Exposure to BPA while pregnant linked to children's lung problems

Pregnant women are urged to minimize BPA exposure.

Children of women exposed to the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) during pregnancy may be at an increased risk of lung problems, according to a new study.

In the study of 398 mother-infant pairs, researchers looked at the mothers' exposure to BPA during pregnancy by examining the concentration of the chemical in their urine.

They also assessed how healthy the children's lungs were and whether they developed wheezing by age 5. To measure their lung health, the investigators measured the amount of air they exhaled during the first second of an exhalation.

The researchers found that every tenfold increase in the average BPA concentration in a mother's urine corresponded to a 14.2 percent decrease in the child's lung functionat age 4, but not at age 5.

In other words, BPA may affect lung function during a child's early years, but the effect may disappear over time, the researchers said.

They also found that a tenfold increase in the average concentration of BPA in maternal urine was related to a fourfold-plus increase in a child's odds of experiencing persistent wheezing during the first five years of life, according to the study, published today in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

"Our results support the conclusion that BPA exposure during pregnancy is associated with persistent wheezing in children and may have a negative health [effect] on lung function," said study author Dr. Adam J. Spanier, of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.

"I would recommend that women of childbearing age and pregnant women try to minimize their exposure to BPA," Spanier said.

BPA is a chemical used to make polycarbonate — a hard, clear plastic that is used in many consumer products, including the lining of metal food containers.

To measure the mothers' BPA levels during pregnancy, the researchers collected urine samples twice, once when the women were 16 weeks pregnant and again at 26 weeks.

The investigators also examined the children's exposure to BPA after birth, by taking their urine samples annually during their first five years, but they did not find a relationship between their exposure during early childhood and their lung health or wheezing risk.

The study did not look at what mechanism might link the prenatal exposure to BPA and children's lung health, Spanier said. However, "[at] least one animal study suggests that BPA might affect the development of the cells in the lung responsible for airway secretions," he said.

Still, it is not clear what the exact mechanism is, he said.

"BPA is also known for its potential estrogen-disrupting effects," Spanier said. "There are many other human health studies which demonstrate associations with other health outcomes,” such as neurodevelopmental and endocrine effects, he said.

"While I think it is important to avoid BPA during pregnancy, it is a difficult task for a consumer," because it is in so many products, he said. Consumers would benefit from a safer chemical management system at the national level, he added.

"But more specifically, given the mounting evidence, I do not see a reason for BPA to be in any consumer products," he told Live Science.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on its website that the current presence of BPA in consumer products poses no risk to the public's health.

"FDA's current perspective is that BPA is safe at the current levels occurring in foods," the website reads. "Based on FDA’s ongoing safety review of scientific evidence, the available information continues to support the safety of BPA for the currently approved uses in food containers and packaging."

Source:  Live Science

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Vermont pondering bill to regulate toxic chemicals

The bill would allow regulated use of
some chemicals that are harmful to health.

Federal regulations for reporting toxic chemicals in consumer products have not changed in decades, but Vermont is poised to join other states to label – and possibly ban – products containing chemicals considered harmful to public health.

Vermont has passed legislation to regulate the use of certain chemicals one at a time, including flame retardants, Bisphenol A (BPA), mercury and lead. But a new proposal would allow the Vermont Department of Health to expand this list every other year without legislative approval.

The bill, S.239, asks the department to create a list of potentially harmful chemicals and require manufacturers to label or remove toxic chemicals from their products – a proposal that has alarmed businesses across the country.

“Ultimately, we think industry should welcome some degree of regulation and transparency to provide the public better products and safer products,” Health Commissioner Harry Chen said in testimony last week before the Senate Economic Development Committee.

But some manufacturers say the list of toxic chemicals could be bad for business in Vermont. Some companies spend millions each year to report chemicals in their products in states with similar existing regulations, industry representatives told lawmakers drafting the bill.

The bill cleared the Senate Health and Welfare Committee (where it was introduced by Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden) and was then taken up by Senate Economic Development to address business concerns.

“I’m trying to bring the tension level down and let everybody know we’re not on a witch hunt,” committee Chair Sen. Kevin Mullin, R-Rutland, said last week. “We’re just trying to protect people from bad chemicals.”

The committee later revised the bill to exempt electronic products and any chemicals found in ammunition for air rifles, such as lead. The bill was voted out of committee Friday and the full Senate will vote on the bill as soon as Wednesday.

Environmental groups support the bill. It would protect consumers against the harmful effects of toxic chemicals, according to Lauren Hierl, political director for the Vermont Conservation Voters.

Asthma, obesity, infertility and cancers are some of the health effects of chemicals found in products sold in Vermont, she said. “They are just exacerbating these bad health trends,” she said. Hierl said she does not expect Vermont to ban chemicals that do not have a replacement.

