another poison in our every day lives

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

patriot and widower
BPA found on dollar bills, receipts - i guess that we need to wear gloves!

Two groups researching BPA, a hormone-disrupting chemical linked to serious health problems, say it's been found on dollar bills and cash register receipts. The study -- released Wednesday by the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Coalition and the Washington Toxics Coalition -- says bisphenol A, implicated in cancer, infertility and early puberty, can rub off of receipts onto bills and be absorbed by the skin, a release said.
Thermal paper commonly used in receipts contains BPA that isn't chemically bound in any way, the report says. Free BPA in a powdery film on receipts easily transfers to skin and other items that it rubs against.
Researchers collected receipt paper from major U.S. retailers including Home Depot, Walmart, Safeway and Costco, and also tested paper currency from a total of 18 states and Washington.
Although BPA levels detected on currency were much lower than on receipt paper, the almost universal presence of BPA on dollar bills underscores the fact that even an informed consumer would have a hard time escaping exposure, the study says.
The groups urge Congress to make a reform and updating of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act a top legislative priority, and say a new law should consider the effects of multiple exposures and multiple chemicals.
Traditional methods of assessment that evaluate risk from single chemical exposures do not work in a world exposed to BPA from food cans, water bottles, receipts, and even money, the organizations say.
A service of YellowBrix, Inc. .
 
Schadenfreude said:
BPA found on dollar bills, receipts - i guess that we need to wear gloves!

Two groups researching BPA, a hormone-disrupting chemical linked to serious health problems, say it's been found on dollar bills and cash register receipts. The study -- released Wednesday by the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Coalition and the Washington Toxics Coalition -- says bisphenol A, implicated in cancer, infertility and early puberty, can rub off of receipts onto bills and be absorbed by the skin, a release said.
Thermal paper commonly used in receipts contains BPA that isn't chemically bound in any way, the report says. Free BPA in a powdery film on receipts easily transfers to skin and other items that it rubs against.
Researchers collected receipt paper from major U.S. retailers including Home Depot, Walmart, Safeway and Costco, and also tested paper currency from a total of 18 states and Washington.
Although BPA levels detected on currency were much lower than on receipt paper, the almost universal presence of BPA on dollar bills underscores the fact that even an informed consumer would have a hard time escaping exposure, the study says.
The groups urge Congress to make a reform and updating of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act a top legislative priority, and say a new law should consider the effects of multiple exposures and multiple chemicals.
Traditional methods of assessment that evaluate risk from single chemical exposures do not work in a world exposed to BPA from food cans, water bottles, receipts, and even money, the organizations say.
A service of YellowBrix, Inc. .
Click to expand...

Sounds like irresponsible alarmist reporting to me. Bisphenol A is a garden variety phenolic resin (it's also a component in manufacturing epoxy and polycarbonate resins).

I seriously question these claims being made. It's toxicity is very low with an LD50 of > 6,000mg/kg, it's not teratogenic, mutogenic, carcinogenic, it's not a sensitizer and isn't really known to be a skin irritant. It can cause kidney, liver and bladder damage if you eat large quantities of it over time but I don't think I know any sane person who regularly eats bisphenol a, it's not a selective reproductive toxin nor does it show any evidence of being a reproductive toxin, when consumed it is readily metabalized and excreted. Bisphenol A is rapidly biodegradable with a half life in water of 2.5 to 4 days. Typical exposure rates from handling reciepts and money are in the parts per billion range and their is no peer reviewed data indicating a correlation with exposure at this level and adverse health affects, not supririzing with an LD50 over 5,000 mg/kg. Bisphenol A shows no bioaccumulative affect and has shown low toxicity to aquatic organisms. In fact bisphenol A has such a low toxicity that OSHA hasn't even established a PEL (permissable exposure limit) in the work place for it.

Considering all this bisphenyl a, due to it's low toxicity, is all ready regulated as a hazarous chemical under TSCA (Toxic Substance Control Act), EPCRA (Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act) and OSHA's hazards communication standards (29 CFR 1910.1200). However, the toxicity is so low that bisphenyl A is not regulated as a hazardous waste by EPA for disposal nor is it regulated as a hazardous material by the USDOT for transportation. By comparison, table salt (sodium chloride) is more toxic then bisphenol a (Sodium Chloride has an LD50 of 3,000 mg/kg, about half that of bisphenol and the lower the LD50 the higher the toxicity is).

