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Category: Healthy Legacy

The environmental toll of plastics
From cell phones and computers to bicycle helmets and hospital IV bags, plastic has molded society in many ways that make life both easier and safer. But the synthetic material also has left harmful imprints on the environment and perhaps human health, according to a new compilation of articles auth... Continued...

Food packaging leaks BPA, phthalates
Most people don't worry about what's in food packaging, but the cans, boxes and bottles used as containers for everything from pop to microwave popcorn are an underappreciated route of exposure to synthetic compounds able to disrupt normal hormone functions, according to a new study. The number ... Continued...

Strategy Being Devised To Protect Use of BPA
Manufacturers of cans for beverages and foods and some of their biggest customers, including Coca-Cola, are trying to devise a public relations and lobbying strategy to block government bans of a controversial chemical used in the linings of metal cans and lids. According to internal notes of a ... Continued...

FDA relied heavily on BPA lobby
As federal regulators hold fast to their claim that a chemical in baby bottles is safe, e-mails obtained by the Journal Sentinel show that they relied on chemical industry lobbyists to examine bisphenol A's risks, track legislation to ban it and even monitor press coverage. In one instance, the U... Continued...

Blog: Are some chemicals more dangerous at low doses?
There are some 82,000 chemicals used commercially in the U.S., but only a fraction have been tested to make sure they're safe and just five are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to congressional investigators. But a government scientist says there's no guarantee ... Continued...

Cut out BPA use or risk market exclusion, urges new report
The report Seeking Safer Packaging has been released by Green Century Capital Management, an investor in environmentally sound companies, and As You Sow, an advocate group for corporate responsibility. It claims that 14 of the largest public packaged food and beverage companies still use the contr... Continued...

Studies link packaging chemical to childhood obesity
Researchers found children in New York's East Harlem are three times more likely than other children in the US to be overweight, and they said that high levels of the packaging chemicals found in the children's urine may play a role in obesity by disrupting hormones that regulate growth and developm... Continued...

Exposure to environmental toxins an everyday occurrence
Children in communities of color are the most vulnerable In the refurbished Georgian revival dwelling that now houses the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), we squeezed into a room not meant to hold the 70 people who had gathered. The backgrounds of the audience members ranged fro... Continued...

Supermarket suspends sale of Johnson products amid debate
A major Chinese supermarket chain pulled baby products made by US-based health care giant Johnson & Johnson from its shelves Monday after allegations that the products contain carcinogens. Shanghai-based Nonggongshan Supermarkets Corp., which operates 3,500 stores in eastern China, pulled the pro... Continued...

Sunoco acknowledges safety concerns with bisphenol-A, prohibits use in baby products
Sunoco has begun restricting sales of a controversial chemical used in baby bottles and food containers that some researchers believe can harm infants. The move by the gas and chemical giant makes Sunoco the first manufacturer to acknowledge safety concerns about bisphenol-A, or BPA, which recent... Continued...

No BPA For Baby Bottles In U.S.
The six largest manufacturers of baby bottles will stop selling bottles in the United States made with bisphenol A, a controversial chemical widely used in plastics but increasingly linked to a range of health effects. The manufacturers declared their intentions after Connecticut Attorney Genera... Continued...

Wash. House OKs ban on chemical in baby bottles
The House has approved a measure that would ban a controversial chemical from baby bottles, sippy cups and sports water bottles. The measure to ban bisphenol A was passed on a 76-21 vote Thursday and now heads to the Senate. The federal government says bisphenol A is safe in low doses, but sup... Continued...

New York County Bans BPA Baby Bottles
A New York county banned baby bottles and sippy cups made from a common compound found in many plastic products. The bill passed Tuesday in the Suffolk County Legislature. It bans bottles made with bisphenol A, more commonly known as BPA. Stores selling bottles with BPA face $500 fines. The count... Continued...

