Study: Most Plastics Leach Hormone-Like Chemicals

"Then, you greatly increase the probability that you're going to get chemicals having estrogenic activity released," he says, adding that more than 95 percent of the products tested positive after undergoing this sort of stress.

But what about all those products marketed as BPA-free? That's a claim being made for everything from dog bowls to bento boxes these days.

The team concentrated on BPA-free baby bottles and water bottles, Bittner says, "and all of them released chemicals having estrogenic activity." Sometimes the BPA-free products had even more activity than products known to contain BPA.

The testing didn't show which chemicals are to blame, which is likely to be frustrating to manufacturers.

But Bittner says consumers should be encouraged that at least some plastic products had no estrogen-like activity. He says that shows it is possible to make these products.

Early reaction to the study was mixed. Some scientists wondered about the test's reliability. Others noted that wine and many vegetables also can act like estrogen. And a few observed that Bittner has a financial interest in the testing lab and in a company involved in making plastic products that don't release estrogenic chemicals.

On the other hand, groups that have warned about the potential dangers of BPA in the past seemed to welcome the new research.

"This is really helpful because they took a look at very common products," says Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst at the Environmental Working Group.

But the results suggest that concerns about plastics can't be solved by worried consumers at the checkout counter, Lunder says. It's a problem for government, she says.

"Regulatory agencies need to study the effect of chemicals leaching out of plastic," Lunder says, adding that an EPA program formed more than a decade ago to do this sort of research still hasn't produced many results.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134196209/study-most-plastics-leach-hormone-like-chemicals?ft=1&f=1003

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