Under Vermont’s proposed system, the health department and an advisory committee would compile a list of chemicals considered harmful to health, require manufacturers to disclose to the state these chemicals found in their products and mandate that the chemicals be either labeled or not sold in the state.

Source: VT Digger. The article has been edited for length.

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Store clerks exposed to BPA through receipts

Study shows chemical is absorbed through skin

BPA has been linked to a number of
potential health problems.

Store and ATM receipts may be adding to the exposure of people to the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), a new study from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center has found.

The study, published Tuesday in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests the chemical, used as a coating on thermal receipt paper, can be absorbed through the skin.

The finding is important because scientists previously believed BPA’s primary path into the human body was by eating or drinking food packaged in cans lined with or plastic bottles manufactured with BPA.

The federal Food and Drug Administration says hundreds of studies have concluded that BPA is safe at the low levels that occur in some foods, although the agency is continuing its review of and research into the chemical.

BPA is used in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. In humans, BPA can interfere with the production, secretion, function and elimination of hormones.

It’s linked to a number of potential health problems in animals and humans, including obesity, impaired neurological development in children and lowered reproductive function. A 2009 University of Cincinnati study concluded that BPA could be harmful to the heart, especially for women.

Exposures faced by store clerks, who spend their days repeatedly touching BPA-laden receipts, are likely to be higher than people who only occasionally handle receipts. The study, which was designed to simulate what clerks do, also shows that gloves would shield clerks from any additional exposure.

Researchers at Cincinnati Children’s recruited 24 volunteers in 2011 to study the effects of the receipts. “We tried to simulate what a clerk does” all day long in dealing with customers and handling receipts, said Dr. Shelley Ehrlich, a obstetrician/gynecologist trained as an environmental and perinatal epidemiologist and author of the study.

Ehrlich, who works in Cincinnati Children’s division of biostatistics and epidemiology and also is an assistant professor at UC’s department of environmental health, said the researchers measured the levels of BPA in the volunteers’ urine.

Roughly four in five of the participants had BPA in the blood before the trial; once they had handled receipts, all of the volunteers showed levels of BPA. In addition, the volunteers’ levels of BPA continued to rise for eight hours once they had stopped handling the receipts.

The study’s goal was to point out how receipts can add to the total BPA exposure of the general population from a source “that may have been overlooked,” as well as revealing that clerks face higher levels of BPA because of their jobs, Ehrlich said.

Ehrlich noted that the study, funded by a grant from the Harvard School of Public Health/National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety’s Education and Research Center, should be followed by a larger scale study to confirm the findings and evaluate the clinical implications of chronic exposure to BPA.

A representative for the American Chemistry Council criticized the study for being “far too limited to determine if the handling of cash register receipt paper results in significant BPA exposure.”

But the spokesman for the industry trade group – Steven Hentges, who is a member of the council’s polycarbonate/BPA global group – said the study “does suggest that consumer exposures to BPA, including occasional contact with thermal paper receipts, are well below safe intake levels established by government regulators around the world.

“The BPA exposure levels measured in participants of this study appear to be even lower than the levels found to cause no adverse effects in recent comprehensive research conducted in FDA’s laboratory,” Hentges said in an e-mail statement.

Source: Cincinnati.com

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Toxic chemicals increase health care costs

Chemical exposures are driving up
health care costs, experts say.

Health care spending in the U.S. has surged more than eightfold since the 1960s.

Skyrocketing in that same time: Rates of chronic disease, use of synthetic chemicals, and evidence that many of these widely used substances may be wreaking havoc on human health.

"We know that these chemicals are reaching people. We know that chemicals can cause disease," said Dr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of the department of preventative medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

"Those diseases cost money," Landrigan added.

New research published on Wednesday offers an example of this financial burden, widely overlooked in the health care debate.

The use of bisphenol A, or BPA, in food and beverage containers, according to the study, is responsible for an estimated $3 billion a year in costs associated with childhood obesity and adult heart disease.

"One could argue that's absurdly conservative," said Leonardo Trasande, an associate professor in pediatrics, environmental medicine and health policy at New York University's Lagone Medical Center and author of the study.

Trasande's calculations didn't take into account other health issues that studies have begun linking to BPA exposure, such as prostate and breast cancers, asthma, migraine headaches, reproductive disorders and behavioral problems.

Trasande added that he was conservative in what he considered a safe level of exposure to the chemical. Scientists have warned that even minute amounts may do significant damage.

Still, Trasande acknowledged, "the science remains uncertain."

The chemical industry continues to underscore this point.

BPA has been banned by the FDA from children's sippy cups and baby bottles, but remains an ingredient in many products, including the lining of metal cans for food. Trasande suggested that his study raises concerns about the refusal of the FDA to ban BPA from such uses.

