November 15, 2013
Pregnant women should not wait to protect fetuses
By Sarah “Steve” Mosko
Appeared:
- E-The Environmental Magazine Blog, 16 Jan, 2014
- Natural Child Magazine, Jan/Feb 2014, p. 14
- Santa Monica Daily Press, 12 Dec, 2013, p. 4
- Algalita Marine Resarch Blog, 04 Dec, 2013
- Fullerton Observer, Early Dec, 2013, p. 10
- BuzzFlash.com –Truthout Community, 18 Nov, 2013
Pregnant women and their fetuses still exposed to BPA.
Photo: © Milan Nykodym, Czech Republic
Mothers of infants and toddlers can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that BPA (bisphenol-A), an estrogen hormone-mimicking endocrine disruptor, was banned nationwide from baby bottles and sippy cups last year and from infant formula containers just months ago.
For decades, BPA has been a key component of both polycarbonate baby bottles & cups and the resin lining of most canned goods, including infant formula. BPA can migrate from the packaging into the contents. Literally hundreds of studies in lab animals and humans have linked BPA to such diverse medical problems as breast and prostate cancers, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, miscarriage, low birth weight, reproductive and sexual dysfunction, and altered cognitive and behavioral development.
However, fetal exposure to BPA is far from a thing of the past, as pregnant women – and hence their fetuses – are still routinely exposed to BPA from canned foods & beverages and reusable plastic bottles, as well as thermal cash register receipts. Unfortunately, there seems little chance the federal government will step in any time soon to limit pregnant women’s exposure, even though scientists who study the health effects of BPA say there is more than enough scientific evidence to warrant it.
The Breast Cancer Fund (BCF), a non-profit dedicated to eliminating environmental causes of breast cancer, agrees. In a Sept. 2013 report titled “Disrupted Development: the Dangers of Prenatal BPA Exposure,” BCF summarized the latest research showing that exposure to BPA early in development sets the stage for diseases in adulthood. The organization’s “Cans, Not Cancer” campaign is focused on protecting pregnant women by pressuring manufacturers and policy makers to eliminate BPA from all food cans: Dietary intake is thought to be the greatest source of human exposure.
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Posted by Sarah (Steve) Mosko
March 29, 2013
By Sarah (Steve) Mosko, PhD
Appeared in:
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Perhaps you already bring your own reusable grocery bags, have kicked the bottled water habit and know better than to microwave in plastics, but still find daily life swimming in plastics and want to use less of it. After recycling, the average American still generates a half pound of plastic refuse daily, a concrete indicator of how deeply entrenched are plastic materials in our 21st century lifestyle (USEPA, 2010).
Rational reasons to cut back on plastics fall into one of two spheres: limiting exposure to hazardous chemicals associated with plastics – like bisphenol-A, phthalates and flame retardants – or reducing the harm to the environment incurred at all stages in plastics’ lifecycle, from extraction of the petroleum needed for manufacturing to disposal of the non-biodegradable finished products.
Short of adopting a Tarzan-like jungle existence, it’s probably impossible to completely eliminate plastics from modern day life, but with a little digging and shopping savvy, you can enlarge that dent in your plastics consumption. Some ideas follow.
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1 Comment | diet, green business, health, plastics, pollution, science, sustainable living, waste | Tagged: BPA, flame retardants, phthalates, plastic packaging, plastics, pollution | Permalink
Posted by Sarah (Steve) Mosko
February 14, 2013
By Sarah (Steve) Mosko, PhD
Appeared: Algalita Marine Research Blog, 20-Feb, 2013
Common objects contain endocrine disruptors
In pregnant women, exposure today to endocrine-disrupting substances common in everyday plastics might not only be adversely affecting the health of their fetuses, but the health and fertility of their future great grandchildren might also be at risk, according to a laboratory study just published in January. The health risks are not handed down via changes to the genetic DNA code (i.e. gene mutations), but rather through a parallel biological scheme of coding known as “epigenetics.”
Background
Traits are passed from one generation to the next through two distinct but interacting vehicles of inheritance. The genes that make up our DNA were once thought to contain the entire blueprint for all inherited traits. For some time, however, scientists have understood the critical role of another coding system that literally sits atop the DNA and instructs genes to turn on or off. Because all cells in a given animal or human have the same DNA sequence as the original fertilized egg and sperm, another mechanism is needed to explain how cell differentiation occurs during development so that a heart cell, for example, ends up so different from, say, a brain or skin cell.
