HORMONAL IMBALANCES BY PLASTIC PRODUCTS?

 An us-american study has shown the proof: when eating, we not only put food into our body, but also synthetic molecules in high dosages.

Biphenol A or short BPA is the chemical substance with the highest estimated yearly production worldwide of roundabout three million tons. In the European alone the yearly consumption for production is way above 640.000 tons. BPA-molecules are being used for the production of polycarbonat and epoxy, which means they are probably in everything that we use everyday and that is made of plastic, from compact discs to cars, household appliances and gluesticks, but also in milkbottles for babies and those kind of nifty food foils that are stuck to the inside of soda-cans. Even in tooth-fillings BPA might be found.

The one thing that makes you wonder is: BPA is a chemical that is able to influence your hormone levels. According to an information of the Umweltbundesamt (the German federal magistrate for ecology) already the most miniscule concentration of it may have the same effect as estrogen on the body. Animal testing has proven that the prostrate of male animals is enlarged and that the count of sperms is lower, whereas female animals start earlier to be progenius. US-scientists also reported problems with breeding, bad figures at the level of sugar in the blood and obesity on the animals.

Nevertheless, the industry hitherto always denied any claims that the plastic chemic is able to be concentrated in the body in any kind of significant measure. But a detailed study of the US government now shows a clearly different result.

Scientiests of the federal Center for Disease Control and prevention (CDC) have searched 2.500 samples of urine of people chosen to represent the population of the USA for remains of BPA - and have found "measurable concentrations" in 92 % of them. Most of them supposedly entered the body by ingestion of food. Because under the influence of heat or warmth BPA-molecules might solute out of the complex of the substance and thereby get into the food.

As the CDC-team reported, the dosage found at the test persons was significantly higher than those that led to all kinds of diseases and birth defects with the animals tested.

The German Umweltbundesamt has been asking for eight years for a reduction of Biphenol A in critical areas, where consumers or the environment might be harmed. But nothing has been done yet. Quite the opposite, the magistrate for the safety of food of the European Union (EFSA) has raised the allowed measure of BPA in food from ten to fifty micrograms per kilogram of bodyweight. At the same time the EFSA admitted that currently a baby will recieve an average of 13 micrograms per kilo bodyweight per day on a daily average - 30% more than what had been allowed before the change.

Ain't that a fucking shame.

Georg Cracked, April 2008