Of baby brains and bisphenol

Do you have two funtioning 'brain cells' inside your head? The only person here with a political agenda is you. Without question you have money invested in some testing agency or a stake in a lawsuit or one pending.

"But today another group of government scientists from the National Toxicology Program reiterated its earlier claim that the risks to humans can't be ruled out."

What can this (oh most highly of credentialed) NTP 'rule out'? Life on Mars? Probably not... What kind of statement is 'we cannot rule out'... It means NOTHING... NOTHING... other than another political action committee fanning the flames of public hysteria when the exact people that we put in place to protect us are doing just that...

What happens to your ignorant post when B.Obama is Prez... FDA, still hacks?

Please tell whoever got you this blog space that you OWE them a big one.. You should be writing coupon copy for value village...

The article didn't mention Playtex Bottles w/Disposable Bags...not a hard plastic, no need to worry about sterilization and the liquid flows easily without air bubbles.

then why don't you switch to glass bottles and quit using plastic. how dumb are you?

How does bisphenol in baby bottles have an ideological slant for anyone, Democrat or Republican? This is not responsible reporting.

Well Dan Turner, I have only one word for you and the others who can't live with risk, just one word: are you listening? Suicide. And just exactly what era did that idyllic value free science occur that you assume, and that seems to have slipped everyone's mind? Perhaps you have in mind the progressive democratic New Deal era when blacks were used as guinea pigs for syphilis studies?

What a friggin joke that we can't even trust our own government to give us the truth, or the means to get to the truth about the safety and well being of infants. What kind of person puts the profit margin above the health a baby? If there is a risk to children we need to be told, of more tests are needed then give grants for more tests!
What this country has become is sickening to me, that this is even a debate or a source of uncertainty is proof positive that our society has completely lost all of it's moral values and there needs to be DRASTIC changes made to how things get done.

Look, article on bisphenol fine, but where does Bush come into play? Was this stuff in baby bottles when Clintonwas in office? Then why didn't you blame him?

You are making a typical liberal mistake, anytime you find a soap box you blame whatever target you are hot on.

When a Dem is prez and Reps are i nCongress it is congress when Rep is Prez and Dems are in congress it is prez.

You ruined a compeltely fine article on this plastic crap to turn it into a personal attack against Bush,

And you wonder why independants and reps sometimes call you nutcases.

You COULD have done an article on bisphenol striaght up, but you HAD to get a BUSH dig in, which means you are not unbiased and since you will use a real article as a vehicle for a personal attack that I am sure makes you feel better, well, I now have to question your facts because "wel we aren't sure" but one thing for sure BUSH is responsible smacks of typical liberal hatred and grandstanding , if it is apolitcal article write a political article if science write science.

If you have a wet flatuation, don;t blame it on Bush , but seems you wiil find a way to do that.

Come on this is sloppy excuse for journalism,

Dan Turner:
I suggest you leave the arguments on bisphenol A to scientists. First, you need to get the NTP's comment right: “There remains considerable uncertainty whether the changes seen in the animal studies are directly applicable to humans, and whether they would result in clear adverse health effects...” That said, vigilance is needed, but not premature or hasty action as the writer suggests. It is harmful, indeed shameful to act prematurely or irrationally too. Second, as suggested by the NTP there is considerable uncertainty in this matter; be clear bisphenol A is no thalidomide; no one has ever shown harm at real world doses in any human, unlike the case for thalidomide, which was never FDA approved. Much of the bisphenol case is a theoretical argument by reproductive scientists and biologists, who simply think they know best. Realize that their concern is born of polycarbonate rat cages, but babies don’t live in polycarbonate rat cages 24/7/365. You can present potential harm all day long, but that doesn't make it true. While there are reasons to be concerned, these scientists are, however, unskilled in real world toxicology and risk assessment. The FDA got it right (see http://www.bisphenol-a.org/whatsNew/20080820.html); the fact is that bisphenol is completely converted to the glucuronide (a sugar adduct) and that is quickly and uneventfully excreted in the urine without any evidence of harm. Bisphenol itself never reaches dosages that present a clear problem. Realize that bisphenol is no thalidomide; no one has ever shown harm at real world doses in any human and the substance has been used for fifty years. For example, note that "the maximum probable daily intake of BPA was 1.35 mug kg (-1) of body weight day (-1) for 0-1-month-old infants with the maximum formula intake, which is below the provisional tolerable daily intake for BPA established by Health Canada, 25 mug kg (-1) of body weight day (-1)" (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18702469?ordinalpos=12&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum)

I repeat--no data anywhere proves any harm from bisphenol to humans at doses encountered in the real world. Believe this too: rats are not small people. That bisphenol A can be found as the excreted glucuronide excreted doesn't mean it causes or caused any harm in the body. I can find many "toxic" substances in your urine, but at the dose received, they are irrelevant. So is bisphenol A. If you want to make intelligent statements, take a course in toxicology. Then you will learn the fundamental paradigm of this, the science of poisons, is that dose alone is the determinant of harm. To be toxic is to cause X response at Y dose. To scream something is "toxic" and not provide a dose and nor any evidence of harm at that dose in the species of concern is completely meaningless. If you cannot do this, your arguments are irrelevant.

While all agree it is always important to be cautious, it is equally important not to go off half-cocked, as seems to be the case with the writer above. If and when the majority of scientists exploring this issue concur about the data, the proper action will be taken and it will be done without regard to politics. In that regard too it is useful to note too that whenever politicians ban something, they generally prove to be wrong in retrospect.

John E. Garst, Ph.D. (Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Nutrition)

In response to your opinion piece, "Of baby brains and bisphenol," published September 3, 2008; I wanted to clarify that BPA is found in polycarbonate bottles, not all plastic containers. Many stories on the topic omit this important point.

Reading stories about the recent BPA debate, I have noticed that many reporters omit the fact that most single-serve plastic bottles -- such as those for water, soft drinks and juices -- are made with polyethylene terephthalate (PET), designated by the recycling symbol "1," which does not contain BPA. This material is globally recognized as a safe, recyclable packaging material. Polycarbonate, on the other hand, is designated by the symbol "7" and is not recyclable.

Given that there may be more stories on this subject, I would hope further discussion of this topic would mention how to identify polycarbonate bottles based on the recycling code. www.factsonpet.com contains information on this subject that may be useful.