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The chemical industry has spent a fortune buying the Chemical
Viewpoint in such quacky frontgroups as the poorly named American
Council of Science & Health (Barrett is a writer for hire for them)
and Junkscience.com. Let us pray that their years of cover-ups around
silicone implants and other chemical industry bonanza's is over.
Barrett's writing for ACSH on MCS have continued the cover-up ..
blaming everything but the chemicals.

www.BreastImplantAwareness.org/QuackWatchWatch.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-10-30-plastics-cover_N.htm?csp=DailyBriefing

'Everywhere chemicals' in plastics alarm parents

What's this?
By Elizabeth Weise and Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO — Consider the BornFree baby bottle. It's made from a
plastic five times as expensive as the one routinely used for baby
bottles. It has to be shipped all the way from Israel. And its retail
price — $9.50 — is about triple that of a conventional bottle.

It's also a big seller in stores catering to parents who want the
safest possible environment for their babies, stores where items
labeled "bisphenol A-free" and "phthalate-free" line up next to the
cloth diapers and breast pumps.

BornFree is "so popular, their products have been on back order
because we can't keep them in stock," says Cara Vidano of Natural
Resources, a store here for new and expectant parents.

To anyone not contemplating parenthood, phthalates and bisphenol A
sound like something children bring home on chemistry quizzes, not
cuddle in their cribs. But these chemicals are at the heart of
worldwide scientific investigation and a debate over whether they are
harmful to the very young.

Parents, activists and many scientists are concerned that if a baby
drinks from a bottle made with bisphenol A or gums a toy made with
phthalates, he or she could suffer serious, even permanent, harm.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Science

The European Union and California have banned some phthalates from
toys. And a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services concluded that one form of phthalate used in intravenous
tubing and other hospital equipment could hamper the development of
baby boys' reproductive tracts.

Bisphenol A and phthalates are sometimes called "everywhere chemicals"
because they're so widely used. Bisphenol A, which is used to make
plastics clear, strong and shatter-resistant, shows up in water
bottles, food containers, baby bottles, some dental fillings and the
coatings for the inside of cans containing foods. Phthalates
(pronounced THAL-ates), which make plastic soft and flexible, are used
in toys, rattles, teethers, car interiors and medical devices such as
tubing, catheters and intravenous bags.

Nearly every American has been exposed. A 2000 study by the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found phthalates in the
urine of 75% of people tested. CDC research has shown that 95% of
Americans have detectable levels of bisphenol A in their bodies.

There's mounting evidence, some of it in human studies and more in
mice and rat studies, that these chemicals also may trigger hormonal
changes. That is why they are labeled "endocrine disruptors": They can
mimic the hormones that the body releases and are believed to be
capable of interfering with the reproductive systems of fetuses and
babies, even at extremely low doses.

The American Medical Association urged the Food and Drug
Administration last month to require labeling of all medical products
containing one phthalate to protect newborns in hospitals. More than
100 hospitals have begun to remove such products from their neonatal
nurseries out of concern they could damage baby boys.

Whether these chemicals should be banned or curtailed pits scientists
against chemical companies, consumers against manufacturers, the EU
against the United States and the state of California against toy
makers around the globe.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has asked the National
Academies of Science to produce a report on phthalates, a process that
could take several years. The National Academies data would help the
EPA set a "reference dose" for those chemicals — the maximum amount
scientists believe a person could be exposed to in food and water
every day without harm. The agency will begin an updated assessment
shortly on bisphenol A, which could take years.

Once the EPA sets reference doses, it's up to the U.S. Consumer
Product Safety Commission to determine whether their use needs to be
regulated in consumer products.

EPA scientists and grant recipients have done much of the
groundbreaking work on the possible health effects of endocrine
disruptors. But it's slow going.

In 1996, Congress told the EPA to begin testing one type of chemical —
pesticides — for hormonal effects. But other potential
hormone-disrupting chemicals weren't included in the mandate. EPA
officials say they have been working diligently on the program, but
the agency has not tested a single pesticide.

In June, the EPA published a draft list of 73 pesticide ingredients to
undergo the first round of screening. It will begin next year.

Clifford Gabriel, director of the EPA's office of science coordination
and policy, says the agency wasn't able to screen chemicals
immediately because proven tests simply didn't exist. It has taken
years to develop such tests and, just as important, to make sure
they're accurate.

"The science always comes first," Gabriel says. "We're looking at very
complicated biological systems."

