Inside Prevention

Five Things You Should Know About Environmental Links to Breast Cancer (Forbes, 12/7/2011)

Amy Westervelt's article on Forbes.com does a great job of parsing through the intricacies of the Institute of Medicine's new report, Breast Cancer and the Environment: A Life Course Approach. Here's an excerpt, including a quote from our president and CEO, Jeanne Rizzo:

In the absence of clear advice from the IOM, consumers might want to consider reducing their exposure to these chemicals. “The failure to take a precautionary approach may leave the public confused and even misinformed, as is evidenced by some of the initial media headlines about the report that say that chemicals are unproven to raise breast cancer risk, when the report itself indicated there are plausible reasons for concern,” Rizzo says.

Read the full article and share it with your networks or submit a comment.

Johnson & Johnson, amid activists' push, steadily removing toxic chemicals from baby products (Associated Press, 11/16/2011)

Iconic baby shampoo maker Johnson & Johnson has committed to a two-year timeline to remove formaldehyde-releasing preservatives 
from its baby products worldwide, under pressure from the Breast Cancer Fund's Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. Formaldehyde is a known human carcinogen. The Associated Press broke the news late yesterday, based on a letter from J&J to the Campaign. (Read the letter and the Campaign press release.)

Also included in the letter is confirmation from J&J that it is actively working to strip the carcinogen 1,4-dioxane from its baby products, and it has already removed phthalates (hormone-disrupting chemicals) from all baby products worldwide, including phthalates found in fragrance.

The letter and transparent public commitment follow the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics' Nov. 1 release of an analysis, Baby's Tub Is Still Toxic, that found different formulations of Johnson's Baby Shampoo in different countries--some of which were already using safer formulations.

From the Associated Press:

Amid pressure from activists, Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday that it is continuing efforts to remove traces of two harmful chemicals from its baby products around the world.

An international coalition of consumer and environmental groups has been pressing J&J since May 2009 to remove two potentially cancer-causing chemicals from products including its signature Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, long advertised under the slogan “No More Tears.”

...

The New Brunswick, N.J., company generally still has a Teflon reputation, but questions about the safety of its baby products led to a rebuke from the Chinese government earlier this month and thousands of consumers writing the company that they would no longer buy those products, according to the campaign. (Read complete article.)

This is a monumental victory for children's health and safety, and for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. At the Breast Cancer Fund, we're incredibly proud to have been part of this win. Today we celebrate the tireless work by our staff and partner organizations; together over the last two and a half years we moved a corporate giant to make lasting global change in the name of health.

Breast cancer awareness should be a year-round event (Huffington Post, 10/27/2011)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) champions breast cancer prevention and elimination of the environmental causes of this disease in a piece for the Huffington Post. In it she mentions some of our proudest achievements, including our State of the Evidence report on environmental exposures linked to breast cancer, as well as a ban on phthalates in children's toys that Sen. Feinstein authored and we supported through its passage in 2008.

Mounting scientific evidence links exposure to everyday chemicals -- in our food, our products, our air and our water -- to breast cancer. The President's Cancer Panel released a report in 2010 that highlighted how little we know about environmental links to cancer and the need for more research.

I could not agree more with the report's recommendation that "a precautionary, prevention-oriented approach should replace current reactionary approaches to environmental contaminants."

Similarly, the Breast Cancer Fund's 2010 report, the State of the Evidence: The Connection Between Breast Cancer and the Environment, linked breast cancer to synthetic hormones in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and meat, pesticides in food, solvents in household cleaning products; bisphenol A (BPA) in food containers and flame retardants in furniture, to name a few.

In our daily lives, we can take steps to reduce exposure to some chemicals, such as buying BPA-free products. But we need more than personal action; we need policies that ensure the public is protected. And we need to understand the chemicals we interact with every day and what they are doing to our bodies. (Read complete article.)

Thank you, Sen. Feinstein, for standing up for environmental health. Human health depends on it.

Chemical industry shifts on BPA after spending millions to fight legislation (New York Times, 10/12/2011)

Days after California passed a ban on BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups, the American Chemistry Council—trade group for the chemical industry—declared that it was petitioning the FDA to ban the chemical from these products nationwide. It's an intriguing reversal in the ACC's history of lobbying against state and federal BPA bills (including the California ban) over the last several years.

