Toxicity of Bisphenol A

Knowledge often supports wisdom. In the harmful impacts of certain plastic types, knowledge alone makes you a lot wiser.

WITH the increasing support that local lawmakers provide on the move against plastic as used in bags, another assault on the move against plastic in its use as bottles and containers for food and food products is up.

Senator Miriam Santiago filed a few months earlier Senate Bill No. 3121, which when approved into law, will become as the BPA in Baby Products Prohibition Act of 2012.

The culprit is the chemical referred to as BPA or Bisphenol A, a solid but colorless organic compound. It is synthetically manufactured precursor chemical used in polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. The polycarbonate plastics are the ones used in the production of many food and drink bottles and containers, such as water bottles and infant feeding bottles. Epoxy resins practically lacquers used in coating metal products such as food cans, bottle tops, and water supply pipes. Even dental sealants contain BPA.

The problem with BPA comes in when the bottles and containers containing it, or using it as inner coating, get subjected to moderately high temperatures, or physically weaken as a result of wear-and-tear from long use. When either of the two occurs, BPA leaches into the food inside the container, and gets consumed together with the stored food or drink. And statistics show that BPA in food and beverages accounts for the majority of daily human exposure to this carcinogen.

So, what happens when a person ingests BPA? The 38 experts that the US Government convened in 2006 to assess the scientific literature available concluded that... [READ MORE]

This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 15 May 2012.

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