Day: February 1, 2011

Mainely Tipping Points 25: TAPPED: Bisphenol A

Mainely Tipping Points 25

This essay is the final essay in a series of three essays around the documentary TAPPED.

 

TAPPED:  Bisphenol A

 

In the documentary TAPPED, Dr. Frederick Vom Saal says Bisphenol A, or BPA, is “one of the most toxic chemicals known to man.”  BPA, explains Vom Saal, is “the poster child chemical that is going to dismantle the entire regulatory process and demand a re-analysis of all chemicals.”  “BPA,” says Vom Saal, is “frightening to the regulatory community because of the magnitude of the error they have made.”    

BPA leaches into water from water containers made of hard, polycarbonate plastic, stamped with #7 on the bottom of the product.  Examples of problem water containers are the five-gallon hard plastic water jugs used with water cooler systems, baby bottles, and sports bottles. 

Other examples in the general food system include containers for liquid baby formula and the linings of beverage and food cans.  Elaine Shannon of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) reports that because plastics made with BPA “break down easily when heated, microwaved, washed with strong detergents, or wrapped around acidic foods like tomatoes, trace amounts of the potent hormone leach into food from epoxy lacquer can linings, polycarbonate bottles and other plastic food packaging” (Shannon, “What the Chemical Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know,” September 2008, http://www.ewg.org/report/what-chemical-industry-doesnt-want-you-know).  Wikipedia notes that as of April 2010, General Mills had developed a BPA-free alternative can liner that works even with tomatoes.  But, writes Wikipedia, General Mills is only planning on using this new liner with their organic food subsidiary, Muir Glen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bispjhenol_A).   

Polycarbonate plastics are ubiquitous today.  BPA, explains Wikipedia, is used in “sports equipment, medical and dental devices, dental fillings and sealants, eyeglass lenses, CDs and DVDs, and household electronics”—like, notes, computers and cell phones.  BPA, details Wikipedia, is used to make other plastics; it’s a “precursor to the flame retardant tetrabromobisphenol A”; it was “formerly used as a fungicide”; it’s the “preferred developer in carbonless copy paper and thermal paper,” including sale receipt paper; it’s used in foundry castings and to line water pipes”   

BPA mimics estrogen in the body, which is something scientists have known since 1930.  Regulatory bodies have determined what they believe to be safe levels for humans by using an idea, explains Vom Saal, dating from the sixteenth century:  “the dose makes the poison.” 

However, Vom Saal says this premise is false for any hormone and explains that  recent studies are showing that even minute levels of BPA are unsafe. 

Vom Saal says in TAPPED that 700 peer-reviewed, published studies show BPA to be dangerous.  He explains that the 38 internationally recognized scientists who served on a 2006 National Institutes of Health panel (Chapel Hill) determined that current levels of BPA pose risks for humans.  Shannon notes in “What the Chemical Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know,” that The National Toxicology Program accepted much of the Chapel Hill panel’s thinking and wrote that low doses of BPA may affect development of the prostate gland and brain and may cause behavioral effects in fetuses, infants, and children.

Shannon notes that Vom Saal, working with Wade Welshons at the University of Missouri-Columbia, “turned up the first hard evidence that miniscule amounts” of BPA “caused irreversible changes in the prostates of fetal mice” in 1997, or 14 years ago.  By 2008, writes Shannon, the global chemical industry was producing 6 billion pounds of BPA annually, which generated “at least $6 billion in sales” 

In order to protect its BPA turf, the chemical industry has followed the very successful tobacco industry model, which Devra Davis details in THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WAR ON CANCER (2007).  The tobacco industry spent astonishing amounts of money to advertise tobacco use, to delay negative decisions, to hide negative science, to craft favorable legal decisions, to obfuscate science with problematic studies from paycheck scientists, and to fire or discredit anyone saying tobacco use was unhealthy.  The chemical industry is currently running what Shannon calls a “scorched earth” campaign that includes such actions as an “industry email to food banks charging that a BPA ban would mean the end of distributions of canned goods for the poor.”  

Vom Saal describes in TAPPED how a representative from Dow Chemical Company showed up in his and Welshons’ Missouri lab to dispute the data and to declare “`we want you to know how distressed we are by your research.’”  Vom Saal revealed that Dow tried to stop papers critical of BPA from being published.  Shannon describes how the American Chemistry Council attempted to prevent Vom Saal from speaking at a convocation at Stanford University because his work was “`very controversial, and not everybody believes what he’s saying.’”  Shannon quotes Welshons as saying that chemical industry officials made “` blatantly false statements about our research’” and “`they were skilled at creating doubt when none existed.’ “

TAPPED shows footage from a Senate hearing investigating the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) use of biased studies produced by the chemical industry’s paycheck scientists.  Senator John Kerry castigates FDA’s Dr. Norris E. Alderson for not asking for independent studies.  Senator Kerry concludes that the FDA is not protecting citizens, and TAPPED concludes that industry has captured the FDA and other regulatory agencies. 