Despite the move, the ACC still maintains that BPA is of no concern for health. We disagree.

As reported by the New York Times yesterday:

The trade group's announcement came after [Gretchen Lee] Salter, the policy manager of the Breast Cancer Fund, had spent the past six years on the frontlines of a major battle over California legislation to ban BPA from those products.

Salter's group and others were able to declare victory when Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed A.B. 1319 into law last week -- only to see ACC say three days later that the problem does not exist.

To Salter, something didn't ring true.

"The amount of resources they poured into states trying to regulate baby bottles and sippy cups and the amount of resources they poured into California," Salter said, then paused. "To all of the sudden say, 'Folks, there is no problem here, we don't use BPA anyway.' It's this weird, almost Orwellian double speak."

ACC had doggedly insisted that BPA is safe, and the group has fought fiercely against federal and state legislative proposals to ban the chemical, which public health advocates have linked to a hormonal disruption and other developmental problems in children.

Disclosure forms shows that ACC has invested heavily in lobbying in California since 2005, when the first bill limiting BPA was introduced in the state Legislature. (Read complete article.)

Neither the California law nor the ACC petition to the FDA include canned foods or other products known to contain BPA. The Breast Cancer Fund continues to push for safe alternatives to BPA in canned foods through our Cans Not Cancer campaign and support of Rep. Ed Markey's (D, Mass.) Ban Poisonous Additives Act, currently in the U.S. House.

BPA in Kids' Canned Food report media roundup (9/21/2011-9/24/2011)

The Breast Cancer Fund report, BPA in Kids' Canned Food, generated attention across the country when we released it on September 21. In addition to nearly 250 local television news stories, our finding that BPA is in canned food for kids was reported in the following print and online media outlets:

ABCNews.com

AFP

Associated Content

The Atlantic

BlameCancer.org

CafeMom

CBS.com

Chemical Watch

Discovery News

Examiner.com

FoodCt.com

FoxNews.com

France 24

GreenOptions.com

Greenwire

Growing a Green Family

Indiana Public Media

Inhabitots

International Business Times

KGO Radio San Francisco

MSNBC

Non-ToxicKids.net

Packaging Digest

Parenthood Blog

San Francisco Chronicle

SF Chronicle Editorial

Science News

Shape Magazine

ThirdAge.com

United Press International

Washington Post Blog

Washington Times

WebMD

WIBC radio Indianapolis

BPA-free baby bottles become California law

California babies have a better chance at being BPA-free, thanks to legislation signed into law yesterday by Gov. Jerry Brown. The law bans the estrogenic chemical BPA from baby bottles and sippy cups sold in the state.

California is the eleventh state to restrict BPA in baby products, adding to the mass of governmental, corporate and scientific concerns about the chemical's effect on health, even at low levels. BPA exposure is associated with a wide range of adverse health effects, including breast and prostate cancer, birth defects, infertility in men, early puberty in girls, diabetes and obesity.

Because of BPA's link to breast cancer in lab studies, the Breast Cancer Fund has been advocating to get it out of consumer products for the last six years: We've supported the new California law through previous iterations in 2008, 2009 and 2010; we're working with Congress on federal bills that take aim at BPA in kids' products as well as BPA in food-related products for all ages; we've done research that demonstrates the close link between our eating habits and our BPA exposure; and we recently launched a market-based effort to get BPA out of canned goods.

All to say, we're thrilled California has finally taken this important step to make sure ALL babies in the states are protected from BPA in their baby bottles. While the big bottle manufacturers have already moved away from BPA because of consumer concerns, only a law like this can guarantee that all stores, from health food stores to dollar stores—regardless of the brands they carry— stock only safe products.

Clearly, though, this new law isn't our endgame. We took aim at baby bottles and sippy cups first because babies are most vulnerable to the effects of chemicals like BPA. But there's still BPA in baby food jar lids and cans of ready-to-feed formula. And older children, pregnant women, and women and men of all ages are almost certain to be exposed to BPA on a daily basis, and susceptible to the chemical's effects, too.

Our aim: a BPA-free dinner table for all ages, all income levels, all degrees of BPA-savvy and all states. This is a start; help us get further.

Could BPA predispose girls to breast cancer? (California Watch, 10/4/2011)

An important new study published in Molecular Endocrinology demonstrates that BPA exposure in utero and through nursing appears to alter mammary tissue in such a way that predisposes the breast to later-life breast cancer.

