When she first hung up with her doctor one December day in 2004, Rachael Rawlins could only cry.
“I was shocked, surprised, incredulous,” she says.
“I was only 40.
It wasn’t in my family.
I was very fit.
I didn’t drink much alcohol.
I didn’t think I had any risk factors.”
She and her husband began trawling the Internet for leads.
Most every drop of Rawlins’s drinking water had contact with BPA, she says.
The cooler at her office, where she drank the most, was likely made of BPA.
In the past year, the dangers of polycarbonate baby and water bottles have gotten a lot of press.
If BPA affected Rawlins’s cancer, some of her exposure may also have come from her food.
The EWG finding sounds like good news, but many ex?
Some say there’s no such thing as a safe dose.
Nearly 93 percent of Americans have BPA in their urine, according to the CDC study.
Most people agree that BPA is harmful in large quantities.
As it has done with many high-volume industrial chemicals, the EPA has conducted standard risk-assessment studies.
The EPA then divided this dose by 1,000 to protect more vulnerable citizens and account for any undiscovered risks.
The final “safe” dose is 50 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day.
This standard was confirmed in 1993 and holds today.
When rats are exposed to more, their body weight begins to drop.
In mice, very high levels will kill the mother and her fetus.
One of estrogen’s main functions is to make breast cells multiply.
Every time this happens, a cell is vulnerable to carcinogens and DNA mutations.
Animal studies clearly show these effects.
Then she studied the development of the offsprings' mammary glands.
Those whose mothers took in even minuscule amounts had accelerated breast development.
“Everything is hyperactive,” Maffini says.
“When cells lining the pipe grow inward, the pipe gets blocked.”
None of the untreated ones did.
Newbold’s experiments bring home the idea that even fleeting exposure to BPA can trigger cancer later in life.
She exposed mice to minute doses for the first five days of their life.
Initial studies with human cells do little to calm fears.
She then compared the gene activity in these cells with typical gene activity in breast cancer cells.
“This shows cause and effect,” Dairkee says.
That’s not to say that BPA is the sole or primary trigger of breast cancer.
I don’t believe it’s BPA alone," Newbold says.
Dairkee says a woman’s genetic makeup plays a larger role.
“For some people, BPA may have no effect.”
But it has “negligible” concern that these levels pose a danger to pregnant women.
“A good start would be to ban its use in all food packaging.”
In June, Massachusetts congressman Edward J. Markey proposed exactly that.
For now, a ban seems unlikely.
“So there’s a lot of money at stake,” Myers says.
“There is only limited and inconclusive evidence from laboratory animals.
“Science supports the safety of BPA.”
The FDA concurs that BPA is safe for use in baby and children’s products and in food packaging.
“It is mind-boggling that regulators and industry can still ignore the low-dose studies,” Myers contends.
“The system doesn’t protect public health,” Myers says.
“It protects products.”
Proving that Rachael Rawlins’s cancer was connected to BPA is impossible.
Still, for Rawlins, the BPA ban was immediate.
They now use glass and stainless steel.
She also eschews canned foods and eats mostly organic products.
“I am not a scientist,” she says.
“But I don’t need proof that BPA harmed me.
It is enough that the studies indicate there is a serious risk of harm.
If I had been informed, I would not have taken that risk.”
Photo Credit: James Wehtje/Getty Images
