Industry Brainstorms How To Convince Consumers BPA Isn't The Devil
As studies continue to link bisphenol-A (BPA) with all sorts of health problems, states and cities are banning the chemical from baby bottles and sippy cups and Congress is considering a ban in all food containers. This worries industry groups, who last week held a private meeting to devise strategy to protect the use of BPA. Someone sent the notes to the Washington Post.
As you might expect, it's a pretty cynical meeting. The groups in attendance proposed a $500,000 PR campaign to "get the BPA perspective in the media mix." Possible ways to do this include trying to scare consumers with misleading warnings like "Do you want to have access to baby food anymore?" or parading a young pregnant woman around to talk about the great things that BPA can do for her and her baby.
The Post quotes from the notes, but the blog Effect Measure has what it claims to be the entire summary, available here.
We've written before about the many adverse health effects that are being linked to BPA exposure, like increased instances of prostate and breast cancer, diabetes, and numerous reproductive system defects. A Harvard study last month found clear evidence that containers made with BPA, like hard plastic sports bottles, leach BPA into people's bodies.
Congress will soon consider the Ban Poisonous Additives Act, sponsored by Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.), which would ban the chemical in all food containers, including baby bottles, reusable sport bottles, and canned goods. Retailers like Target and Babies R Us have already pulled BPA products from their shelves and replaced them with similarly priced BPA-free alternatives, and at least three canned food producers use BPA-free linings in their cans, demonstrating that alternatives already exist at similar prices.
Strategy Being Devised to Protect Use of BPA [WaPo]
(Photo: fallenposters)
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Comments:
but it tastes so good...
...I guess its only horrible if the disease causing agent is an organic chemical, but heaven forbid it is a food substance that leads to heart disease and obesity - then The Government MUST regulate it. all that other stuff? naw
I chucked by Nalgene bottle when I found it had that stuff in it and replaced it with a BPA-free one. I think I paid maybe a dollar or two more, but that might have just been the difference in prices between different retailers. I really wish for once that manufacturers would just step up and say "you're right, we'll switch" without all the legal stuff.
The Post quotes from the notes...
/Dr. Seuss.
The easiest way for them to get people to use their products again is to circulate an email filled with official sounding jargon and names that won't pass even a cursory Google Search against the competition. Everyone knows that if Oprah or an Email says it, the people will buy it. I have relatives who still believe that sponges contain Agent Orange, Fabreeze kills pets, you won't get sick if you see a Chiropractic 3x a week, etc...
The more I hear about this, the more I worry about my kid, who spent a solid year drinking from BPA bottles.
Just man up and get rid of it already, manufacturers! It'll cost less than the massive lawsuit you're setting yourselves up for.
"...the great things that BPA can do for her and her baby."
Well, this study [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] says that average levels of BPA in humans are at or above the levels which were shown to cause harm to animals. And seeing as how BPA leaches from containers into food...
But it's from the same people who brought you DDT, MTBE, etc. How can you not trust these fine folks?
I've recently gotten me a stainless steel water bottle for the gym. Just sayin'...
Anyone know of the best way to dispose of about a dozen BPA-infected Nalgene bottles? I don't want to dump them in the trash, can they be recycled?
I would be more worried, but the booze I drink out of my Nalgene is probably much worse for my health.
@doctor_cos: MTBE has been replaced with ethanol, arguably worse for both the environment, and for people, than MTBE ever was.
does anybody here know how you can tell if the plastics you are using have BPA in them? as far as i can tell, if the bottle is categorized as a "7" (OTHER), it has BPA. PET or PETE (#1), HDPE (#2), LDPE (#4) are all supposed to be BPA-free, but can anyone that actually knows something about this stuff confirm or deny that?
@doctor_cos: I'm sort of wincing as I type this, but I've used a recycled Gatorade bottle for carrying my gym water for ages. I clean it weekly (wash, boiling water then freeze) but here I am.
Is this bad, worth switching to a BPA-free labeled one?
(Forgive my laziness, but there are only so many Poison Train items to track and this is one that's slipped past my radar)
So industry is running another great experiment... again on ourselves and our children.
When are we going to wake up and realize that corporations are not looking out for the well being of the people... They focus only on the bank balances of their execs and shareholders.
How long are we going to allow this sort of abuse to continue? Drugs brought to market too early, before they have proven themselves safe and effective... Vehicles sold to people with obvious flaws (pinto anyone?)... Foods brought to market with a high risk of killing the people who eat them (Peanut butter anyone?)... Toys sold for kids with lead paints (go China go!)... This is too easy there are too many examples!
