Suffolk County, NY – A suburban New York county has adopted the nation’s first ban on the chemical found in plastic baby bottles and sippy cups.
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The measure banning the sale of baby bottles containing BPA was signed by Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy on Thursday after county legislators passed it last month.
Several states including California, Oregon and Hawaii are considering bans the chemical formally known as bisphenol A, but Suffolk County, on Long Island, is the first place in the nation to enact one.
Canada announced in October it was banning BPA in baby bottles, becoming the first country to restrict sale of the chemical, which is commonly used in the lining of food cans, eyeglass lenses and hundreds of household items.
The Suffolk County ban will take effect within 90 days of being filed with New York’s secretary of state and applies to empty beverage containers used by children ages 3 and younger.
Baby bottles frequently contain BPA, which is used to harden plastic and make it
shatterproof.
Some scientists believe that long-term exposure to BPA is harmful to humans, but the European Union and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration say the chemical is safe.
“While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration stands by, Suffolk County is taking measures to protect their most vulnerable population from the potential harm of BPA exposure,” said Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union, the nonprofit that publishes Consumer Reports magazine.
Levy, the Suffolk County executive, said children’s exposure to potentially harmful
products should be minimized.
“Of all the things a parent must worry about,” he said, “whether or not their child is
being harmed by a baby bottle should not be one of them.”
Mishugas. There is NO reason to suspect that there is anything wrong with BPA. None at all. Those who claim that it is harmful are simply guessing. And on the basis of their superstition they are now forcing people to give up a useful chemical. And the politicians go along with it, because they like saying they’re “for safety”.
Guess what bis phenol A is also used in? Most of the white composite dental fillings! So dentistry goes from a poisonous material(mercury) to another that may be toxic(at least if BPA is toxic it is much less toxic than mercury). There are some composite dental materials that are BPA free, although most contain it.
Plastics and risks – I don’t know about the specifics, but the question is not is a material toxic or poisonous in itself. The questions should be will it leach out of the material, or how. Something could be stable, and even if potentially harmful, not cause harm.
With the plastic bottles – will the chemical get into the liquid? what if the bottle is heated? What if the baby is older and teethes on it? Is there a chemist who can answer this?
“Plastics and risks – I don’t know about the specifics, but the question is not is a material toxic or poisonous in itself. The questions should be will it leach out of the material, or how. Something could be stable, and even if potentially harmful, not cause harm.
With the plastic bottles – will the chemical get into the liquid? what if the bottle is heated? What if the baby is older and teethes on it? Is there a chemist who can answer this?”
There are too many variables involved to answer this question properly. Even with plain tap water and room termperature at least some detectable amount might be leached out. With acidic liquids or at higher temperatures more might be leached out. There is the potential for some chemical reactions to occur between the container and the liquid with certain liquids. So there are the variables of temperure, composition of the liquid, time the liquid is stored in the container, and perhaps other variables. Even if one could determine a theoretical maximum amount of BPA that could be transferred to the liquid under the worst of circumstances, then determining how much of that could at most be absorbed, and what effect that could have on an infant are not easy things to measure. I guess nany would say when in doubt choose the alternative that is least likely to cause a problem. If there are suitable low cost alternatives, then there is no need to have BPA in baby bottles.