BPA: 15th Century Science Keeps Hormone Mimic in Food Supply

Sierra Magazine recently asked me to do an update on the status of the hormone disruptor, BPA, a chemical that is used in the linings of almost all food and beverage cans. Space was short and I could not explain the science behind what otherwise is a “he said, they said” back and forth controversy that leaves you wondering whether there really is a danger.
Instead, here's what you need to understand: The FDA and chemical manufacturers insist that these chemicals are safe in the low amounts which we ingest because tests on animals of VERY LARGE amounts do not result in the breast cancers, changes in mammary glands, lowered sperm counts, obesity, and behavior changes, found when VERY LOW doses of the chemicals are tested. Read on to learn more.

If you eat or drink enough of anything, even water,  eventually it will kill you. That’s the idea behind the adage,  “The dose makes the poison,”  a principle that still, in fact, governs safety decisions about human exposure to radiation, chemicals and contaminants of all kinds.

But what if that paradigm were turned on its head? What if tiny, indeed minutely small doses of a chemical could cause cancer and other health problems that would not occur at larger doses?

This is what scientists have told me is the case with hormone-disrupting chemicals including  Bisphenol A (BPA), pthalates, atrazine and other similar chemicals. Now gone from plastic baby and water bottles because of public pressure on manufacturers, BPA is still used in the lining of almost all food and beverage cans. Analyses have found that traces of BPA migrate from the linings into the food we eat.

However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has declined to ban  the substance. Its reason: “standardized toxicity tests” find that the chemical is safe.

But standardized toxicity tests are based on the-dose-makes-the-poison principle. And that is exactly the problem because hormones are very different from other substances.

 “At millions of times lower than what toxicologists study, then you see the harm that is not predicted by just looking at what happens at a high dose,” said reproductive biologist Dr. Frederick Vom Saal, a professor at the University of Missouri, Columbia, who has studied BPA extensively. . 

“Massive scientific evidence, “  Vom Saal told me in a phone interview, “shows that hormones operate at staggeringly low doses." In fact, he says, medical students in their first two weeks learning endocrinology learn that our cells are specially programmed to let in the miniscule amounts of hormones, like estrogen,  that naturally circulate in our bodies, but block larger amounts. "The concept that higher doses are always worse than low doses comes from an idea from the 1500s," says Vom Saal. "The old-line toxicologists will not accept that they’ve been ignorant of the last century of endocrinology.”

As an example of how hormones operate, Vom Saal cited Tamoxifen, a hormone treatment for hormone-sensitive breast cancer. “Tamoxifen at high doses inhibits breast cancer growth, but if you let the dose get too low, it will stimulate breast cancer,” said Vom Saal. “This is indicated on every bottle of tamoxifen. That is a signature of how hormones operate.” Tamoxifen is a hormone mimic. (www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Therapy/Fs7_51.pdf

I asked John Rost, chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, about Vom Saal’s statements.

“His perspective is shared by a vast minority of endocrinologists,” he insisted. “I do believe there is a big controversy about this low-dose hypothesis, what effect chemicals can have at low doses. But as a regulated industry, it is important for us to look to the regulators and see what conclusions they come to about this. That has happened at the FDA, (and their conclusion) is that current levels of exposure are safe.”

The linings inside cans prevent the food and the metal from interacting. Rost explained that many foods are corrosive to metal, creating pinholes through which microbes can enter food. Tin was originally used to coat metal cans; then oleoresin came into use. About 35 years ago, said Rost, epoxy became the “gold standard” of can coatings. BPA is a key ingredient in the epoxy.

“Since the move to epoxy, there has not been a food-borne illness case arising from the failure of metal packaging,” he concluded.

However, the effects of hormone mimics like BPA are totally different from, for example, botulism, whose contamination of canned food is the telltale swollen can.

Endocrinologists have documented feminizing effects in fish, amphibians, and reptiles exposed to tiny doses of Atrazine, a very widely used weed-killer, that also mimics estrogen and has been shown to turn male frogs into females.  Even the FDA said  it had “some concern”about the effects of BPA “on the brains, behavior and prostate glands” of fetuses, infants and young children.

The hormone mimic pthalates, a so-called plasticizer, has been found to cause reduced sperm counts, testicular atrophy and structural abnormalities in the reproductive systems of male test animals, reports the Environmental Working Group.

Food is a major route of human exposure to pthalates, according to Sarah Janssen, senior scientist in the public health program at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), but how it gets there is something of a mystery. “We all have pthalates in our bodies, but it is not directly added to foods," said Janssen in an interview. "But it is a contaminant in food processing. It could be from the plastic wrap, or where it’s stored, or from the tubing” used in milking machines.

It was the NRDC that petitioned the FDA to ban BPA in food packaging.  

The record shows that when it comes to these chemicals, the FDA is following rather than leading regulatory changes. After  manufacturers eliminated BPA from baby bottles and sippy cups  in response to public alarm, the FDA followed by codifying their action, banning the chemical’s use in those products.