Hey, new idea! Let's hold the stock holders personally responsible for the actions of the corporations they own. I know they already get punished when a controversy makes the press and the stock price drops... But that's not enough. How about we attribute shared liability to anyone who owns more than say 1/10 of 1% of a companies stock at the time the damage is done.
Now, I know you are thinking this will kill all stocks and corporations will not be in a position to raise necessary funds to operate. Not quite... you see if the corporation comes forward the moment anyone who should know suspects a problem and does the right thing... well that is good so the stock holder doesn't share liability. But, if the corporation thinks about the stock value first... well F'em!
"Ban Poisonous Additives Act"
I see what you did there, Congress! Way to sock it to BPA.
@doctor_cos: DDT is actually quite safe. It's replacement was more dangerous, and not as effective, which led to many deaths.
Well, let me play Devil's Advocate here.
First, the "BPA = bad" links are inconclusive.
Second, just because something shows harm in clinical situations doesn't mean it's harmful in real life. We've known that Saccharine's caused cancer in rats for over a generation, but we only recently learned that it does bupkus against humans because humans, surprise, are not rats.
Third, how dangerous is the alternative? We live in a world where it's beaten into us like a drum to consider holistically the consequences of our consumption. I'm guessing the reason BPA is used is because it's cheaper and/or easier to manufacture than the alternatives. We ban BPA and use the alternatives, perhaps all we're doing is shifting the problem from an (unproven) cancer risk to a cost-ineffective manufacturing process that wastes energy (read: carbon). Congratulations, you don't have to worry about "killing" yourself because you just trashed some Third World city, or worse, the planet.
That last point may strike some as irrelevant, but remember, we make tradeoffs all of the time-- and not every tradeoff appears to make rational sense. For instance, how many lives were "saved" by banning DDT when considering how many lives were "lost" from malaria?
Obviously, BPA isn't in the category of a life-saving pesticide, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable with more science on this issue before everyone freaks out even more. BPA could be really bad-- or it could just be the Alar scare all over again.
And the conservatives continue their "let the market decide" and deregulation mantras.
As if corporations would ever do anything in the interest of the consumer if it cost them a single penny in the short term.
@GreatWhiteNorth: So peanut butter has a high risk of killing people? Someone should let the Chinese know, as they ingest a lot of peanut products.
@calquist: Ditto for me. No more BPA items for storing the drippings from my crystal meth distillery!
@Daveinva:
+1
Well reasoned analysis. It's nice to see a post that's more insightful than the usual emotional knee-jerk reaction.
The first water bottle I ever drank out of was a nalgene. My mother worked in a lab for 30 years and would order extra nalgenes to use when we went camping, back before you could buy them outside of the lab. One of the studies she did actually consisted of injecting fish with varying amounts of BPA's and studying them. So ive seen pictures of male fish genitalia converting into female during puberty because the BPA's were such strong synthetic hormones (this is why the emphasis is on BPA's in baby bottles). Shortly after i chucked my nalgenes and switched to glass and stainless steel. I highly recommend mason jars with handles =) Anywho, when the BPA controversy hit i was enrolled in a 600 student organic chemistry class. Here in seattle, the birthplace of REI, everyone carried nalgenes. I always sat in the back of the lecture hall, and one day the professor pulled up some documents on BPAs and we went over the structure and suspected effects on humans. Within a week, not one nalgene could be seen in the whole room.
@OGH!_GitEmSteveDave: Not really. By the time DDT was banned in the US, it had been so overused that not only were bird populations crashing, pest insects were developing substantial resistance.
In terms of its effects on human health, it's been linked to diabetes, and it acts as a neurotoxin in fetuses and developing babies. The workers who apply it are at a greater risk of developing asthma.
Frankly, the junk-science "DDT is teh AWESOME!" crowd is part of the reason we had to ban it - people were, and are, way too enthusiastic about its use to use it safely, responsibly, and effectively. The false impression that it is completely safe and can't be misused promotes its misuse.
@crashfrog: agreed, just because its supposedly not as bad as what we have now, doesn't mean we should go back to it.
Car companies complained when first forced to install airbags, credit card companies complained when forced to reform, plastic industry complains when government wants to ban BPA.
Yet somehow the world keeps spinning.
@giggitygoo: "Well-reasoned"? For starters, a well-reasoned analysis might have begun with what BPA is, and what it's used for. Hint - it's not a material out of which things are made.
Secondly - the idea that DDT bans caused malaria deaths is absurd. DDT isn't the only pesticide, nor is it the best, the cheapest, or the most effective. It was simply one of the first, and it's been the most misused.
@Shadowfire: True and not true. Ethanol doesn't leach into (and poison) groundwater, but producing ethanol in any quantity has many toxic (and flammable) byproducts.
