this reminded me!  did anyone else take notice of a health warning on the
news, yesterday?

bottled water drinkers would be wise to avoid purchasing bottled water (or
beverages or convenience foods) with the plastic recycle numbers of 3 or 6
or 7 on the plastic bottle/container bottoms.  it's been determined that
these plastics have chemicals in them that have been known to disrupt
hormone levels, cause neurological abnormalities and contain traces of
cancer causing agents--as per the news segments i watched.

don't kill the messenger.  i'm only passing this information on, about what
i saw/heard on several channels, if you are at all interested or concerned.
if not, that's ok, too.

kate

It should not be a surprise to anyone that the unrelible news was
just recycling an old hoax that goes back to 2003 (if not earlier).


 http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/petbottles.asp

... I am sure that writing used to be larger, and stairs less steep!
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12

I understood that. Here are 3 rebuttals to that urban legend that's
popped up again.
_____________________________________________________________________

#1.......................

Origins:   This  "health alert" began appearing in people's inboxes in February 2002; the "Channel 2" reference indicates it was someone's summarization of a short morning news health segment aired on KHON-TV in Hawaii on 23 January 2002, which was then forwarded all over the Internet as "important health information." One- or two-minute health spots on local news programs are not ideal sources of medical information, however. While important basic information can be imparted in such a format, trying to
explicate complex medical topics in a minute or two can easily mislead or confuse viewers, many of whom come away believing absolutely whatever they've heard (or think they've heard) because "a doctor on TV said it was true" - in this case an unshakeable belief that using plastic containers in microwave ovens causes cancer.

That a doctor (or, more accurately, someone bearing the title "Dr.") appears on TV does not mean he's a leading practitioner in his field; it generally means only that he has something to say that a news director considers newsworthy, accurate or not. (The "Dr. Edward Fujimoto" identified in this piece is not a staff physician from "Castle Hospital" or a medical doctor; he's a Ph.D. serving as director of the Center for Health Promotion at Castle Medical Center in Kailua, Hawaii.) What TV news covers is
ditated by ratings, not importance, and sensational claims get better ratings than straightforward, mundane information, even if the latter is more valuable to the viewing audience. It's a pretty good assumption that if using plastic containers in microwaves - as millions of people have been doing for decades - posed a significant risk of cancer, you'd be hearing about it somewhere other than an e-mail forward of an anonymous summary of a morning news spot on a Hawaiian television station.

#2.................

[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 21, Volume 3]
[Revised as of April 1, 2007]
[CITE: 21CFR177.1580]


TITLE 21--FOOD AND DRUGS

CHAPTER I--FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

SUBCHAPTER B--FOOD FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION (CONTINUED)

PART 177 -- INDIRECT FOOD ADDITIVES: POLYMERS <CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=177>

Subpart B--Substances for Use as Basic Components of Single and Repeated
Use Food Contact Surfaces
Sec. 177.1580 Polycarbonate resins.

Polycarbonate resins may be safely used as articles or components of
articles intended for use in producing, manufacturing, packing,
processing, preparing, treating, packaging, transporting, or holding
food, in accordance with the following prescribed conditions:

(a) Polycarbonate resins are polyesters produced by:

(1) The condensation of 4,4'-iso-propylidenediphenol and carbonyl
chloride to which may have been added certain optional adjuvant
substances required in the production of the resins; or by

(2) The reaction of molten 4,4'-iso-propylidenediphenol with molten
diphenyl carbonate in the presence of the disodium salt of
4,4'-isopropylidenediphenol.

(3) The condensation of 4,4'-isopro- pylidenediphenol, carbonyl
chloride, and 0.5 percent weight maximum of /a/ 2, /a/ 6-bis (6-hydroxy
/-m-/ tolyl) mesitol to which may have been added certain optional
adjuvant substances required in the production of branched polycarbonate
resins.

