Gary Rumor’s Anti-Entropic Continuum

Today on Harry Shearer’s Radio Show he mentioned that BPA might be the reason males have become increasingly unable to get an erection without Viagra and other drugs. This is not because of the natural aging process. This is being caused by chemicals in canned foods and in plastics.

This is from Elaine Shannon on November 15th 2009 Huffington Post.

“BPA and Food: We Can Fix This
The debate about controversial plastic chemical bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic estrogen, is heating up, with warring camps hurling data like flaming darts. Sometime later this month, the federal Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce its plans for evaluating and possibly restricting contamination of BPA in infant formula and other canned and plastic-packaged food and drink.

For those of you who like to follow every gnarly twist, we’ve posted an updater on environmental health developments on Environmental Working Group’s Kid-Safe online news site.

Too busy? Here’s a speed read.

Bisphenol A, whose family tree traces back to the petrochemical benzene, is an industrial chemical integral to the manufacture of polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resin.

These materials are ubiquitous. If you look around and don’t see anything made with polycarbonate or epoxy resin, chances are you’re living in a beaver den.

Scientists who study the endocrine system, brain, reproductive system and several other important systems are convinced that BPA is a problem, a big one, when it shows up in food and beverage bottles, cans and other things that come in contact with food. For reasons known best to polymer chemists, both synthetics are chemically unstable, which means that BPA migrates out of them, particularly when they’re heated or subjected to acids or caustics. That’s why federal investigators have found traces of BPA in 93 percent of Americans over age six, and many other researchers have found trace BPA contamination in pregnant women, newborns, wildlife and the environment.

Because of the burgeoning political and regulatory battles over BPA in food packaging, makers of polycarbonate baby bottles are switching to non-BPA plastic, following the lead of some major sports water bottles. But other water and drink bottlers are still using polycarbonate bottles (signified by the number 7). And then there are the food canners, who insist they don’t have a good substitute for epoxy resin can lining.

Here’s my list of seven things that need to be BPA-free, fast:

• Canned infant formula. Come on, people.
• Canned chicken noodle soup. Critical for the next cold and flu season.
• Coca-Cola. As a Georgian, I believe it heals hangovers and other ailments that don’t yield to chicken soup.
• Sports bottles. Hydration is key. Thanks to Nalgene and Camelbak for dumping BPA. And SIGG, belatedly.
• The Potomac River.
• Amniotic fluid and umbilical cord blood. Really.
• Beer.”

This is the research that states the 93% case and is apparently the original source for the data that has people concerned.

“Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 116, Number 1, January 2008

Exposure of the U.S. Population to Bisphenol A and 4-tertiary-Octylphenol: 2003–2004
Antonia M. Calafat, Xiaoyun Ye, Lee-Yang Wong, John A. Reidy, and Larry L. Needham
Division of Laboratory Sciences, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Abstract
Background: Bisphenol A (BPA) and 4-tertiary-octylphenol (tOP) are industrial chemicals used in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins (BPA) and nonionic surfactants (tOP) . These products are in widespread use in the United States.

Objectives: We aimed to assess exposure to BPA and tOP in the U.S. general population.

Methods: We measured the total (free plus conjugated) urinary concentrations of BPA and tOP in 2,517 participants ≥ 6 years of age in the 2003–2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey using automated solid-phase extraction coupled to isotope dilution–high-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry.

Results: BPA and tOP were detected in 92.6% and 57.4% of the persons, respectively. Least square geometric mean (LSGM) concentrations of BPA were significantly lower in Mexican Americans than in non-Hispanic blacks (p = 0.006) and non-Hispanic whites (p = 0.007) ; LSGM concentrations for non-Hispanic blacks and non-Hispanic whites were not statistically different (p = 0.21) . Females had statistically higher BPA LSGM concentrations than males (p = 0.043) . Children had higher concentrations than adolescents (p < 0.001) , who in turn had higher concentrations than adults (p = 0.003) . LSGM concentrations were lowest for participants in the high household income category (> $45,000/year) .