Parents act on their own

Though the government hasn't made up its mind, parents increasingly
have. Marina Borrone of Menlo Park, Calif., aims to protect her home
from chemicals that she fears could harm her family or the planet. The
restaurant owner and mother shuns most plastic in favor of
old-fashioned glass baby bottles and wooden toys.

"Europe took it (phthalates) out of toys years ago," Borrone says.
"Why are we so behind?"

Her home state is catching up with her. This month, California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law the country's first ban on the
use of phthalates in toys and other children's products. Under the
law, any product made for young children that contains more than
one-tenth of 1% of phthalates cannot be sold or distributed in
California beginning in 2009.

The chemical industry disagrees with that approach.

"We know that exposure to phthalates is very low," American Chemistry
Council spokeswoman Marian Stanley says. "We believe that for the
amount in which they're used, and the amounts that people are exposed
to, there is not a problem."

Today's mothers are leading the push for "greener" consumer goods,
says Jeremiah McElwee, who oversees health and beauty products at
Whole Foods Markets.

Whole Foods tries to keep up with consumer demand and science, McElwee
says. The chain stopped selling baby bottles made of polycarbonate
plastic in January 2006 because of concerns about a form of bisphenol
A used in the plastic. "The research doesn't say these compounds are
bad," says Joe Dickson, Whole Foods' quality-standards coordinator.
"It says these products have a lot of question marks around them."

Not so, says the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association. In a
series of fact sheets on the safety of bisphenol A, the association
says that plastic containing the chemical "has been rigorously studied
and tested by both industry and government for decades." It went on to
say that a panel assembled by the National Toxicology Program in
August found bisphenol A did "not pose any serious risk to infants,
children or adults."

The wording used by the panel was that there was "some concern" that
exposure to bisphenol A in utero could cause neural and behavioral
effects. The panel expressed only "minimal" and "negligible" concern
that problems such as prostate effects and birth defects could be
caused by the chemical.

Whole Foods' Michaels says that unlike government agencies, which
require a high burden of proof before enacting regulations, many
parents naturally follow the "precautionary principle." They often err
on the side of caution to protect their children.

Such concern is driving sales for bottles free of bisphenol A.

Medela bottles have always been bisphenol A-free. Evenflo has marketed
a glass baby bottle since the era when all baby bottles were glass,
but its plastic bottles contain the chemical. Gerber sells several
bisphenol A-free bottles, including its Clear View, Fashion Tints and
Gentle Flow lines. Playtex Nurser System disposable liners also do not
contain the chemical.

Small companies focusing on baby bottles without bisphenol A are doing
a brisk business. BornFree went on sale in the USA last year, and the
Adiri Natural Nurser made its debut this summer.

Adiri can "barely keep up with demand" and ran out of its smallest
bottles just after their launch in August, says Sarah Eisner, vice
president of sales and marketing. "We don't want to say all other
bottles are evil. You have this brand-new life, so why not start out
with materials you know aren't harmful?"

The chemical industry has responded quickly to the threat to its
market share. The American Chemistry Council, through a complaint
filed with the Better Business Bureau, forced BornFree to change its
marketing this year. The company used to pitch its bottles as a safer
alternative but was ordered in February not to claim its products were
more child- or eco-friendly.

Ron Vigdor, BornFree's president and chief executive officer, says:
"Now, we are the 'safe and smart feeding system.' We used to be the
'safer, smarter' feeding system."

The action so far

In December, the National Toxicology Program, part of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, concluded that one form of
phthalate, called di(2-ethylhexyl), or DEHP, used in intravenous
tubing, catheters and other plastic medical equipment, could pose a
risk to the proper development of baby boys' reproductive tracts.

Phthalates can block the male hormone androgen, which governs
testosterone production and thus the way the male develops.

In animal studies, that hormonal change has meant the urethra forms on
the underside of the penis rather than the end, as well as undescended
testicles, testicular tumors and decreased sperm counts at maturity,
says Stacy Malkan with Health Care Without Harm, a non-profit that
helps hospitals phase out DEHP.

Infants who spend weeks in neonatal intensive care units may be
exposed to high levels of the chemical, according to the FDA. So far,
major hospital chains such as Kaiser Permanente, Catholic Healthcare
West, Consorta and Premier have pledged to phase out medical equipment
made with DEHP, especially in nurseries.

FDA issued a public health notification in 2002 recommending that
alternatives to phthalate-containing plastics be used in medical
procedures that might expose newborn boys, women pregnant with boys,
and boys just entering puberty. But other federal agencies are years
away from even weighing in on whether any other restrictions should be
issued.