Lyndsey Layton of “The Washington Post” reported that as of 2009, 93 percent of the U.S. population had detectable levels of BPA in their urine (“High BPA levels linked to male sexual problems,” November 11, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/10/AR2009111017411).  Layton’s article discusses a November 2009 study of 634 male workers from four factories in China showed that exposure to high levels of BPA caused erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems after a few months on the job. 

Vom Saal, in TAPPED, links the following health problems to BPA:  childhood diabetes, obesity, prostate and breast cancers, brain disorders like ADHD, liver disease, ovarian cancer, uterus disease, and low sperm count in men.  Layton lists infertility in general and early-onset puberty. 

Shannon discusses some of the dozens of other scientists who are also studying BPA and who concur with Vom Saal and Welshons.  Patricia Hunt, a reproductive scientist (molecular biologist) from Washington State University, was stunned by what she saw under her microscope after a caustic floor detergent used to clean her lab released BPA into her animals’ food and water.  Hunt said “`Like most Americans, I thought, my government protects me from this kind of stuff.”  She began studying BPA, and, after a decade, determined that “exposure to low levels of BPA—levels that we think are in the realm of current human exposure—can profoundly affect both developing eggs and sperm.” 

A Yale University medical school research team led by Csaba Leranth discovered that BPA affects the neurological system in African green monkeys.  In humans, reported team member Tibor Hajszan, the devastating effect on synapses in the monkey brain could translate to memory and learning problems and depression.      

In September 2010, Canada banned BPA as a toxic substance.  Eight states have banned BPA in children’s’ products:  California, Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.  In October 2010 the Maine Board of Environmental Protection held hearings on a ban on BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups.  The Board postponed any decision until it studied expanding the ban.

Here’s what you can do:  don’t wait for our government to protect you.  Don’t buy canned foods or beverages unless the container says “BPA free,” avoid the combination of plastic and foods, don’t heat plastic, and don’t reuse plastic containers.  Do buy, cook, and preserve locally grown, organic, nutrient-dense whole foods available in your region.

Turkey Tracks: I Feel Rich: 5 Pounds of Processed Pecans

Turkey Tracks:  February 1, 2011

I Feel Rich:  5 Pounds of Processed Pecans

 

We’re almost out of the pecans my first cousin Teeny Bryan Epton and her partner brought to us last September.  (Thanks Teeny and Lori!)

With our friends Margaret and Ronald, we order many household items in bulk from Associated Buyers, located in New Hampshire.  AB delivers, also, to all our local coops, or cooperatively owned stores.  I ordered 5 pounds of organic pecans in this last order.  

 I soak the nuts over night, dry them gently in the dehydrator, and store them in Mason jars.  Five pounds lasts for months and months.  I keep pumpkin seeds, walnuts, pecans, almonds, and, lately, hazelnuts.  Crispy nuts are delicious! 

ALL nuts, seeds, legumes, and tubers need to be processed in some way to remove the phytates that can prevent your body from absorbing nutrients it needs from many foods.  One prepares most nuts by soaking them in salted water over night and drying then in a dehydrator or an oven on very low heat.  Drying can take, sometimes, well over 24 hours.  I found this information and the recipes in Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig’s treasure trove of a book, NOURISHING TRADITIONS.  Fallon and Enig are part of the Weston A. Price Foundation (www.westonapricefoundation.org).  (Be sure to use .org and NOT .com, which is a scam site.)  I trust the WAPF folks because they have the scientific credentials to understand the chemistry of food and human bodies and because they are not affiliated with industry in any way.

Here are the pecans in the four-tray dehydrator:

And, here they are all jarred up.  The big jar is a half-gallon size with which I’ve recently fallen in love.  Now I’m a rich woman!  I have food assets.

Turkey Tracks: May May Chicken Is Gone

Turkey Tracks:  February 1, 2011

May May Chicken Is Gone

Yesterday, May May Chicken was killed at dusk and partially eaten by a large bird.

Here’s a picture of her from last spring around the time we first got our chickens in March.  The grass is just greening up.  At that time, the Marans were about 18 months old.  And, maybe even a bit more.  She had a fancier name that I can’t for the life of me remember.  She became May May over the summer.