No BPA For Baby Bottles In U.S.
The six largest manufacturers of baby bottles will stop selling bottles in the United States made with bisphenol A, a controversial chemical widely used in plastics but increasingly linked to a range of health effects. The manufacturers declared their intentions after Connecticut Attorney General... Continued...

NY county lawmakers vote to ban BPA baby bottles
Lawmakers in one New York county have voted to ban the sale of baby bottles made with a chemical that some studies have suggested is harmful to young children. The measure passed Tuesday by the Suffolk County legislature would ban the use of the chemical BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups sold fo... Continued...

EPA a failure on chemicals, audit finds
The Environmental Protection Agency's ability to assess toxic chemicals is as broken as the nation's financial markets and needs a total overhaul, a congressional audit has found. The Government Accountability Office has released a report saying the EPA lacks even basic information to say whether... Continued...

Minnesota group tests toys, finds toxic results
A Minnesota-based consumer group says more than a third of the toys it tested contain significant amounts of toxic chemicals. Healthy Legacy and its public health partners in other states tested more than 1,500 toys for lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, chlorine and bromine. The results are p... Continued...

Lead, other chemicals remain in many toys
Holiday toy-shopping stress is sure to ratchet up with a new report on toxic toys issued today. Nearly one-third of the popular toys tested contain medium to high levels of lead, cadmium, mercury or other potentially dangerous chemicals, according to the Michigan-based Ecology Center. Toy jewelry fi... Continued...

Some Toys With Banned Plastics Will Stay on Market
A new federal ban on the use of the controversial chemical phthalate in teethers, pacifiers and other children's products won't apply to goods already in warehouses or on store shelves, federal safety regulators said yesterday. The decision, issued by Consumer Product Safety Commission general co... Continued...

Our Home-Grown Melamine Problem (Op-Ed)
China's food supply appears to be awash in the industrial chemical melamine. Dangerous levels have been detected not only in milk and eggs, but also in chicken feed and wheat gluten, meaning that melamine is almost impossible to avoid in processed foods. Melamine in baby formula has killed at least ... Continued...

Researchers raise alarm after chemical leak found in common plastic
Medical researchers at the University of Alberta say that two chemicals leaking from plastic laboratory equipment were so biologically active they ruined a drug experiment. The inadvertent discovery could have wide-ranging consequences because the chemicals causing the experiment to go awry were ... Continued...

Canada will ban baby bottles containing BPA, regulate the substance in can liners and wastewater
DECLARING THAT BISPHENOL A (BPA) potentially may harm infants and is toxic to fish, the Canadian government has unveiled a multipronged approach to restrict this widely used chemical. This will mark the first regulation of the compound anywhere in the world. BPA is a high-production-volume substa... Continued...

FDA Asked to Rethink Bisphenol A Safety
Oct. 31, 2008 -- A scientific panel has formally urged the FDA to rethink a recent conclusion that a chemical used in baby bottles and infant formula packing is safe at current levels. The chemical, called bisphenol A (BPA), is an ingredient in hard plastics and in the lining of many food cans. C... Continued...

FDA Asked to Rethink Bisphenol A Safety
Oct. 31, 2008 -- A scientific panel has formally urged the FDA to rethink a recent conclusion that a chemical used in baby bottles and infant formula packing is safe at current levels. The chemical, called bisphenol A (BPA), is an ingredient in hard plastics and in the lining of many food cans. C... Continued...

FDA Asked to Rethink Bisphenol A Safety
Oct. 31, 2008 -- A scientific panel has formally urged the FDA to rethink a recent conclusion that a chemical used in baby bottles and infant formula packing is safe at current levels. The chemical, called bisphenol A (BPA), is an ingredient in hard plastics and in the lining of many food cans. C... Continued...

Plastics industry behind FDA research on bisphenol A, study finds
A government report claiming that bisphenol A is safe was written largely by the plastics industry and others with a financial stake in the controversial chemical, the Journal Sentinel found. Although the Food and Drug Administration will not reveal who prepared its draft, the agency's own docume... Continued...

