After lots of talk last year about banning BPA, Canada today declared BPA a "toxic substance" and moved towards banning it in baby bottles, the New York Times reports.
Every time I read a new BPA article (which is often), I find some new tidbit. Like this one:
That BPA is in eyeglasses. I heard it was in dental sealants (great, toxins right our mouths, where it is constantly chewed upon-- what could go wrong?), and food packaging and cans, but I had never heard about the lenses in glasses. I wonder if it is in contacts?
Canada's move is in contrast to the struggles here in the U.S. It will be hard for the U.S. to keep declaring BPA's safety while just to the north, it is labeled toxic.
Maybe they will come up with a new label: "BPA is likely to cause reproductive and developmental problems in Canada," just like the ones from California.
If we all just keep our blinders on, we'll be fine, right? Not so much. Way to go, Canada.
5 comments:
Canada is ahead of the US in consumer protection ...
And health care.
But beyond Bisphenol A - which poisons water - people should be tipped off to the Environmental Working Group's new report on bottled water. Here is little blurb...
"Walmart’s Sam’s Choice bottled water purchased at several locations in the San Francisco bay area was polluted with disinfection byproducts called trihalomethanes at levels that exceed the state’s legal limit for bottled water (CDPR 2008). These byproducts are linked to cancer and reproductive problems and form when disinfectants react with residual pollution in the water."
That ain't all ...
"Altogether, the analyses conducted by the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory of these 10 brands of bottled water revealed a wide range of pollutants, including not only disinfection byproducts, but also common urban wastewater pollutants like caffeine and pharmaceuticals (Tylenol); heavy metals and minerals including arsenic and radioactive isotopes; fertilizer residue (nitrate and ammonia); and a broad range of other, tentatively identified industrial chemicals used as solvents, plasticizers, viscosity decreasing agents, and propellants."
Here is a good blog post about it @
http://www.watercheck.biz/content/view/144/95/
Recently, numerous publications have been writing about the dangers of BPA and phthalates and many companies are jumping on board promoting baby bottles and other plastics as BPA free.
Moms everywhere are ditching their baby bottles, binkies and sippy cups for newly marketed BPA-free ones. However, BPA and phthalates are just two of several hundred chemicals that exhibit estrogenic activity (EA) in plastics. Estrogenic activity occurs when chemicals are ingested that mimic or block the actions of naturally occurring estrogens, the female sex hormone. Studies have proven the fetus, newborn and young child is particularly vulnerable. Health-related problems as a result of estrogenic activity include: early puberty in females, reduced sperm counts in males, altered functions of reproductive organs, obesity, altered behaviors and increased rates of some breast, ovarian, testicular and prostate cancers.
Chemicals having EA leach from almost all plastics sold today. That is, plastics advertised as BPA-free or phthalate-free are not EA-free. Almost all these plastics still leach chemicals that contain EA. In fact, our data at PlastiPure show that all the plastics commercially available today do release chemicals with easily detectable EA. The FDA has yet to examine this broader problem. The amount that leaches from any one item may be small, but the cumulative effect of leaching from many items is significant and can be detected in the blood and tissues of almost all of us. And our children are the most susceptible.
Unfortunately, current legislation is attempting to solve this problem by removing chemicals having EA like BPA and phthalates just one at a time. This approach is ineffective since thousands of chemicals still used in plastics exhibit EA, not just BPA and phthalates.
The appropriate health-driven solution is to manufacture safer plastics that are completely EA-free. This is not a pie-in-the-sky solution, as the technology already exists to produce EA-free plastics that also have the same advantageous physical properties, as do almost all existing plastics on the market today. In fact, some of these advanced-technology EA-free plastics are already in the marketplace. The cost of safer, EA-free plastics is just pennies more than EA-releasing plastics when both are used to manufacture the same product in similar quantities.
really nice stuff indeed
FDA Conspired with Chemical Industry to Declare Bisphenol-A Harmless
http://www.naturalnews.com/024593.html
can some one tell me if the new lead regulation is there for Canadians aswell?where does one go to get info on that .In usa they say the lead content is 600 ppm until feb 10th then it goes down to 300ppm in August ?does this apply to Canada aswell???anyone knows??
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