thank you! gotta love that postage scale....

my apologies for poor word choice regarding "parroting." that was not well thought out.

also, i'm not looking at media reports either, cause if we took all our cues from the nytimes and sf chronicle, we'd all be duped into supporting wars against phantom agressors in the middle east.

at the end of this post is some info i found for published studies on bisphenol-a. Though, i'm not too internet savvy, so i don't know if you'll actually be able to read the studies. somewhere in the Bisphenol-A Free Portal I found a quote by an FDA official who admitted that with the lack of hard proof, but a respectable suspicion, it is advisable for not put this stuff in your kids' mouths.

what I was trying to point out in my post, however, is that the attempt to manage the risks we take based on assessments of individual substances frames the issue in a way that serves us no good whatsoever. In fact, that framework has been used by polluting industry for decades to avoid responsibility for their actions. What i am asking you to consider is that, historically, when suspicion is aroused, similar to what we know see around bisphenol-a, those who profit from it ask the same questions you ask, then deny the results of any studies that give an answer they don't like. Then they pay scientists to manufacture dubious studies to the contrary. (Then eventually they cave in under the weight of the real studies and the real illnesses that can no longer be dismissed. Then they replace the substance with some alternative, which turns out also to be harmful, because it's a synthetic made from nasty things and we only banned its sister because the framework says we have to prove each individual substance harmful and those findings don't necessarily apply to other substances which are identical in very important ways, but technically different. Then we spend another lifetime trying to convince everyone that bisphenol-b is harmful. etc.)

All the examples i site in my previous post fall into this pattern. Pthalates (bisphenol-a's cousin) follows this pattern, and is now banned in the EU and California. Bisphenol-a is following this pattern and is banned in Canada, San Francisco, and soon to follow elsewhere.

Essentially, all synthetics are highly suspect due the laws of chemistry. Our society has decided to deem them innocent until proven guilty, with disastrous results. Read Pandora's Poison by Joe Thornton for evidence that the plastics industry is softly killing our bodies and ravishing ecosystems (which will necessarily destroy life in general, and us eventually). No, not just Nalgenes, everything.

I'm saying it is time for us to regard them with suspicion, because they've earned it. And when there's as much suspicion as with bisphenol-a, don't you think it's wise to be cautious?

That's the Precautionary Principle i'm invoking. A Wingspan Conference was held on it years ago, but I can't find info online. I have the book somewhere but I can't remember the name of it. It might be called "The Precautionary Principle." But it looks like there's some info on the Precautionary Principle online.




1)Flaws in industry research-According to vom Saal and Welshon's analysis in this paper, of the 130 studies of low dose effects of BPA published as of summer 2005, 119 have been funded by governments and 11 by industry. 92% of the government funded studies report adverse effects. None of the industry studies do. In this paper, vom Saal and Welshons examine in detail the government and industry funded studies that found no effects, and show several reasons why poor study design destined them to failure.

www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewSci...ns.html

2)www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewSci...ses.htm

3)www.bisphenolafree.org/

4)vom Saal, F and W Welshons. 2006. Large effects from small exposures. II. The importance of positive controls in low-dose research on bisphenol A. Environmental Research 100: 50-76.