4th June 2008

The newspaper arrives at about 10am with the rural mail delivery out here in the back blocks. Usually by that time I've become motivated to enough to start on projects (or sneak off to golf) so the paper gets a cursory look when it arrives or around lunchtime. Over breakfast the next day it gets a closer scrutiny and often there is a treasure of knowledge lurking within the pages.

I had heard a brief news item some time ago either on the radio or TV news about Canada banning babies bottles because of their were made of Bisphenol-A, but hadn't given it any thought mainly because babies are not much on the horizon of a 62 year old male.

Prof Ian Shaw, a learned gentleman from the University of Canterbury put his pen to a Perspective article on the subject last week (Press May 29/08 pg A-11). some of it was pretty technical, but the gist of it was that Bisphenol-A is an xenostrogen which is polymer which mimics estrogen. Estrogen is a naturally occuring female hormone and extra doses could result in feminisation or the formation of cancers.

Bisphenol_A is a the chemical backbone of polycarbonate plastics and has many uses including the manufacture of plastic bottles and linings of metal food cans (the white lining in a baked bean can). It's even used as a lining for childrens teeth and the concern is that it can leach out if the manufacturing process is not of a sufficiently high standard to lock it in. Whether the quantities are harmful is open to debate, but apparently there are lots of natural estrogens in food already (fruit and veg) and especially high in soy so additional quantities from un-natural sources could tip the balance.

Try Googling Bisphenol-A. It's quite a fascinating substance. It does make you think about how food packaging and manufacturing in this scientific age and though the chemists may think they are on to a good thing at the time, further down the track unforseen effects may have a catastrophic impact.

TC