From Jeff Cox

Back in the 1970s when the big soft drink companies were seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration to put their drinks in plastic bottles, I did an investigative piece for Environment Action Bulletin about those bottles. The soft drink companies called the plastic acrylonitrile. It occurred to me that acidic colas and other carbonated drinks might leach chemicals from the plastic into the drinks, so I called a biochemist at Harvard who was researching the effect of acrylonitrile on lab animals. He said that some of the plastic definitely leaches into the contents of the plastic bottles. “And you know the other name for acrylonitrile?” he asked. “Vinylcyanide—and it’s an endocrine poison.”

So I called FDA and asked if they were aware that the plastic bottles they were being asked to approve were made of an endocrine poison that leaches into the drinks inside. No, the FDA’s spokesperson said, they weren’t aware of it. A few weeks later, the use of vinylcyanide bottles was approved. Now, over 30 years later, it’s hard to find the major soft drinks in glass. Almost all are packed in vinylcyanide.

And there’s a new threat from plastic packaging that’s even more troublesome than vinylcyanide: bisphenol A, also known as BPA. This compound is one of the highest volume chemicals in commercial production, according to Janet Raloff, writing in the September 29, 2007, Science News. It’s used to make polycarbonate plastics—the hard, clear plastics of baby bottles, watercooler bottles, the work bowls of food processors, and flatware, among many other everyday items.

BPA is an essential ingredient of epoxy resins used to line food and beverage cans, and even to seal cavity-prone teeth. “Hundreds of animals studies have shown that this largely unregulated pollutant can tinker with the development and function of a wide range of tissues,” she writes. “These studies show, among other effects, that BPA can alter rodents’ and other lab animals’ sex-specific behaviors, perturb developmentally important hormones, boost fat cell numbers and their accumulation of fats, foster precancerous changes in cells, and induce insulin resistance, a harbinger of diabetes.” Her article is accompanied by a photo of a normal mouse– dark brown coat, sleek body–and a mouse exposed to BPA. The exposed mouse is very obese and its coat color has changed to a light reddish-tan.

Plenty of animal studies show that BPA can harm lab animals at concentrations below those already occurring in people. And BPA is found in just about everyone, according to a panel of 38 scientists working as part of the National Toxicology Program. This panel concluded that BPA exposure in the womb can permanently alter the genes of animals to diminish sperm production, heighten sensitivity to carcinogens, impair the immune system, and diminish insulin sensitivity.

One of the scientists, Randy Jirtle of Duke University, said, “If I was a woman who was pregnant—or thinking about becoming pregnant—I would try hard to avoid exposure to BPA.” Avoiding exposure is not easy, because most household and commercial clear plastic—cups, pitchers, bowls, canned foods, clear plastic bottles, eating utensils—contain it. BPA leaches faster when heated, especially when microwaved, and when it ages and starts to crackle.

Organic-minded folks should avoid clear plastic that comes in contact with food like the plague. Because if we look around us, we see a plague of obesity and increasing incidence of Type 2 diabetes in younger and younger people. These are the very symptoms showing up in hundreds of studies of BPA on lab animals at concentrations less than the exposure already present in people. It looks like the FDA, as with vinylcyanide over 30 years ago, is once again failing to do its job to protect the American people.
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See also: California OKs phthalates ban on children’s products

The Bisphenol-A Debate: A Suspect Chemical in Plastic Bottles and Cans

Jeff Cox is author of The Organic Cook’s Bible and lives in Sonoma County, California.
Photo Credit: National Geographic Green Guide
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