Responding to your concerns about plastic bottles
Posted: Friday, April 18, 2008 4:18 PM by Victor Limjoco
By Robert Bazell, NBC News chief science correspondent
We have more today on plastic bottles. My blog Thursday on this subject, which you can see below behind a couple of Brian’s entries, generated an unusually large number of responses. I’ll try to answer to some of your questions. That blog has a lot of the basics of this issue and links to sites where you can find more information. Please refer to it, I won’t repeat all that.
Today’s news is that the Canadian government is banning baby bottles that might give off the chemical Bisphenol A (known as BPA). The Canadian Health Minister said he was acting out of an abundance of caution for babies and emphasized he did not think there was any danger to adults from the wide variety of plastic containers that give off tiny amounts of BPA. You can read about the Canadian decision here.
Also Wal-Mart has announced it is removing baby bottles with BPA from its shelves in both the US and Canada. Nalgene, a major manufacturer of water bottles said it would stop using plastic containing BPA.
A lot of you asked the simple question “What should I do?” Unfortunately we in the news business should not be giving advice. This is a difficult issue for many reasons. The potential danger from BPA was discovered about 20 years ago. It takes a long time and lots of money to perform the animals tests to look for a potential danger. Then there are arguments about their meaning with environmentalists and some scientists on one side and the chemical industry and its experts on the other.
Health Canada decided today it had enough information to act. The U.S. FDA which regulates the issue in this country has not made that determination yet although some members of Congress are trying to push it.
If you decide on your own there is a danger, the obvious thing is to avoid plastic containers whenever possible. Glass breaks, but it does not give off chemicals.
If you do use plastic containers and worry about BPA, the recycling symbols on the bottoms of plastic bottles can be of some help. (The number 7 indicates the possible presence of BPA). I know from friends that bottles and baby cups guaranteed to be BPA free are flying off the shelves. You should also try to avoid scratching, microwaving or washing any plastic containers in harsh detergents. But even cans (some of them containing baby formula) are often lined with plastics, some containing BPA. So the chemicals are hard to avoid completely.
Ultimately this complexity requires the federal government to pay for quality research and make the right decisions based on good science. In other words, like with many other things, it is up to our elected officials.