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Posted by Sarah (Steve) Mosko
July 15, 2012
Are Plastics Making America Fatter?
By Sarah (Steve) Mosko
Appeared in:
Still disappointingly chubby after cutting back on junk foods and exercising regularly?
Two-thirds of U.S. adults are now either overweight or down right obese. And while an unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle can contribute to an expanding waistline, evidence is accumulating that exposure to substances in everyday plastics and other industrial chemicals can fatten you up too.
Doctors gauge fatness by the Body Mass Index (BMI), based on a person’s height and weight. For adults, the cutoffs are 25 for overweight and 30 for obesity.
The average U.S. man or woman now has a BMI of 28.7, according to the Centers for Disease Control. One-third of adults are overweight, and another third are obese. Even those at the lower end of normal are showing an upward trend.
And not just adults are tipping the scales. A national survey of children and teens found that 32 percent are overweight or obese. Even animals seem to be gaining weight, including domestic pets and feral rodents. The ubiquity of the problem has led scientists to suspect environmental influences.
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Posted by Sarah (Steve) Mosko
May 25, 2012
Source: Wikimedia Commons
BPA Newly Linked to Human Infertility
By Sarah (Steve) Mosko, PhD
Appeared in: Algalita Marine Research Blog, 30 Jul ’12
Researchers are finding evidence for the first time that inadvertent exposure to BPA (bisphenol-A) in women of child-bearing age might hinder their fertility, and the levels of BPA involved are similar to that observed in the general U.S. population.The synthetic chemical BPA has earned a solid reputation as an endocrine disruptor based on its estrogen-mimicking properties and documented health effects on lab animals exposed to even low, environmentally-relevant doses. Literally hundreds of animal studies have linked BPA to a wide spectrum of health concerns including obesity, diabetes, breast and prostate cancer, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, low sperm counts and abnormal genital development.
Human exposure to BPA is known to be widespread – over 90 percent of the U.S. population show BPA in their urine – and stems from water bottles and other consumer items made of polycarbonate plastics, the epoxy lining of most food & beverage cans, dental sealants and thermal check register receipts. Ingestion is thought to be the primary route of exposure.
Discerning whether current levels of BPA exposure in humans carry the same health risks seen in animals is intrinsically difficult because of ethical prohibitions on intentionally exposing people to a potentially harmful substance and because of the hodgepodge of other industrial chemicals to which humans are exposed. However, preliminary reports have surfaced linking BPA to human female infertility.
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2 Comments | plastics, sustainable living | Tagged: BPA, embryonic implantation, endocrine disruptor, infertility, plastics, polycarbonate plastics | Permalink
Posted by Sarah (Steve) Mosko
June 17, 2011
Curb Exposure to BPA and Phthalate Through Diet
by Sarah (Steve) Mosko, PhD
Appeared in:
“Fresh foods” diet avoids endocrine disrupting chemicals
Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are synthetic substances known to play havoc with hormone and organ systems in lab animals, and it’s well-documented that the urine of most Americans tests positive for an alarming number of them. EDCs are found in a wide array of everyday consumer products and also find their way into air, dust and even foods.
A new study confirms for the first time that dietary practices – like whether you select fresh versus canned fruits & vegetables, microwave foods in plastics, or drink from plastic bottles – have a rapid and hefty impact on one’s body burden of at least two EDCs known to interfere with normal organ development in animals and maybe humans: bisphenol A (BPA) and di-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP).
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3 Comments | diet, health, plastics, pollution, science, sustainable living, toxics | Tagged: bisphenol-a, BPA, DEHP, endocrine disrupting chemical, estrogenic, phthalate | Permalink
Posted by Sarah (Steve) Mosko
March 11, 2011
“BPA-Free” Label No Guarantee That Plastics Are Safe
by Sarah (Steve) Mosko
Appeared:
The bad reputation recently earned by BPA or bisphenol A, a chemical constituent of polycarbonate resin plastics, is probably well-deserved because it is an estrogen hormone mimic linked in hundreds of studies to potentially adverse health effects in mammals ranging from cancers and infertility to diabetes and obesity.
Fetal and juvenile mammals are particularly sensitive to exposure to low doses of estrogen mimics, raising particular concerns about BPA-containing plastics that infants and toddlers might encounter. Consequently, some manufacturers of baby bottles, water bottles and other plastic products are now marketing items as “BPA-free.”