So, though the authors may have a point about TSCA needing updated to include multiple source points in new product testing I hardly think that based on this kind of alarmism and lack of hard data that this hardly even begins to warrant a legislative prioirity.
 
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Mott the Hoople said:
Sounds like irresponsible alarmist reporting to me. Bisphenol A is a garden variety phenolic resin (it's also a component in manufacturing epoxy and polycarbonate resins).

I seriously question these claims being made. It's toxicity is very low with an LD50 of > 6,000mg/kg, it's not teratogenic, mutogenic, carcinogenic, it's not a sensitizer and isn't really known to be a skin irritant. It can cause kidney, liver and bladder damage if you eat large quantities of it over time but I don't think I know any sane person who regularly eats bisphenol a, it's not a selective reproductive toxin nor does it show any evidence of being a reproductive toxin, when consumed it is readily metabalized and excreted. Bisphenol A is rapidly biodegradable with a half life in water of 2.5 to 4 days. Typical exposure rates from handling reciepts and money are in the parts per billion range and their is no peer reviewed data indicating a correlation with exposure at this level and adverse health affects, not supririzing with an LD50 over 5,000 mg/kg. Bisphenol A shows no bioaccumulative affect and has shown low toxicity to aquatic organisms. In fact bisphenol A has such a low toxicity that OSHA hasn't even established a PEL (permissable exposure limit) in the work place for it.

Considering all this bisphenyl a, due to it's low toxicity, is all ready regulated as a hazarous chemical under TSCA (Toxic Substance Control Act), EPCRA (Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act) and OSHA's hazards communication standards (29 CFR 1910.1200). However, the toxicity is so low that bisphenyl A is not regulated as a hazardous waste by EPA for disposal nor is it regulated as a hazardous material by the USDOT for transportation. By comparison, table salt (sodium chloride) is more toxic then bisphenol a (Sodium Chloride has an LD50 of 3,000 mg/kg, about half that of bisphenol and the lower the LD50 the higher the toxicity is).

So, though the authors may have a point about TSCA needing updated to include multiple source points in new product testing I hardly think that based on this kind of alarmism and lack of hard data that this hardly even begins to warrant a legislative prioirity.
Click to expand...

who conducted the studies and were they accurate

since the stuff is on register tapes, it get spread around
 
Schadenfreude said:
who conducted the studies and were they accurate

since the stuff is on register tapes, it get spread around
Click to expand...
What do you mean what studies am I referencing? This is just common physical/chemical/toxicological and regulatory data that you can easily reference from chemical dictionaries, MSDS's, Code of Federal Regulations, Merck Index, Biological indices, ACGIH PEL's, hazardous materials reference text, etc, etc.

Sure bisphenyl A gets spread around. At levels so low their hardly even measurable with out the aid of a GC/MS. I mean were talking parts per billion here. Do you have any idea how small an exposure that is? Then when you consider that the only real toxic route of exposure for bisphenyl a is oral exposure and that the oral exposure route is > 6,000 mg/kg (6,000 parts per million or 6,000,000 parts per billion or 0.6% of body weight.). That means if you weighed 200 lbs you'd have to swallow 1.2 pounds of bisphenyl a to have a toxic exposure that will kill half the people who ate that much. You'd have to lick one hell of a lot of reciepts or cash to get that level of exposure.

So do the math, it takes a 1.2 pound oral exposure to risk lethal health affects from bisphenyl A. The typical exposure from handling a receipt is 1 to 9 ppb. If that averages to 6 ppb you'ld have to lick 1,000,000 receipts consecutively to have a 50% chance of dying.

I can find no studies showing bisphenyl A poses any health risks at parts per billion level of exposure and when you consider that the only real toxic route of exposure for bisphenyl a is oral ingestion (that is to say absorption through the skin is not a toxic route of exposure for bisphenyl A) then I'd say the health risk here are virtually nil.

In fact, as I've stated previously, common table salt is significantly more toxic then bisphenyl A. If you ate a half a pound of table salt you'd risk about a 50% chance of dying. It would take twice that much bisphenyl A.

No, the authors of the study you reference, are being alarmist, with little or no data to support their position and considering how uninformed the general public is on such matters I find this unconscionably irresponsible of them.
 
Since this chemical apparently lurks on dollar bills, I will refrain from using anything less than a 5 just to be on the safe side.
 
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