BPA, which about 93 percent of Americans carry in their bodies, is just one of a growing list of chemicals suspected in America's rising rates of disease. More than 80,000 chemicals are currently in commerce. A small number of those have been fully tested for health effects.

Only a fraction of today's health concerns, meanwhile, were included in a 2011 study by Trasande, in which he tallied $76.6 billion in children's health care costs, lost working hours and reduced IQ points attributable to toxic chemicals and air pollutants.

The $1.49 billion in childhood obesity costs that he found in his new study, for example, could be added to this total.

Chemicals not tested before they come onto market

"Most Americans believe the government is protecting them, that chemicals are tested before they go into lipstick or food packaging. But the truth is completely the opposite: They come onto the market with little or no scrutiny," said Landrigan, referring to the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.

Two recent moves in California illustrate just how difficult and time-consuming it can be to force something off the market, he added.

In early January, a California Superior Court judge ordered three former lead paint manufacturers to pay $1.15 billion to replace or contain lead paint in millions of homes. The U.S. government banned lead paint for residential use in 1978, after nearly a century of scientific studies linked low levels of lead paint to everything from low IQ and learning disorders to sociopathic behavior.

Also this month, California officially removed a decades-old requirement that flame retardants -- increasingly implicated in neurological and reproductive disorders, and cancers -- be included in the filling of upholstered furniture. (A flame retardant maker has filed suit over the new law.)

Still, Landrigan said, the actions are better late than never.

"Previous efforts to control toxic chemicals have produced massive cost savings," Landrigan and his colleague, Dr. Lynn Goldman, dean of The George Washington University School of Public Health, wrote in a paper on chemical safety and health care costs published this month.

They referenced the Environmental Protection Agency's removal of lead from gasoline, which resulted in an estimated savings since 1980 of more than $3 trillion. While the heavy metal remains a menace in the U.S., mostly due to lingering lead paint, millions of children have been able to dodge lead's notorious effects on the brain, kidney and cardiovascular system.

The price tags associated with chemical exposures may seem significant. Yet mostly missing in heated rhetoric about health care spending, experts say, are these and other factors driving Americans to seek costly care.

Bisphenol S, now widely used in "BPA-free" products, further illustrates potential problems with the government's innocent-until-proven-guilty regulatory strategy. BPS is chemically similar to BPA and, since its appearance on the market, has been documented to have the same if not more hazardous properties as its cousin compound.

In other words, BPS may be sending just as many Americans to doctors, pharmacies and emergency rooms as BPA.

The article has been edited for length. Source: Huffington Post

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Receipts as an occupational hazard

BPA or chemical alternatives can
leach from thermal sales receipts.

Workers handling a lot of paper receipts may be exposed to endocrine disruptors such as bisphenol A (BPA) or its structurally related alternative BPS.

Recent research and growing awareness about the possible harmful effects of BPA exposure have pushed many manufacturers to produce BPA-free products.

But researchers caution that the typical replacement BPS may pose a similar exposure threat.

In a recent study, researchers found that paper products with a BPA alternative could expose workers to just as many chemical compounds as before and that toxicology research into the BPA alternative is urgently needed.

Sales receipts can be a big source of exposure to BPA because manufacturers use it to help develop ink. Workers and clients handling the receipts can readily absorb BPA through the skin, experts say.

However, studies (mostly on animals) have shown that BPA is an endocrine disruptor that can cause many health problems, including obesity and cancer.

The BPA alternative BPS has similar endocrine-disrupting functions, the researchers warn.

Source: Chemical & Engineering News

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Cashiers may be at higher risk of BPA exposure

Study to examine BPA
exposure in cashiers.

A lot of people rely on their part-time or full-time jobs as cashiers in stores, supermarkets or other types of businesses to make a living or supplement their income - but experts are worried that they could be exposed to high levels of a potentially toxic chemical.

Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences want to know if the high levels of bisphenol A, or BPA for short, on the slick receipt paper that many cashiers handle on a daily basis should be a reason of concern.

They are asking cashiers to volunteer to have blood and urine samples to be taken for the study.

What is BPA?

BPA is a common ingredient in durable plastics, like those used to make hard plastic water bottles and to line food cans. Recently, reports have been published about experts expressing concerns that BPA exposure might be much higher than previously thought.

There is some conflicting evidence that BPA can cause developmental damage in children and reproductive problems in adults, but more research is needed.

Some types of thermal paper used in cash registers are coated with BPA, and the chemical easily rubs off onto your fingers when you touch them.

In their new study, the NIEHS team will measure levels of BPA in the blood and urine of volunteer cashiers, said Stavros Garantziotis, who is directing the research.

Testing BPA levels before and after a cashier's shift will show how much BPA was absorbed into a cashier's body while he or she was working.

While there are some alternative paper sources using such substances as bisphenol S, not much is known about the effects of these chemicals, either, the experts warned.

Source: News Observer

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