Comments on: California Lawmakers Actually Turn Down An Opportunity For More Restrictions!

By: Doctor Doofus

Doctor Doofus — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:53:18 +0000

I googled this and boy all the pages on this subject seem to be really dramatic and sky-is-falling pages about the toxic chemicals and the government conspiracy. I finally found some decent reports on google page six or seven from the CDC and from a university page listing studies and information and upon reading it, I can’t see what the fuss is. It sounds like the research is conclusive that it is not going to do much especially because it does not get retained long at all if it goes into the blood which it normally does not. Also, they said that a plastic bottle should not leach more than very tiny numbers of molecules. This is crazy!

By: Chem Geek Gregor

Chem Geek Gregor — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:34:28 +0000

bisphenol A has a biological halflife in humans of just hours before being excreted in the urine and that does not include internal breakdown of it. It has a very fast biological decomposition rate even in the enviornment its halflife before decomposition is a matter of days. Therefore it can’t remain in your body long enough to build up beyond minute concentrations even if you’re exposed to it at high levels.

The concern about it came from the finding that it could trigger certain hormone receptors and they showed in rats that if they exposed them to high levels at a constant rate such that they maintained a constant high level in the body, even as it was broken down and excreted it would have hormonal effects and especially on throwing off sexual development.

Something to consider about hormones is that they don’t do much at very low levels. All men have measurable estrogen although its a tiny tiny portion of that of women it is there and yet men don’t grow breasts, why? Because it’s not like low levels of hormones are going to have the same effect of high levels sufficient to change chemistry and development of certain tissues. The levels in the body after drinking something from a plastic bottle are so minute that even if they do mimic the effects of human hormones they are drowned out by the much higher levels of even trace hormones which are too low to manifest traits that are observable in any way.

By: Q

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:50:48 +0000

George, I might point out that if you follow the links you will find that the European Food Safety Authority, The German Government, The Canadian Government and several large studies found no reason for concern. Also the FDA report doesn’t just say that it’s safe because they said so but it cites all the major studies and relevant data.

This seems to me like the whole thing with cell phones and cancer and claiming we should take precautions because we just don’t know and we need more studies. How the hell many more do they need? This goddamned stuff has been around for most of the 20th century and has been studied many many times. The high dose rodent studies have been proven to be poor indicators of what very low exposure might do to humans.

By: George Cross

George Cross — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:44:35 +0000

I’m sure I’ll be attacked like I always am when I say anything sane and intelligent on this page of bad science, but I’d like to hear why you think the US FDA is so trustworthy that all you need is their blessing on something and you take this on good faith.

By: DV82XL

DV82XL — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:57:36 +0000

This particular cycle of fear-mongering may be coming to and end. Eventually the public becomes saturated with this sort of ‘toxic substance of the week’ type of reporting and simply doesn’t give a damn anymore. I’ve pointed out in the past, that if all the things that were considered dangerous at low doses, where as bad as the chicken-little types made them out to be, we’d all be dead by now.