In fact, the researchers tested BPA alongside DES, the notorious chemical prescribed to pregnant women from 1938 to 1971 that was later found to increase the risk of various cancers in "DES daughters," and found the two chemicals' effects on the mammary glands to be similar. That's serious cause for concern for pregnant and nursing women, as our president and CEO explained to California Watch:

"This is really an important piece of research," said Jeanne Rizzo, president and CEO of the Breast Cancer Fund, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that advocates for the elimination of breast cancer. "It validates other work that has been done and brings the focus to the pregnant mother, the in utero exposure that’s so critical to our understanding of the influence on breast development."

She said that based on this research, she would advise all pregnant women to do all they can to avoid BPA exposure.

"Don’t eat canned foods, buy glass, avoid plastic," she said. "You can do a lot to cut back on your exposure." (Read complete article.)

In addition to Jeanne's advice, we recommend using glass or stainless steel bottles and food containers instead of plastic. You can find tips for replacing canned foods with safe alternatives on our website.

How lobbyists are spinning weak science to defend BPA (The Atlantic, 9/27/2011)

The Atlantic has published a must-read article about our BPA in Kids' Canned Food report and the food packaging industry's effort to generate controversy about the formidable body of scientific evidence linking BPA to harm. In particular, industry is pointing to one apparently flawed study to defend its continued use of BPA in food cans:

The chemical industry, NAMPA [the North American Metal Packaging Alliance], and other industry groups have consistently defended the safety of BPA -- and lobbied extensively against its regulation. But that such a flawed study would be published and its findings so misrepresented has outraged prominent members of the scientific community. "Its conclusions are preposterous," says Fred vom Saal, professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia whose research on endocrine hormones dates back to the 1970s.

...

In criticizing the Breast Cancer Fund study, NAMPA also said the levels of BPA found in the kids' canned food tested -- an average of 13 to 114 parts per billion -- "are well within the safety recommendations of government agencies." But such levels of BPA, which is known to be biologically active at very low levels of exposure, according to vom Saal, are sufficient "to prompt an entire range of effects." (Read complete article.)

Study: BPA common in kids' canned foods (WebMD, 9/21/2011)

WebMD also covered our BPA in Kids' Canned Food report:

Cans of soup marketed for kids may have a potentially dangerous chemical that's not found on any food ingredient label.

A new report shows some canned soups and meals marketed to children contain the chemical bisphenol A (BPA). All of the products tested positive for the chemical, and Campbell's Disney Princess and Toy Story soups contained the highest levels.

A spokesman for Campbell's says regulatory agencies say the amount of BPA in canned foods doesn't pose a threat to health.

The average level of BPA in the 12 items tested was 49 ppb (parts per billion) and ranged from 10 to 148 ppb. The Environmental Protection Agency's estimate of safe exposure level is 50 ppb per day.

"One serving might be a concern, but a combination of repeated and re-exposure to BPA from cans marketed to kids is a bigger concern," says Connie Engel, PhD, science education coordinator at the Breast Cancer Fund, which conducted the study. (Read complete article.)

New evidence adds to case against bisphenol A (San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21/2011)

An editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle highlights two BPA topics that the Breast Cancer Fund supports: passage of California's Toxin-Free Infants and Toddlers Act (AB 1319), which now awaits Gov. Brown's signature; and our new BPA in Kids' Canned Food report.

The editorial points out that legislation around baby bottles and sippy cups are helpful, but not enough to protect children from BPA exposures:

There is no reason to have that chemical in baby products when safer alternatives are readily available. Brown should sign SB1319 to limit infants' BPA exposure, as 11 states have done in recent years, while lobbyists for the chemical and canning industries have been deflecting California BPA bills in each of the three previous years.

The real issue is whether the California Legislature went far enough. The bill originally would have extended the ban to infant food containers - specifically formula - but that provision was deleted to increase the chances of passage. And even that restriction may have been insufficient to protect children.

A report being released today by the Breast Cancer Fund showed disturbing levels of BPA in canned foods marketed for children. The fund commissioned an independent laboratory testing of a dozen popular canned foods - and all tested positive for the presence of BPA, which is used in the epoxy coatings in the inner lining of cans. (Read complete article.)