(b) The optional adjuvant substances required in the production of
resins produced by the methods described in paragraph (a)(1) and (3) of
this section may include substances generally recognized as safe in
food, substances used in accordance with a prior sanction or approval,
and the following:
__________________________________________________________________

.........and #3

June 24, 2004
Researcher Dispels Myth of Dioxins and Plastic Water Bottles

Rolf Halden, PhD, PE

The Internet has been flooded with false email warnings.
One hoax email has been erroneously attributed to Johns Hopkins University since the spring of 2004. The Office of Communications and Public Affairs discussed the issue with Rolf Halden, PhD, PE, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the Center for Water and Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr.
Halden received his masters and doctoral degrees researching dioxin contamination in the environment. We sat down with him to set the record straight on dioxins in the food supply and the risks associated with drinking water from plastic bottles and cooking with plastics.

Question: What are dioxins?

Answer: Dioxins are organic environmental pollutants sometimes referred to as the most toxic compounds made by mankind. They are a group of chemicals, which include 75 different chlorinated molecules of dibenzo-p-dioxin and 135 chlorinated dibenzofurans.
Some polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) also are referred to as dioxin-like compounds. Exposure to dioxins can cause chloracne, a severe form of skin disease, as well as reproductive and developmental effects, and more importantly, liver damage and cancer.

Question: Where do dioxins come from?

Answer: We always thought dioxins were man-made compounds produced inadvertently during the bleaching of pulp and manufacturing of pesticides like Agent Orange and other chlorinated aromatics. But dioxins in sediments from lakes and oceans predate these human activities. It is now generally accepted that a principal source of dioxins are various combustion processes, including natural events such as wild fires and even volcanic eruptions.

Question: What do you make of this recent email warning

Answer: No. This is an urban legend. There are no dioxins in plastics.

Question: So it's okay for people to drink out of plastic water bottles?

Answer: First, people should be more concerned about the quality of the water they are drinking rather than the container it's coming from. Many people do not feel comfortable drinking tap water, so they buy bottled water instead. The truth is that city water is much more highly regulated and monitored for quality. Bottled water is not. It can legally contain many things we would not tolerate in municipal drinking water.

Question: Water bottles aside, are plastics products for daily use a potential concern? What are phthalates?

Answer: Having said this, there is another group of chemicals, called phthalates. Phthalates are sometimes added to plastics to make them flexible and less brittle, although they are not typically found in plastics used for water bottles sold in the United States. Phthalates are environmental contaminants that can exhibit hormone-like behavior by acting as endocrine disruptors in humans and animals. If you heat up plastics, you could increase the leaching of phthalates from the containers into water and
food.

Question: What about cooking with plastics?

Answer: In general, whenever you heat something you increase the likelihood of pulling chemicals out. Chemicals can be released from plastic packaging materials like the kinds used in some microwave meals. Some drinking straws say on the label "not for hot beverages." Most people think the warning is because someone might be burned. If you put that straw into a boiling cup of hot coffee, you basically have a hot water extraction going on, where the chemicals in the straw are being extracted into your nice
cup of coffee. We use the same process in the lab to extract chemicals from materials we want to analyze.

If you are cooking with plastics or using plastic utensils, the best thing to do is to follow the directions and only use plastics that are specifically meant for cooking. Inert containers are best, for example heat-resistant glass, ceramics and good old stainless steel.

Question: Is there anything else you want to add?

Answer: Don't be afraid of drinking water. It is very important to drink adequate amounts of water and, by the way that's in addition to all the coffee, beer and other diuretics we love to consume. Unless you are drinking really bad water, you are more likely to suffer from the adverse effects of dehydration than from the minuscule amounts of chemical contaminants present in your water supply. Relatively speaking, the risk from exposure to microbial contaminants is much greater than that from chemicals.

And here's one more uncomfortable fact. Each of us already carries a certain body burden of dioxins regardless of how and what we eat. If you look hard enough, you'll find traces of dioxins in pretty much every place on earth. Paracelsus the famous medieval alchemist, used to put it straight and simple: it's the dose that makes the poison.--Tim Parsons

Read the response from Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center regarding similar cancer-related hoax emails

Public Affairs media contact for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Tim Parsons at 410-955-6878 or paffairs@jhsph.edu.


... Murphy's Law is always a good excuse.
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12

Ah, shoot.  I was hoping this would be a special deal on a plastic relief
mold of the country of China (mainland, I presume, and considerably
down-scaled!).  I love maps and relief maps and all that geography stuff and
now I'm sooooo disappointed   ;-(