Conclusions: Urine concentrations of total BPA differed by race/ethnicity, age, sex, and household income. These first U.S. population representative concentration data for urinary BPA and tOP should help guide public health research priorities, including studies of exposure pathways, potential health effects, and risk assessment.”

This is an article from Scientific American trying to present a balanced view i.e. allowing industry naysayers to try to smooth over the concern.

“From the September 2008 Scientific American Magazine

Just How Harmful Are Bisphenol-A Plastics?
Patricia Hunt, who helped to bring the issue to light a decade ago, is still trying to sort it all out
By Adam Hinterthuer
On the day Patricia Hunt’s career veered into an entirely different field, her graduate students at Case Western Reserve University were grumbling, itching to use some exciting new data in their own experiments, but were told to wait while Hunt (just one last time) checked on her subjects.

Hunt, a geneticist, was exploring why human reproduction is so rife with complications. She had a hunch the chromosomally abnormal eggs that plague human pregnancies were tied to our hormones. A paper outlining the results of Hunt’s experiments on the hormone levels of female mice was ready for publication. All she needed was to ensure that her control population, the mice left alone in the study, was normal. Instead Hunt stumbled on a disturbing result—40 percent had egg defects.

Hunt shelved hopes of publication and scrutinized every method and piece of lab equipment used in her experiment. Four months later she finally fingered a suspect.

It was the janitor. In the laboratory. With the floor cleaner.

A single breach in protocol had turned the rodents’ safe environs into acutely toxic habitats. A maintenance worker had used an abrasive floor cleaner, instead of the usual mild detergent, to wash out cages and water bottles. The acidic solution scarred the hard, polycarbonate surface of the plastic and enabled a single chemical culprit to leach out—bisphenol-A (BPA).

Hunt’s unnerving discovery, in 1998, led her to speak out on the possible human health threats of BPA; she and Frederick vom Saal, a biologist at the University of Missouri–Columbia, have become prominent scientists sounding the alarm. To critics, however, Hunt and vom Saal have been alarmists; they argue that there have been no documented cases of BPA-based plastic harming humans and that fears of the chemical are overblown.

First synthesized in 1891, bisphenol-A came into use as a synthetic estrogen in the 1930s. Later, chemists discovered that, combined with phosgene (used during World War I as a toxic gas) and other compounds, BPA yielded the clear, polycarbonate plastic of shatter-resistant headlights, eyeglass lenses, DVDs and baby bottles.

But during the manufacturing process, not all BPA gets locked into chemical bonds, explains Tim A. Osswald, an expert in polymer engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. That residual BPA can work itself free, especially when the plastic is heated, whether it’s a Nalgene bottle in the dishwasher, a food container in the microwave, or a test tube being sterilized in an autoclave.

In recent years dozens of scientists around the globe have linked BPA to myriad health effects in rodents: mammary and prostate cancer, genital defects in males, early onset of puberty in females, obesity and even behavior problems such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

For her part, the 54-year-old Hunt, now at Washington State University, focuses on aneuploidy, or an abnormal number of chromosomes in eggs that causes birth defects and miscarriages. Last year she co-authored a paper in PLoS Genetics that, she says, makes her original discovery look like “child’s play.” Hunt exposed pregnant mice to BPA just as the ovaries in their developing female fetuses were producing a lifetime supply of eggs. When the exposed fetuses became adults, 40 percent of their eggs were corrupted, which spelled trouble for their offspring. BPA’s effects, it seemed, were not confined to the mouse receiving the dose. “With that one exposure,” Hunt says, “we’re actually affecting three generations simultaneously.”

Although experts debate whether mice make good models for human effects, the crux of the argument over BPA is that experimental results have not been reproduced. A 2004 report from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis found “no consistent affirmative evidence for low-dose BPA effects.” According to I. Glenn Sipes of the University of Arizona, a co-author of that paper, it is this inconsistency that bothers skeptics. “I’ve never had a problem saying that we can see biological effects in these low-dose studies,” he says. “But why are we seeing these studies that can’t be repeated?” A onetime result in a rodent model, Sipes argues, cannot be extrapolated to mean negative impacts for human health.”

