike the BPA in plastics that’s bound into a polymer, the BPA on receipts are loose molecules which potentially makes it easier to transfer BPA from receipt to fingers to, say, food, and thus be ingested.

Warner acknowledges that more research to quantify the prevalence of BPA-laced receipts is needed. But his initial findings indicate that someone really should.

Meanwhile, concerned shoppers, especially pregnant ones, need to be aware of this BPA risk.

So what’s a keen shopper to do?

You could stop shopping but that wouldn’t help you, or come to think about, the economy.

A better answer is to use a bank card for transactions and say no to receipts, especially at times where having a receipt is not necessary.

Although alternatively, we could all wear gloves?

Image: ebedner

This is a new SIGG water bottle with a Keith Haring lady liberty design, part of a limited edition series celebrating America, land of the free, home of  thirsty. Perhaps you could score one of these cool designs for free by getting rid of an old SIGG bottle that contains poison, and you can enjoy the benefits without having to worry about exposing your body to a synthetic drug known to disrupt normal endocrine function.

I simply won’t stand for that in a water bottle. How about you?

If you bought a metal SIGG bottle before August of 2008, you have until Halloween to trade it in for a bottle with the new and improved EcoCare liner free of bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic sex hormone chemical linked to cancer and neurological problems. In other words, switch that trick for a treat.

What is the trick in the SIGG exchange program? Last week, Steve Wasik, chief executive officer of SIGG Switzerland, shocked the reusable water world by admitting that the liners were made with an epoxy resin that contains BPA. As Elaine Shannon of the Huffington Post pointed out, this was an about-face from his previous posture that the bottles simply didn’t leech the harmful chemical and were totally safe.

“He decided on his authority, consumers didn’t want or need to know more,” Shannon observes, adding it is difficult to see Wasik’s stance as anything but cynical.

Wasik’s posting on the SIGG website explained that the BPA debate has heated up dramatically in the last 12 months with the conversation progressing from a focus on leeching to the mere presence of BPA in products. He stresses that this dialogue has evolved to the extent that “some states are considering legislation.”

In fact, last May, Chicago was one of the first U.S. cities to ban the sale of baby bottles and sippy cups containing the chemical and the Food and Drug Administration recently announced it would undertake a new BPA review. In 2008, the FDA resisted recommending retailers discontinue using products that contain BPA until it had completed its risk assessment process. “However, concerned consumers should know that several alternatives to polycarbonate baby bottles exist, including glass baby bottles,” the feds said.

Meantime, you have to follow your own instincts and decide if you want to exchange your SIGG or simply find another aluminum or other bottle brand.

In terms of determining if you have the old kind of bottle, SIGG has provided the best kind of crisis PR fact sheet on its site with visuals that show the difference between the bad and good liners.

The EcoCare liner has a dull, pale yellow appearance while the former liner has a shiny copper bronze appearance.

For details on the exchange program and other issues pertaining to the safety of these bottles, go to the My SIGG website.

I hope you’re not one of those people who squirms when a mother breastfeeds her baby in public, because I’m one of those publicly breastfeeding mothers. If that makes you uncomfortable, well, talk to the breast!

There is no better food for babies than breast milk, of course, so it’s a great decision for mothers who are able to do it. And when it comes to social graces, I’m just not sorry to say that I won’t run off to nurse in a bathroom or tote bottles around to preserve a faux Victorian modesty (ahem, Facebook). We see more breast online and at Fox news than I could possibly compete with.

Besides, the breast is the ultimate eco-friendly feeding option. Formula is made from either cow’s milk or soy, and both come with problematic environmental implications. Then there are the bottles, usually made of plastic, which even when BPA-free, still need petroleum to be made.

What’s with our shyness? I say it’s high time to get rational and respect the breast. There’s no need to look away in embarrassment or frown disapprovingly if you see my baby noshing on my nipple. After all, what could be more sane, healthy and normal than using breasts the way nature intended? Sure, the world might be sex-crazed over boobies, but for my baby, it’s what’s for dinner. Nomnomnomnom.

Image: Raphael Goetter