Yesterday afternoon I was happily engrossed in making Karen Johnson’s purse, and I did not hear a thing.  Neither did John, whose office windows, though closed with blinds to keep out the cold, are no more than 10 feet away.

Anyway, I went out at deep dusk or a bit later–the chickens have been slow to roost as they’ve been enjoying being outside.  Mostly, they’ve been hanging out under the porch, right next to one of John’s office windows.   They have scratched out the rocks and pulled out the black weed cloth and have been trying to take dirt baths.  One night this week I had to climb up the slope back of the birdfood storage bench, pick up two of the Maran hens, and put them into the coop.  Had they had been scared to cross the snow to their coop?  So,  while May May was being killed, I was both occupied with my project and giving the hens plenty of time to go into the coop.

I went out the kitchen door, flashlight in hand, and around the snow path to the coop.  (We have more than 2 feet of snow on the ground and have dug paths to get around the house.)  When I lifted the roof lid to make sure the chickens were all inside, I only saw three Maran hens.  The other hens and the rooster were uncharacteristically subdued I realized later.  I started down the path to where the chickens had spent the day and begin to see black feathers.  At first, it didn’t register.  Then, I saw her body, a dark heap atop the snow.  Crimson, bright blood soaked the little hollow where she lay.   Her neck had obviously been broken, and part of her breast had been torn away so that her flesh was exposed.  I stepped into the bank, went up to my knee in the snow as my boot sought firm ground, and picked her up.  She was surprisingly heavy.  Oh, I thought, I am feeding them right.

For some reason, I put her back down and went to tell John.  I knew he would want to know, would want to see for himself.  He pulled on boots and coat and came immediately.   Together we took in the information left for us to witness.  There were no signs of an epic struggle.  We hoped that meant she had died instantly.  There was a small patch of scratch marks in the snow.  Hers?  Made by her feet as she died?  Either an animal or a bird who walked on the snow would have left prints.  No, it was a bird that got her and then sat on her body to eat her, which is why the soft snow was so hollowed out underneath her.  She was too heavy for the bird to lift.  So, the bird ate until disturbed in some way.  Perhaps, by the dogs who had gone out several times while I had been sewing.  At one point, Reynolds came to see me, as if to tell me something.  But I had ignored her, intent on my project.

I picked up May May’s body again and was again surprised at how heavy she was.  I took her to the garage and put her into a trash can.  What else could I do with her?  Leaving her lying in the snow to at least feed something in this winter of heavy snow was unthinkable.  We do not want to tempt  foxes, weasels (the dreaded weasels), coyotes, or racoons into the chicken area.   Nor did we want to tempt our dogs. In the end, her flesh was wasted, trashed, but for a few mouthfuls.

It’s such a strange thing to contemplate death.  In the early afternoon, I had stroked May May while she sat on the nest in the corner of the coop where the hens have been laying.  She had been sitting on two brown eggs, one of which may have been hers.  She had stayed when I reached beneath her and took out the eggs.  She had allowed me to stroke her back a time or two more before I closed the roof lid.  Perhaps one of the eggs I collected before locking in the remaining chickens for the night had been hers, laid after I had left her.  May May had been warm, alive, interested.  And now, there was the lump of her body.  The life had gone; her spirit had departed.  But, to where?

John’s protective mode went into full gear.  He wanted to “get the sucker,” and he got up early to peer out of the windows to see if he could spot the bird, who might return to try to eat from its prey once more.  He thought he saw an eagle in our trees.  He said the bird had a huge wing span, bigger than a hawk’s.  I do not know if an owl is large enough to take down a hen of May May’s size.  Probably.  And I do think she was killed at dusk because she wasn’t really cold when I picked her up.  Anyway, May May’s death is a reminder that nature is not kind, that nature is rapacious and filled with creatures who must eat to live, including man himself.

I am feeling more than a little guilty today because the chickens did not really want to come out in the snow.  They knew it was dangerous.  They knew they were prime targets against the white snow.  That’s why they had hunkered down under the porch.  They knew they could be killed out on the snow paths.  And, May May was.  But, they came out in the first place because I told them it was ok, because they had followed me down the path as I scattered a bit of seed for them, seed they could not resist.  I am shamed that I listened to anyone say how dumb chickens are because they won’t go out into the snow unless you make them.  What hubris!  What a mistake.  What a lack of understanding about chickens and predators.  Chickens almost always stay beneath plants and trees and porches and buildings.  In the winter, they are so at risk.

Here’s a picture of our original six chickens, taken in the fall before Chickie Annie joined then.  May May is the middle black hen.  She was the “head” hen, and she was fiesty and full of life and altogether wonderful.  We will all miss her and the very large brown eggs she laid.