By Gene Ayres,
Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Here's a cuddly story for you recent and future child-bearers: your kid may be a crawling chemo lab. The Environmental Working Group, with whom I've worked in the past (on my 2003 story for Worldwatch about perchlorates in most of our salads), has now come up with a new study about where all these chemical products and byproducts have ended up over the past few decades:

Us.

And now, our kids. Starting as fetuses, as I alluded to last week.

Nine out of ten randomly selected infants in a California hospital tested for chemical pathogens were found to have BPA in their systems, courtesy of their plastic baby bottles and food containers. BPA is an endocrine disruptor that imitates or duplicates the body‘s natural hormones with sometimes very damaging results.

Out of 115 published animal studies, 81 percent showed there were significant effects from even low-level exposure to BPA. This extremely pervasive and common chemical first caught the attention of researchers after normal mice began to develop more and more genetic abnormalities. The chemical was getting into the water from water bottles that had been cleaned with a harsh detergent, causing BPA to leach out of the plastic. Further studies proved that even an extremely small dose of 20 parts per billion daily, for just five to seven days, was enough to produce negative effects.

Doctors are especially concerned about early-life exposure to BPA that can lead to chromosome defects in the developing fetus. This can cause spontaneous miscarriages and genetic damage to the infant before birth. Exposure to only 0.23 parts per billion of BPA is enough to disrupt the effect of estrogen in a baby's developing brain and spinal cord. But older children and adults are vulnerable as well. A study last year found this chemical can lead to heart disease, diabetes and liver problems in adults, and previous research has linked BPA to:

• Structural damage to the brain;
• Hyperactivity, increased aggressiveness, and impaired learning;
• Increased fat formation and risk of obesity;
• Altered immune function;
• Early puberty, stimulation of mammary gland development, disrupted reproductive cycles, and ovarian dysfunction;
• Changes in gender-specific behavior, and abnormal sexual behavior;
• Stimulation of prostate cancer cells;
• Increased prostate size, and decreased sperm production;
• Diabetes;
• Heart disease;
• Liver damage.

As it stands, BPA is one of the world's highest production-volume chemicals and is widely used in the production of:

• Plastic water bottles;
• Plastic gallon milk bottles;
• Plastic microwavable plates, ovenware, and utensils;
• Tooth sealants;
• Canned foods and soda cans (most have plastic lining in the cans);
• Baby toys, bottles, pacifiers, and sippy cups.

Since there are about 75,000 chemicals regularly manufactured and imported by U.S. industries, rather than compile an endless list of what you should avoid, it’s far easier to focus on what you should do to lead a healthy lifestyle with as minimal a chemical exposure as possible:

1. As much as possible, buy and eat organic produce and free-range, organic foods to reduce your exposure to pesticides and fertilizers.

2. Rather than eating conventional or farm-raised fish, which are often heavily contaminated with PCBs and mercury, supplement with a high-quality purified krill oil, or eat fish that is wild-caught and lab tested for purity.

3. Eat mostly raw, fresh foods, steering clear of processed, prepackaged foods of all kinds. This way you automatically avoid artificial food additives of all kinds, including dangerous artificial sweeteners, food coloring and MSG.

4. Store your food and beverages in glass rather than plastic, and avoid using plastic wrap and canned foods (which are often lined with BPA-containing liners).

5. Have your tap water tested and if contaminants are found, install an appropriate water filter on all your faucets (even those in your shower or bath).

6. Only use natural cleaning products in your home.

7. Switch over to natural brands of toiletries such as shampoo, toothpaste, antiperspirants and cosmetics. The Environmental Working Group has a great safety guide to help you find personal care products that are free of phthalates and other potentially dangerous chemicals.

8. Avoid using artificial air fresheners, dryer sheets, fabric softeners or other synthetic fragrances.

9. Replace your Teflon pots and pans with ceramic or glass cookware.

10. When redoing your home, look for “green,” toxin-free alternatives in lieu of regular paint and vinyl floor coverings.

11. Replace your vinyl shower curtain with a fabric curtain.

A prior study by EWG found that blood samples from newborns contained an average of 287 toxins, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides, and Teflon chemicals. Of the 287 chemicals EWG detected in umbilical cord blood, it’s known that:

• 180 cause cancer in humans or animals;
• 217 are toxic to your brain and nervous system;
• 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests.

Sources:
Environmental Working Group
Mercola.com

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His latest book is A Billion to One: An American Insider in the New China. He can be found at: www.geneayres.org.