@downwithmonstercable: If they say that and switch, they're afraid that they'll get sued. It's a Catch-22. Switch and get sued. Don't switch and convince people that it's safe and probably still get sued.
@juri squared: We've been using Born Free glass bottles. I've dropped them from 3-4 feet and they have not broken.
@durkzilla: I should go ahead and share it right now on Facebook so I can be the first to have this as a "ha ha, they were so backwards" posts.
@Daveinva: What crashfrog said.
When you obviously have no fricking idea what BPA is, but you can still produce an intelligent, reasonable-sounding opinion justifying its use...you have a future as a "Republican strategist."
p.s. BPA is a building block ingredient of polycarbonate, among other plastics. It's not the end product like you seem to think.
@crashfrog: That's more a case of neglect for facilities cleanliness than it is for adding a potentially dangerous chemical that, at best, is known to leach into the foods the containers hold. Peanut butter, in and of itself, and when handled in a clean environment, is only dangerous if you're allergic.
"the great things BPA can do for your baby"
Like the nutrients that they leech into your food that is good for you? I can think of things that your baby couldn't have without plastics, but nothing it can't have without BPA.
Alex,
Which three canned food producers use BPA-free linings?
I've also got a baby who's going to be starting on solids in a month, so I've been going crazy trying to find BPA-free baby food brands that are available locally. Gerber has a BPA-free line, but the full range of their offerings aren't available in those containers.
@packcamera: As long as the recycling number matches whatever the bin you are recycling allows, you should be fine. The plastics should get sorted at the recycling center if certain plastics can't be recycled the same way as others.
@crashfrog:
Foods brought to market with a high risk of killing the people who eat them (Peanut butter anyone?)...
Hundreds of cases out of how many jars? Not really a "high" risk. Almost par for the course, if you think about it. Probably well within statistical noise.
2, 4 and 5 are generally considered safe. 1, 3, 6 and 7 are unsafe.
7 "OTHER" plastics includes all kinds of stuff, everything that isn't 1-6, including some things that don't contain BPA (like nylon).
It just happens that polycarbonate, one of the worst products for BPA, is a #7 plastic. On those products, you'll sometimes see "PC" written under the 7 symbol.
@Daveinva: just because something shows harm in clinical situations doesn't mean it's harmful in real life.
No, but isn't that an indication that we should:
1) Be more cautious with our use of these kinds of materials
and
2) Put the burden on manufacturers to prove that they are safe, instead of making govt regulators prove that they are *not* safe?
I'd rather err on the side of severely limiting things that end up being safe than go the other way - letting things out into products & the environment and then retroactively figuring out what's going on.
Wow. I think Consumerist jumped the shark a while ago, but this killed it for me. Daveinva is right on the mark as he's attempting to play devil's advocate, and crashfrog & theodicey - you both mouth off at gigitygoo like a couple of highschoolers. Criticizing what he didn't say? Bringing up American politicks?? WTF?
Interesting that the same jackassery happened on BoingBoing just about the same time..
Oh well, I'm out.
Next in line: Phtalates!
@juri squared: You and me both. Not only did my first kiddo spend a year drinking out of bottles with BPA, but I was exclusively pumping (long story, but he wouldn't nurse), so his milk was STORED in them, too. We switched to glass when he was around a year old.
@downwithmonstercable: If you were able to buy a BPA-free bottle, I don't quite get what the issue is.
You had a desire for BPA-free plastics, some mfr anticipated that need and brought the product to market. You bought it... the system works!
By the way, how can I get a BPA-free plastic bottle? Do they make them in < 1 liter sizes? Isn there some other dangerous plastic solute you still have to worry about in the non-BPA bottles
@ludwigk: It is an issue when the manufacturer sells you something that they claim is safe and harmless and it is not. If we applied your logic then no dangerous products would be pulled from the market. BPA is not a lifestyle "choice" it's a public health issue.
How long ago was this? Nalgene has plenty of BPA free products on the market now. I remember awhile back when all the BPA fear first started and I couldn't find a single Nalgene bottle in stock at the local REI because they had pulled all the BPA bottles and where in the process of bringing out the new product.
I needed a bottle at the time so I picked up a BPA free bottle from Camelbak, but almost all of Nalgene's line is BPA free now from what I gathered last time I ordered from their online store.
@MissPiss: I would love to see the day. I have terrible eczema problems if I wear, or even if someone touches me, with plastic gloves.
Because Industry is always looking out for our best interests...
Who wants to bet that 50 years from now the "BPA is A-OK" advertising will be bandied about just like the cigarette ads from the 1950's?