Some manufacturers are acting ahead of the FDA in regard to BPA in food can linings as well.  Campbells announced its intention to phase out BPA in the linings of soup cans, an action that followed a big drop in sales, according to Bloomberg News. Consumers avoided the soup after the Breast Cancer Fund tested food products popular with children, including Campbell soup, and found traces of the chemical.  A Campbell’s company spokesperson, Anthony Sanzio, told me there was no specific timeline set for the change.

Last June, the FDA said it also intended  to ban BPA from infant formula cans but no regulations have yet been issued.

Eden Foods switched away from BPAlinings in 1999, putting its organic beans in cans lined with an oleoresinous c-enamel, a mixture of oil and resin extracted from plants like pine and balsam fir.  Recently it began putting its tomato products in amber glass jars when it could find no suitable can lining replacement.

The NRDC’s Janssen said finding safe replacements is not simple. “Many replacements have not been adequately tested,” she said.

The big losers if the use of BPA is curtailed would be some of the world’s largest chemical companies. Dow, Bayer, and Saudi Basic Industries, owned by the Saudi government are the biggest players in a market estimated at $2 billion in annual sales.

Vom Saal sees this potential financial loss as the motive for the lack of action by the FDA. “It’s very political,” he says. “They (the FDA) are protecting the corporations at the expense of public health.”

What you can do:  Eat fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, avoid the canned varieties.
Fruits and vegetables tend to be acidic, and acid increases the amount of BPA that leaches from the can lining into the food. Buy tomato products and juices in glass jars or tetrapacks to avoid potential BPA contamination. Many soups are now also available in paper/aluminum packages known as  tetrapacks.

Nanny Nightmares: No More Bottled Water for You!

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is mightily upset about a report by the Environmental Working Group(EWG) that points out what should be obvious: buying bottled water is usually a giant waste of money particularly because what's in the bottle could very well be just plain old tap water. Meanwhile, bottled water is a giant source of profit to Coca Cola, Pepsi and other members of the industry.

The folks at the Washington D.C.-based booster of corporate America (CEI) is trying to counter criticism of bottled water by suggesting that consumers' worst enemy is --shriek!--the Nanny State! You know, those government Nannies in their frumpy clothes, their lips tight in disapproval, who don't want you to have choices, choices, choices! In this case, the choice of drinking bottled water while leaving to the public at large the cost of disposing of the container and ignoring the oil used in making all that plastic and its impact on global warming. The CEI has even created a special website just to fight efforts to shrink use of bottled water.

Here's the bottom line from the EWG: "With bottled water, you don't know what you're getting." Laboratory tests found Walmart's Sam's Club bottled water contains traces of disinfection, a sign that it is simply bottled tap water. Other brands sampled contained traces of contaminants at levels higher than the bottled water industry's own purity standards allow.

"Given the industry's refusal to make available data to support their claims of superiority, consumer confidence in the purity of bottled water is simply not justified," the report continues.

Of course, what's given the bottlers and the CEI that sinking feeling is that the growth in sales of bottled water is slowing. Reports like this from EWG, combined with growing public concerns about the environmental damage from the bottles, surely won't help to revive industry growth. In 2002, consumers spent $11 billion on bottled water, and sales grew 12 percent. This year, the increase is expected to be under 2.5%. Uh, oh.

There's even an effort by some universities to ban bottled water sales on campus as a green initiative. That has particularly disturbed the folks at CEI, bothering their rest with Nanny Nightmares.

Angela Logomasini is the CEI's spokesperson on this subject, and she criticized the EWG report as "junk science" and misleading. She's a Ph.D, a press release points out, but the CEI's web site says her advanced degree is in political science not biology or chemistry. I gave her a call to ask her to explain her assessment of the report, and it turned out she had no criticism of the laboratory findings, just the conclusion that bottled water is no better than tap.

She asserts that even though some bottled water is drawn right from municipal supplies that it's still better because it is filtered further and thus may taste better.

Her political background is more to the point of the CEI's criticisms. Calling a ban on bottled water sales on campuses "ridiculous," she asserts, "We're against the Nanny state. It's a right for people to live in a free society and engage in voluntary exchange, free trade."

What I've always loved about this view of capitalism--and I have a background in economics--is that free enterprise champions never want to pay the real price of so-called free trade.

How about a tax or at least a deposit on water bottles to cover the costs of disposing of the bottles? Nope. In fact, Logomasini said CEI would like to do away with all bottle deposits.

What about a labeling requirement that would tell consumers the source of bottled water, so you'd know, for example, that you were paying $1.50 for 12 ounces of some municipality's public water supply? Nah. Most brands, she asserts, have a phone # on the label where you can get such information.

The CEI's bottom line is that an unfettered market is always the answer.

Here's my bottom line: Buy genuinely reusable water bottles and refill them. A good source is REI, a retailing cooperative with a strong sense of responsibility to the public and the environment. With all the money you save, you can buy something really worthwhile in a bottle to celebrate your newfound thrift. Champagne anyone?