Article questions what we and our babies are exposed to, especially
synergistic effects.  Generationally cumulative, this worries me.  Judy
Ritchie


Oregon Citizens for Safe Drinking Water

To All Safe Water Advocates,

Jonathan Brinckman's front page article in the Oregonian this morning,
"Caffeine, codeine, other chemicals flow in area rivers" is a worthwhile
read (article in black text below, or link at:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_s
tandard.xsl?/base/front_page/1023710181298380.xml). Our rivers, he says,
"carry the commonplace chemicals that are the tags of modern life --
antibiotics, codeine, caffeine, disinfectants, insect repellent."

Brinckman highlights a growing concern over the possible effects this
soup of chemicals is having on aquatic life, which must live with
24-hour exposure.

He summarizes four ways in which scientists believe chemicals end up in
our rivers (all of which pertain to fluoride, based on our use of
fluoride-containing dental products, foodstuffs, fluoridated water,
fluorine-based pharmaceuticals, fluoride-based pesticides and phosphate
fertilizers, as well as fluoride pollution from a variety of
industries), and reminds us that chemicals have historically been
evaluated singularly, when in fact, possible harmful synergistic effects
may be occurring.



On that point, Edward Groth III, senior scientist with Consumers Union
(publishers of Consumers Reports), recently offered an interesting
perspective.  The following quotation comes from his 8/12/00
presentation to the World Congress on Medicine and Health regarding a
more scientific approach to risk assessment ( full article can be
accessed at  <http://www.consumersunion.org/food/mmmcpi800.htm>
http://www.consumersunion.org/food/mmmcpi800.htm):

I believe that the risk perceptions of scientists as well as
non-scientists are often colored by a deep-seated belief that something
that our senses cannot detect could not be harmful. Many people,
including many scientists, seem convinced that "low-level" exposure to
chemicals must be safe, and define "low level" approximately by the
concentrations that are quantifiable with current analytical methods.
Over the years, I have been assured by many sincere people that one part
per million of this or one part per billion of that cannot possibly be
harmful, it's just too small an exposure to be significant.

That attitude is in fact thoroughly non-scientific; it is based on
intuition and perhaps faith, but not on rigorous examination of
scientific data. A scientific perspective on this question might
consider the fact that the appropriate unit of chemical exposure, in
terms of biological activity, is a molecule, rather than a part per
billion. (Toxic effects occur, after all, at the molecular level.)

To apply this scientific perspective, let us look at an example. Baby
bottles made of polycarbonate plastic can release traces of bisphenol-A,
a chemical with estrogen-like effects, into liquids they contain. If the
bottle holds infant formula, a baby might be continuously exposed to a
hormonally active agent at concentrations around 1 part per billion.

Some (including the manufacturers of polycarbonate bottles) have
asserted that 1 ppb of bisphenol-A is too low an exposure to have
biological effects. But what is the science behind this statement? There
are no data on effects of bisphenol-A on human babies. Some animal tests
have reported adverse effects of fetal exposure on the developing
reproductive system, but the data are not definitive yet, and have been
hotly disputed by the industry.

Simple chemistry offers another perspective on the question. Using
basic, undisputed facts-the molecular weight of bisphenol-A, Avogadro's
number, and the volume of a baby bottle-one can easily calculate that a
200 ml bottle of fluid contaminated with 1 ppb of bisphenol-A contains
roughly 500 trillion (that is, 500,000,000,000,000, or 5 x 1014),
molecules of bisphenol-A.

There could hardly be more contrast in these two perspectives. One,
based on firm conviction but no data, asserts that there is no effect of
bisphenol-A in baby bottles, because none has been observed
scientifically and because one part per billion of BPA is "too low" an
exposure level to have biological effects. The other, based on simple,
undisputed scientific facts, notes that polycarbonate bottles can expose
babies to unimaginably large numbers of molecules of an estrogen-like
chemical, several times a day. We must ask, on what basis can we presume
that such exposure has no biological effects? What if "low-level"
exposure is not intrinsically "safe;" what if, instead, our inability to
measure effects has created an illusion of safety?

In short, a precautionary risk assessment in this case would emphasize
not the lack of concrete data showing harm in babies exposed to 1 ppb of
BPA in their formula, but rather would recognize that 1 ppb is not
necessarily a "low" exposure. It would assess the difficulties of
knowing whether or not the quadrillions of molecules a baby ingests
daily have any harmful effects on the tiny consumer's developing
systems.


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