How Dangerous Is Plastic?

Plastic is one of the most important inventions ever.
but how safe is it to store food in?


News of possible health threats associated with plastic bothered Jeanne Haegele of Chicago so much that she has quit using plastic. The 28-year-old marketing coordinator chronicles her efforts online at www.lifelessplastic.blogspot.com. “Plastic is absolutely everywhere–our food is packaged in it, our clothes are often made out of it, and even baby toys are made of plastic,” Haegele says. “It was scary that something that was such a big part of my life might be dangerous.”

Scientists are mostly worried about bisphenol-A or BPA. “It’s an endocrine disruptor and in numerous animal studies it’s been linked to cancer, infertility, obesity and early puberty,” says Anila Jacob, M.D., M.P.H., a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit research and advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. “The CDC has found this chemical in 93 percent of people they have tested,” she says.

BPA is a chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic or items marked with the number 7 on the bottom. Some plastic dishes, cups, reusable water bottles and baby bottles are made out of polycarbonate. Heating foods in polycarbonate plastic increases the amount of BPA that leaches into food, Jacob says. Frances Beinecke, president of the National Resources Defense Council, an environmental action group, worries about BPA’s possible role in breast cancer. Beinecke, a breast cancer survivor, says BPA is a synthetic form of estrogen, and doctors know estrogen feeds breast cancer. “It ramps up cell division in pre-cancerous cells and it can prompt tumors to metastasize,” she says. “In animal studies, BPA has been found to cause the early onset of puberty and stimulate mammary gland development in females. The estrogen-like properties in BPA are so strong that even when male rodents were exposed to it, they had an increased risk of mammary tumors.” The studies done to date have all been on animals, Jacob says, because it’s difficult to study in humans as we have already been exposed via multiple routes. “We think the animal data is convincing enough that it warrants concern,” Jacob says.


more:
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/what-plastics-do-to-your-body.html
http://lifelessplastic.blogspot.com/