Health Canada Reaffirms Safety of BPA for Use in Metal Food Packaging
WASHINGTON, Oct 17, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today's announcement by Health Canada regarding completion of its assessment of bisphenol A (BPA) offers reassurance to Canadians that the use of this chemical in the production of epoxy resins in metal food and beverage packaging presents no risk to consu... Continued...

Editorial: BPA and the Donor
For an agency that claims to be rooting out conflicts of interest, the Food and Drug Administration has done a poor job of handling what looks like a potential conflict on a committee evaluating the safety of bisphenol-A, known as BPA. There is growing fear that BPA a chemical found in baby bottl... Continued...

Donation raises questions for head of FDA’s bisphenol A panel
A retired medical supply manufacturer who considers bisphenol A to be "perfectly safe" gave $5 million to the research center of Martin Philbert, chairman of the Food and Drug Association panel about to make a pivotal ruling on the chemical’s safety. Philbert did not disclose the donation, which ... Continued...

Shoppers Offered “Safe Plastic Tips”
Plastics and children's toys could be hazardous to your health. That warning comes from a statewide consumer group that promotes safe products. Healthy Legacy says new science on the chemical BPA links high concentrations to increased risk of heart complications, diabetes and liver damage. Spokeswom... Continued...

Editorial: More Limits For BPA
The federal Food and Drug Administration needs to rethink its position on the safety of bisphenol A, an estrogen-like compound used in polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins and one of the most widely used chemicals in the world. Bisphenol A, also known as BPA, has been around for 50 years. It's ... Continued...

Reporting on contaminants and health in Milwaukee's Journal Sentinel
Over the past year, the JS has been publishing a remarkable series of stories about contamination, health and politics. And they just keep coming! One of the nice revelations for me, as a scientist, monitoring mainstream media coverage of stories about contaminants and health is to discover that... Continued...

Bisphenol A Linked to Heart Disease and Diabetes
WASHINGTON, DC, September 16, 2008 (ENS) - For the first time, scientists have linked higher concentrations of the chemical bisphenol A in human urine with diagnoses of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Bisphenol A is widely used in epoxy resins lining food and beverage containers and in hard ... Continued...

5 Ways to Keep Bisphenol A, or BPA, Out of Your Food
With yesterday's study linking bisphenol A—a chemical in hard plastics and the linings of food and beverage cans—to diabetes and heart disease, you may be wondering what you can do to minimize your exposure. The Environmental Working Group last year conducted an analysis of BPA in various canned foo... Continued...

What the Chemical Industry Doesn't Want You to Know about Everyday Products
It takes a lot of nerve to go up against the $3 trillion-a-year global chemical industry. Ask University of Missouri-Columbia scientists Frederick Vom Saal and Wade Welshons. They've been in the industry's crosshairs for more than a decade, since their experiments turned up the first hard evidenc... Continued...

Study: Neurotoxin In Everyday Household Items
A Minneapolis mom recently learned that ordinary, household items are contaminating her family. "Everyday household things could be doing our kids harm and we don't even really understand what they can do yet," said mother Christi Williams. Williams thought she had provided her children with... Continued...

Study suggests new car interiors emit fewer toxic chemicals
The second Annual Consumer Guide to Toxic Chemicals in Cars and Child Car Seats suggests that the interior components of vehicles built after 2008 may emit fewer toxics than 2007 cars do. Released on July 22 by the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., an environmental group, the study finds that a hi... Continued...

Bisphenol A Safe, Says FDA
Aug. 15, 2008 -- Bisphenol A, the controversial plastic chemical, is safe at typical exposure levels from food and drink, according to an FDA draft report. Bisphenol A, also called BPA, is found in polycarbonate plastic, including some water bottles and baby bottles, and in epoxy resins, which ar... Continued...

Group questions pesticide's health effects
These pesticides are called pyrethrins. They're based on a natural nerve agent from the chrysanthemum plant. In the last two decades they've largely replaced an earlier class of household pesticides, organophosphates,like DDT, which were developed from World War II nerve gas. The pyrethrins are ... Continued...

