Conscious Consumer - Bringing It Home

Canned Foods - Toxic Residues

From artichoke hearts to zucchini, more than 1,500 food items are packaged in cans and many sit in our pantries or open in our refridgerator. 

We have come to rely on them. Using canned food has become a mainstay for the vast majority of us whether at home, work or play. Perhaps that's why this news is so disturbing.

A recent study sponsored by the Environmental Working Group in the United Stated discovered residues of Bisphenol A (BPA), a toxic plastic chemical, which acts like a synthetic female sex hormone, in our canned food. The problem? The bond that links BPA to form a polymer is not stable. The polymer decays with time, releasing BPA into materials with which it comes into contact, for example food or water.

Canned foods are a predominant source of daily BPA exposure in our lives because BPA is a plastic resin ingredient used to line metal food and drink cans. Beverages contain less BPA residue, while canned pasta and soups contain the highest levels. The worst foods tested put pregnant women and formula-fed infants at risk.

Health Risks

BPA has been linked to a variety of health risks which are responsible for a major toll on our collective health. These include breast and prostate cancer, and infertility (Maffini 2006). There are no government safety standards limiting the amount of BPA in canned food. In fact, very little canned food testing has been performed. Both the Plastics Industry and FDA have based their safety or exposure assessments for BPA on fewer than 20 in both cases (FDA 1996; SPI 2007).

What's more, Bisphenol A is deeply imbedded in the products of modern consumer society, not just as the building block for polycarbonate plastic (from which it then leaches as the plastic ages) but also in the manufacture of epoxy resins and other plastics. And it doesn't end with the making of plastic. Bisphenol A has been used as an inert ingredient in pesticides (although in the US the practice has been halted), as a fungicide, antioxidant, flame retardant, rubber chemical, and polyvinyl chloride stabilizer. Bisphenol A is used as a plastic coating for children's teeth to prevent cavities, as a coating in metal cans to prevent the metal from contact with food contents, as the plastic in food containers, refrigerator shelving, baby bottles, water bottles, returnable containers for juice, milk and water, micro-wave ovenware and eating utensils.

It's commercial use is astounding. Other exposures result from BPA's use in "films, sheets, and laminations; reinforced pipes; floorings; watermain filters; enamels and vanishes; adhesives; artificial teeth; nail polish; compact discs; electric insulators; and as parts of automobiles, certain machines, tools, electrical appliances, and office automation instruments" (Takahashi and Oishi 2000).

Contamination

BPA contamination is widespread in the environment. It is persistent in the environment because it does not readily degrade (Rippen 1999). It can be measured in rivers and estuaries. (Concentrations range from under 5 to over 1900 nanograms/liter.) Sediment loading is significant, with levels ranging from under 5 to over 100 µg/kg (ppb).

Another study from the Centers for Disease Control tested a demographically diverse group of almost 400 Americans for evidence of exposure to BPA and found that 95% of study participants had the chemical in their urine. (Calafat 2205; Wolff 2007).

Another investigation of BPA exposures for 257 young children in North Carolina and Ohio day care centers attributed 99 percent of children's daily BPA exposures to food (Wilson, Chuang et al. 2003; Wilson, Chuang et al. 2007).

What Can We Do?

In August 2005, when scientists published a study finding a relationship between plasticizers called phthalates and feminization of U.S. male babies, they named fragrance as a possible culprit.

When estrogenic industrial chemicals called parabens were found in human breast tumor tissue earlier that year, researchers questioned if deodorant was the source.

And when studies show, again and again, that hormone systems in wildlife are thrown in disarray by common water pollutants, once again the list of culprits include personal care products, rinsing down drains and into rivers.

The cosmetics, hair and skin care industries use over 7,000 ingredients in products derived from natural or synthetic sources. As many as one-in-seven of these have harmful or toxic effects on the skin or body, ranging from minor skin irritation or contact dermatitis to carcinogenic implications.

We are learning that compounds interact unpredictably. Current regulatory practices give chemical manufacturers the benefit of the doubt.  Substances are only removed from the market if their health impacts can be demonstrated with scientific certainty.  This burden of proof needs to be shifted. Far more stringent testing should be required before allowing new compounds to enter into widespread commercial use. New products should be designed with the goal of reducing exposure. And there should be an accelerated research program to test compounds now in use that have escaped scrutiny.

Enough information is already available to warrant dramatic strengthening of the constraints on use and distribution of a number of persistent organic pollutants, known as POPs, by implementing international protocols .

Regulations must protect our most vulnerable. Our children, the unborn and the elderly. A trust fund needs to be created with government and industy support to resolve the scientific questions around these potential toxins. The fund should be overseen by an impartial governing body including representation of all major stakeholders to insulate researchers from the pressures of special interests.

 

 

 

OP