A new initiative in Massachusetts will call for mandatory warnings on plastic bottles containing the compound Bisphenol A, or BPA. Testing has suggested that BPA causes developmental problems, and a compulsory warning would allow pregnant women and young children to steer clear of any risks.
"The kinds of problems are things like abnormal behaviors, abnormal brain development, alterations in hormone levels in the blood, changes in the development of the male and female reproductive tract -- and that includes just about every organ you can think of," said Laura Vandenberg, a postdoctoral associate in the biology department. "There are more than a hundred studies that have looked at rodents that are exposed [to BPA] either when they're developing in the womb or ... through their mothers' milk, and also a few that have examined animals that, just after birth, were injected with BPA."
Developmental problems ranged in severity.
Vandenberg specifically focuses on studies concerning changes in the mammary glands. Rats exposed to BPA during development in the womb, she said, were most likely to develop mammary gland cancer.
But the health problem posed by the compound is not an isolated one, Vandenberg explained. The overabundance of chemicals that humans are exposed to certainly have an impact on health over time.
"In the 1940s, a woman's chance of getting breast cancer was one in 22; today it's one in seven. Genes can't account for that difference. What can account for the difference is the way we live our lives. The difference between when my grandmother was growing up and when I was growing up is that we're exposed to over 80,000 chemicals," Vandenberg said.
In Massachusetts, two laws have been proposed. The first law is a "Safer Alternatives Bill," which would request that consumers replace unsafe chemicals with available alternatives.
The second proposition would place a Massachusetts Department of Public Health ban on the use of BPA in children's products altogether.
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