House bans lead from children's toys
The House passed sweeping toy-safety legislation Wednesday, two years after 4-year-old Jarnell Brown of Minneapolis died from swallowing a heart-shaped charm made almost entirely of lead. The bill, which virtually bans lead from toys, passed 424 to 1. It is expected to pass by another big margin ... Continued...

Congress sends Bush bill banning lead in children's products
The Senate on Thursday passed and sent to the White House legislation that bans lead from children's toys and seeks to ensure that chemicals posing possible health problems will not end up on toys and articles that kids chew on and play with. The Senate, stymied by partisan differences over the e... Continued...

Sleuthing for precursors to drinking-water treatment byproducts
New research in ES&T (DOI 10.1021/es7030467 ) shows that a pesticide widely used in Germany degrades into a precursor of a carcinogenic nitrosamine. Several years of careful detective work led to the discovery that a breakdown product known as N,N-dimethylsulfamide (DMS) becomes N-nitrosodimethylami... Continued...

Better living through chemurgy
FORTY years ago Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate” was given a famous piece of career advice: “Just one word…plastics.” It was appropriate at the time, given that the 1960s were a golden age of petrochemical innovation. Oil was cheap and seemed limitless. Since then, scientists have kept o... Continued...

FDA’s Chief Scientist Asks Science Board Subcommittee to Review Research on Bisphenol-A
As part of an ongoing effort, a subcommittee of the FDA's Science Board will hold a public meeting on the safety of bisphenol-A (BPA) in plastics, review an Agency Task Force report on the topic, and deliver its findings to the Board's annual meeting this fall. Frank M. Torti, M.D., M.P.H., the ... Continued...

Governor vetoes bill banning two chemicals
Governor Tim Pawlenty says a lack of scientific evidence is behind his latest veto. The governor turned back legislation that would have banned the sale of two chemicals: the fire retardant DECA, and phthalates, a plasticizer used to soften vinyl. Pawlenty said he is willing to consider limits... Continued...

Phase out the toxins, phase in clean alternatives
When researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine conducted their groundbreaking 'biomonitoring' study to determine human exposure to synthetic chemicals, the results were alarming. The nine otherwise healthy individuals they tested carried an average of 91 industrial compounds and other pollut... Continued...

David Wallinga and Lindsay Dahl: Scare isn't the last, only the latest
Last month, within a day of each other, Wal-Mart promised to stop carrying baby bottles with bisphenol-A (BPA) -- a toxic chemical that has received recent attention -- and Nalgene announced it will stop making its signature water bottles from the unsafe plastic. Toys 'R' Us and Babies 'R' Us have a... Continued...

Governor Call to Action!
As we get down to the wire at the capitol, we want to make sure that the Governor is hearing from his constituents about the importance of signing our bills. We have two call to actions: First, Please call The Governor?s office and ask for his support for both:

1.The Safe Baby Product... Continued...

FDA relied on industry studies to judge safety
Ignoring hundreds of government and academic studies showing a chemical commonly found in plastic can be harmful to lab animals at low doses, the Food and Drug Administration determined the chemical was safe based on just two industry-funded studies that didn't find harm. In response to a congres... Continued...

EPA drops ball on danger of chemicals to children
Like many parents, New Berlin mom Becky Fisco figures that if the chemicals sprayed on crib mattresses could make her 5-month-old baby sick, government regulators would warn her about it. "I just assume that these things are safe or they wouldn't be allowed to be sold," said Fisco as baby Natalie... Continued...

Plastic (Not) Fantastic: Food Containers Leach a Potentially Harmful Chemical
Bisphenol A (BPA) is a ubiquitous compound in plastics. First synthesized in 1891, the chemical has become a key building block of plastics from polycarbonate to polyester; in the U.S. alone more than 2.3 billion pounds (1.04 million metric tons) of the stuff is manufactured annually. Since at le... Continued...