This is the smoking gun on this matter with a study showing Chinese workers exposed to BPA have increased infertility. This is from the Oxford Journal Human Reproduction and is the article that Harry Shearer was referring to.

Hum. Reprod. Advance Access published online on November 10, 2009
Human Reproduction, doi:10.1093/humrep/dep381
Occupational exposure to bisphenol-A (BPA) and the risk of Self-Reported Male Sexual Dysfunction
D. Li1,7, Z. Zhou2, D. Qing3, Y. He2, T. Wu2, M. Miao3, J. Wang4, X. Weng1, J.R. Ferber1, L.J. Herrinton1, Q. Zhu3,5, E. Gao3,5, H. Checkoway6 and W. Yuan3,5
1 Division of Research, Kaiser Foundation Research Institute,Kaiser Permanente Northern California, 2000 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94612, USA 2 Department of Occupational Health and Toxicology, School of Public Health and WHO Collaborating Center for Occupational Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China 3 Shanghai Institute of Planned Parenthood Research, 2140 Xie Tu Road, Shanghai 200032, China 4 Epidemiology Department, Shanxi Medical University, 56 Xin Jian Nan Road, Taiyuan 030001, PR China 5 National Population and Family Planning Key Laboratory of Contraceptive Drugs and Devices, Shanghai, 2140 Xie Tu Road, Shanghai 200032, China 6 Department of Environmental Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA

7 Correspondence address. Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, 2000 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94612, USA. E-mail: dkl@dor.kaiser.org

BACKGROUND: Animal studies have suggested that bisphenol-A (BPA) is a potential human endocrine disrupter; but evidence from human studies is needed.

METHODS: We conducted an occupational cohort study to examine the effect of occupational exposure to BPA on the risk of male sexual dysfunction. Current workers from BPA-exposed and control factories were recruited. The exposed workers were exposed to very high BPA levels in their workplace. Male sexual function was ascertained through in-person interviews using a standard male sexual function inventory.

RESULTS: BPA-exposed workers had consistently higher risk of male sexual dysfunction across all domains of male sexual function than the unexposed workers. After controlling for matching variables and potential confounders, exposed workers had a significantly increased risk of reduced sexual desire [odds ratios (OR) = 3.9, 95% confidence interval: 1.8–8.6), erectile difficulty (OR = 4.5, 95% CI 2.1–9.8), ejaculation difficulty (OR = 7.1, 95% CI 2.9–17.6), and reduced satisfaction with sex life (OR = 3.9, 95% CI 2.3–6.6). A dose–response relationship was observed with an increasing level of cumulative BPA exposure associated with a higher risk of sexual dysfunction. Furthermore, compared with the unexposed workers, BPA-exposed workers reported significantly higher frequencies of reduced sexual function within 1 year of employment in the BPA-exposed factories.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide the first evidence that exposure to BPA in the workplace could have an adverse effect on male sexual dysfunction.”

Ok so we know this stuff is everywhere and is dangerous. It is making us impotent and helping the pharmaceutical industry sell Viagra and Cialis. Is this a racket or simply another side effect of modern technology? It goes a long way to proving that we are killing ourselves through our so called civilization. Perhaps the primitivists are not so far off after all.
Certainly we need to control the population growth but by turning men into transsexuals and women into dikes? I am not anti-gay, I personally like my gay friends, but have you ever looked at the ads on Craigs list? The tranny ads are almost outnumbering the straight and gay ads. I am not sure this is the best path to take. It certainly is one way to cut back in population growth but the fact that studies show the effect to be greater in the poor makes it seem more a program of selective breeding than anything else.
One report said that Trader Joe brands do not use BPA in their cans. I have been a consumer of Trader Joe’s products for years. Maybe that is why I am still horny.

Tags: Synthetic Estrogen In 93% of Population Linked to Infer

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 15th, 2009 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Food Stuff, Gnosis:, History, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.