Unfortunately, a “BPA-free” label offers no assurance that a product won’t leach chemicals with estrogenic activity (EA), according to a study appearing in the online March 2 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. In fact, the study measured EA leaching from all sorts of food-contact plastic products made with resins other than polycarbonate.
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2 Comments | green business, health, plastics, science, sustainable living, waste | Tagged: bispheno A, BPA, BPA-Free, estrogenic activity, George Bittner, health, plastics | Permalink
Posted by Sarah (Steve) Mosko
January 7, 2011
BPA Chemical Lookalike Potentially More Risky
by Sarah (Steve) Mosko, PhD
Appeared:
It would have been hard to get through 2010 without bumping into some scary information about the plastic ingredient bisphenol A, aka BPA, like the fact it leaches from polycarbonate baby bottles & sports bottles and metal food can linings into the contents or that it is widespread in the dye on thermal cash register receipts and is absorbed through human skin.
Adding to such anxieties about environmental toxins, Japanese researchers have recently honed in on a chemical very similar to BPA dubbed BPAF, or bisphenol AF, that might be even more dangerous than BPA. The “F” stands for fluorine, and the two substances are identical except for the substitution of six fluorine atoms in BPAF for six hydrogens in BPA (see below).
In part, it was knowledge that certain properties of fluorine might intensify the molecule’s reactivity that drew the researchers’ attention to BPAF, as there are additional chemicals out there that resemble BPA too.
The risks of exposure to BPA stem from the fact that it is an endocrine disruptor that mimics the actions of the hormone estrogen. Over 200 laboratory studies have linked low-dose BPA exposure to a host of health effects including reduced sperm production and infertility, cardiovascular diseae, diabetes and derailed development of the brain and prostate gland.
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1 Comment | California, health, plastics, politics, pollution, science, sustainable living, toxics | Tagged: Bisphenol AF, bisphenol-a, BPA, BPAF, endocrine disruptors, environmental toxins, estrogen, hormones, plastics | Permalink
Posted by Sarah (Steve) Mosko
December 16, 2010
by Sarah (Steve) Mosko, PhD
Appeared in:
- E-Magazine this Week as Put Down That Bottle, 09 Oct 2012
- Vall-E-Vents Sierra Club Newsletter, Apr 2011
- Fullerton Observer, Jan 2011, p. 10
- Santa Monica Daily Press as Plastic Poses Problems, 22 Dec 2010
- Surf City Voice, 16 Dec 2010
The simple fact that Americans consume 1500 single-serve water bottles per second made of PET plastic has sufficed to make these disposable bottles a target of environmentalists concerned about the impact of so much trash. Until very recently, however, it has been assumed that the PET bottles pose no direct health risk to humans who drink from them.
New evidence that PET drink bottles can leach substances into the contents that mimic the sex hormone estrogen – phthalates and antimony – has put PET bottles in the crosshairs also of scientists worried about their health safety.
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1 Comment | plastics, sustainable living | Tagged: antimony, bisphenol-a, bottled water, BPA, contamination, endocrine disruptors, health, PET, petroleum, phthalates, science, sustainable living, xenoestrogens | Permalink
Posted by Sarah (Steve) Mosko
January 1, 2006
Appeared in:
- Vall-E-Vents, the San Fernanado Valley Sierra Club Newsletter, Jan-Feb., 2006.
Plastics – an Unhealthy Habit?
(#6 of the Plastic Plague Series)
Sarah S. Mosko, Ph.D.
The endocrine disruptor bisphenol A is used in the synthesis of some wildly popular polycarbonate water bottles. Photo from ourstolenfuture.org
Plastics are lightweight, flexible, durable and can be molded into just about anything. They fill our toy chests, refrigerators, medicine cabinets and desk tops. Since the explosion of consumer plastics in the 1950s, we have come to rely on them to get us through our busy lives. But, there is a dark side to plastics as well, and it has to do with our health.
Plastics can pose threats to human health at all stages in their life cycle, with specific risks varying with the type of plastic.
During synthesis from petroleum or natural gas, toxic chemicals are used which can be released into the air and water supply. For example, vinyl chloride (a known carcinogen) is used to make polyvinyl chloride or PVC plastics, and a chemical called perfluorooctanaote (PFOA) used in the production of plastic-coated non-stick cookware is also carcinogenic. Furthermore, an assortment of “additives” are often needed to lend particular characteristics to a product.
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Posted by Sarah (Steve) Mosko
Boogie Green 