Homepage
RSS Feed
|
April, 2008 Archives | Homepage
Concerns Grow Over Plastic Bottles Leaching BPA
There are concerns about baby bottles and plastic bottles in general. Some tests have shown that a chemical in plastic called chemical bisphenol A (BPA) can be leached from baby bottles when they are used repeatedly - especially if the plastic bottles is used over and over or the bottle is heated. US News reports that environmental health organizations are calling for a BPA ban.
"This is quite concerning. All 19 polycarbonate bottles [investigated in the study] leached BPA when heated. This is clearly showing that BPA is certainly leaching from popular and common consumer products," Judith Robinson, special projects director with the Environmental Health Fund, said at a Thursday teleconference. "We're calling for an immediate moratorium on the use of BPA in all baby bottles, as well as all food and beverage containers. It's not necessary, and we're calling for an end to it immediately."
The call for a ban coincides with publication of a new study, Baby's Toxic Bottle: Bisphenol A Leaching from Popular Brands of Baby Bottles, commissioned by the same group of organizations, showing that BPA leaches from popular brands of plastic baby bottles when the bottles are heated.
This study comes just days after another study found that exposing plastic bottles in general to boiling water can release BPA 55 times faster than normal.
There is concern in many quarters that BPA, an environmental estrogen, may pose some risk to development and reproduction, although it's unclear at what level that harm begins to occur.
Animal studies have shown the leached chemicals can even alter development. Matt Lauer talks with Dr. Leo Trasande of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in this video below (via Parent Dish). Some bottles are worse than others and Dr. Trasande says you need to avoid bottles with the numbers 3,6 and 7 on the bottom.
Posted on April 13, 2008
Permalink | Digg this | Blog links to this post: Google | Technorati | Comments (View)
| |
Study: 1 in 50 U.S. Infants Abused
A shocking national study has found that 1 in 50 U.S. infants have been the victims of abuse and neglect. In 30,000 of the 91,000 the infants were aged just one week or younger. MSNBC reports the news in this article.
The researchers counted more than 91,000 infant victims of abuse and neglect in the period Oct. 1, 2005 to Sept. 30, 2006.
The information came from a national data base of cases verified by protective services agencies in 45 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
Other studies have looked at national child abuse and neglect cases, but this is believed to be the first to focus on infants, said Leeb, a CDC epidemiologist.
The 91,000 infants were age 1 year or younger. About 30,000 of those cases were infants aged one week or younger. About 68 percent of those cases were attributed to neglect.
The article says federal officials define neglect as "a failure to meet a child's basic needs including housing, clothing, feeding and access to medical care." So the study did not include mistakes made by new parents as they are trying to learn the process of raising and taking care of a newborn.
Posted on April 5, 2008
Permalink | Digg this | Blog links to this post: Google | Technorati | Comments (View)
| |
|
The Writers Write
Lifestyle Network
|
|
