From Health.com:
Researchers compared the rates of sexual dysfunction in two groups of workers in China — 230 men who worked at factories that produce BPA or epoxy resin (which contains the chemical), and some 400 men, including workers in other industries, who were not exposed to abnormally high levels of BPA. Epoxy resin is used in the lining of canned foods and is another potential source of BPA in addition to hard, clear plastic.
The men who worked in the BPA and epoxy-resin factories were exposed to levels about 50 times higher than average.
The greater a worker's exposure to BPA — which was measured using spot air and urine samples — the more likely he was to have sexual dysfunction. Yet the dysfunction was apparent even in workers who had worked in a BPA factory for one year or less.
Well, that's troubling.
Study links BPA in plastics to erectile dysfunction [CNN]
(Photo:frankieleon)
Water, in excessive quantities, is toxic, people.
There is such a thing as safe exposure.
This isn't to say I'm a fan of using dangerous chemicals when there's no need for them. But to scare parents senseless that they are poisoning their children at each feeding is the worse kind of journalism and, ironically, encourages the kind of unnecessary consumption cycle that a consumer-advocacy site should be discouraging.
]]>Irony = Putting Viagra in a bottle laced with BPA
]]>Also, "50 times higher than average" bothers me. Than average what? Average factory worker? Average resin factory worker? Average ubangi tribesman? I can't fathom how the person working in the factory could possibly be exposed to only 50x higher concentration of a chemical that is leeched at an amount around 30 parts per billion into food that comes in contact with it.
According to this article ([www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]) the average adult injests less than .1 microg/kg bw/per day from food and water. For an average adult male, who is 86.6kg, that's 8.66 microg/day. These factory workers are only exposed to ~450microg of BPA each day? Seriously?
]]>@thompson: But you're not eating it in such large quantities as these men in the factories were. You're not breathing it in. If you eat a salad and your vegetables are fresh and not taken from plastic bags, you're not consuming BPA. These men worked day in and day out with BPA.
]]>This is the worst kind of science, with no controls and very faulty cause and effect logic. Even Dr. Sokol, the study director agrees:
""It's not cause and effect, but when you have the kind of ambient air quality assessment that they made, it comes pretty close to cause and effect."
Pretty close? This isn't f#@%ing horseshoes, this is peoples' lives. You need to get it right before you start publicly conjecturing.
Notice this isn't a news report based on a recent published peer-reviewed article. This is just this doctor spewing out some preliminary results and trying to gain media attention, and CNN happily obliging.
There may or may not be a problem with BPA, but this kind of fear-mongering media-whoring bad science is not going to help us find out.
]]>Still want a rocket pop.
]]>(Yes, wikipeida, but I'm not going to link the original articles, since they're so neatly gathered there).
Lead and mercury won't hurt you in small quantities, either, but it's long since been decided that we're better off being exposed to as little of it as possible. Of course, it took millions of people suffering life-time consequences from exposure before the government acted. It's good to learn from history. I don't have a problem with tackling these products preemptively.
]]>@thisistobehelpful: Really? I want to throw out the rest of my box now.
]]>I guess no more sticking your mangina into baby bottles for all you men out there.. =P
]]>@gp1138: Well, you won't GET hard evidence with that problem :P
]]>** YEAH YEAH I KNOW!**
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