In Maryland, James Hubbard, a member of the state House of Delegates,
says the federal government's failure to remove phthalates from toys
and other products shows why local measures are needed. Hubbard, a
Democrat, has twice tried to ban phthalates and bisphenol A in
children's toys. He blames his bill's defeat on the chemical and toy
industries, which lobbied against them.

Hubbard will reintroduce the ban in the next legislative session. "If
Congress isn't going to protect the country, we are going to protect
our own states," he says.

Other countries already have acted. The European Union, representing
27 nations, decided in 2005 to ban three forms of phthalates in toys
and child-care items and restrict the use of three others in items
children might put in their mouths. Canada has had a voluntary
agreement not to use phthalates in kids' products since 1998.

The science behind the concern

Probably the most widely known endocrine disruptor is DES, a synthetic
estrogen given to some pregnant women in the 1950s and 1960s under the
mistaken belief that it would prevent miscarriage and premature birth.
Since then, according to the CDC, research has shown that women who
took DES while pregnant have a modestly increased risk for breast
cancer. Their daughters are at increased risk for cancer of the vagina
and cervix.

It has been only since the 1990s that researchers have found evidence
that common chemicals, including those used in plastics, insecticides,
herbicides, fumigants and fungicides, could disrupt the endocrine
system.

The strongest data come from fish and other aquatic animals exposed to
agricultural chemical runoff. Bizarre physical changes, including male
fish with immature eggs in their testicles, have been found in the
Potomac River. Vicki Blazer, a pathologist with the U.S. Geological
Survey, blames pollutants with estrogen-like properties.

Other researchers have shown that in mammals, endocrine problems can
stem from exposure to chemicals that leach from plastics, especially
when they are heated. When pregnant rats are exposed to phthalates,
their male offspring are born with malformed genitalia.

In humans, a 2005 study by Shanna Swan, a professor of
obstetrics/gynecology at the University of Rochester (N.Y.) School of
Medicine and Dentistry, showed that sons whose mothers had higher
phthalate levels in their urine, in particular a dibutyl phthalate,
had a shorter distance between the anus and the genitals.

That measure is regarded as a sign of "demasculinization," Swan says.
The boys in whom the distance was shorter were slightly more likely to
have other problems, too, such as smaller penises and incompletely
descended testicles.

Many babies could be at risk, Swan says, because the phthalate levels
she found in the mothers of the affected babies also are found in
about 25% of American women.

Bisphenol A research in rodents also has found evidence that exposure
can cause a variety of problems: earlier sexual maturation in females
exposed before birth, breast cancer, lowered sperm production,
possible links to prostate cancer and increased insulin resistance, a
precursor to diabetes.

The chemical industry disputes these studies, however. A bisphenol A
website, sponsored by the American Chemistry Council, PlasticsEurope
and the Japan Chemical Industry Association, says bisphenol A "has
been safely used in consumer products and researched and studied for
over 40 years."

The Phthalate Esters Panel site, by the American Chemistry Council,
says "there is no reliable evidence that any phthalate has ever caused
a health problem for a human from its intended use." Some
organizations, it says, "have 'cherry picked' the results showing
impacts on test animals to create unwarranted concern."

All of this science is new — new enough that the painstaking research
necessary for making law hasn't had time to happen. The
instrumentation needed to test for extremely low amounts of these
chemicals only became cost-effective in the parts-per-million and
-billion range in the past 15 years.

George Gray, the EPA's deputy administrator for its Office of Research
and Development, says there's more to be done before conclusions can
be made.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., says EPA officials are "dragging their
feet. … There's no excuse for not having done the scientific research
to get the answers we need."

Critics haven't been happy when the EPA did move. Last year the agency
released a draft proposal that would have tripled the reference dose
for dibutyl phthalate to 0.3 milligrams per kilogram of body weight a
day. After criticism, the EPA said last year that it would postpone a
final decision.

The EPA has asked the National Academies to provide advice "on the
best approach for a cumulative risk assessment on phthalates," says
Gray. The agency has begun work on a risk assessment to set a
reference dose for bisphenol A.

The controversy may end up in court. In Los Angeles Superior Court,
Melissa Melendez and other parents have joined a class-action lawsuit
this year against manufacturers and sellers of baby bottles containing
bisphenol A.

Melendez says she fears that the chemical, leaching from bottles, may
have caused her 19-month-old daughter, Lexie, to show signs of
premature puberty.

"It makes me so upset," says Melendez, 25, of Fallbrook, Calif. "To
think I might have been harming her without even knowing it."

A hearing is set for Feb. 28. An attorney for the defendants declined
to comment on the lawsuit.

Weise reported from San Francisco, Szabo from McLean, Va.