Bisphenol A is used to make food and beverage containers that range from baby bottles to cans of tomato sauce. Growing scientific evidence shows that BPA, as it's called, is hazardous to our health. The hormone-disrupting chemical routinely contaminates what we eat -- and has been linked to cancer, infertility and obesity, among other problems. It's especially risky to infants and children. NRDC experts have called on the government to ban this unsafe chemical from food packaging.
In Wednesday's Washington Post, Lyndsey Layton reported on a recent study examining the impact of the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA), on the reproductive systems of human males (as the story notes, previous studies have been of mice and rats). The...continued→
Frances Beinecke was interviewed on E&E TV about the progress of the climate bill in the Senate and the role the United States may play in international climate negotiations; she also discussed her new book and the need to educate...continued→
Yesterday, Consumer Reports released a study of the levels of bisphenol a (BPA) in food products. They found that nearly all of the 19 canned food products they tested contained levels of BPA which have been associated with harm in...continued→
Living on Earth aired an excellent interview with Dr. Tracey Woodruff on the regulation of endocrine disruptors last week. As an EPA alum and director of UC-San Francisco's Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, Dr. Woodruff knows a thing or...continued→
New data confirms widespread atrazine contamination in drinking water and streams. Scientists to examine the link between Alzheimer's and man-made nano particles found in sunscreen and other products. Global warming could shift the Earth's axis by 1.5 meters in...continued→
Last week, the FDA had a public meeting with their scientific advisors to give a regular quarterly update on what is happening at the Agency. This included an update on the re-evaluation of BPA that has now been slated for...continued→
What does "known to cause" mean to you? Does it mean "beyond a reasonable doubt"? Or "clear and convincing"? To a scientist like me, this type of legal-speak is baffling, yet we were hearing a lot of it from the...continued→
Many of my blog posts are about the hormone disrupting chemical, bisphenol A or BPA. This chemical has been in the spotlight quite a bit over the past several years and will be again this week in California when the...continued→
Today, Tapped will premiere at the Maine International Film Festival. I was lucky enough to be a part of this wonderful and very important project. The documentary, from the producers of "Who Killed the Electric Car," exposes the billion dollar...continued→
Recently, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Washington Post wrote stories about a leaked memo summarizing a meeting of chemical and food industry leaders, in which they discussed their strategy for a media offensive to defend the chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA)...continued→
Yesterday I posted a blog about the latest industry tactics to promote the continued use of the hormone-disrupting chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in our food packaging. There is widespread exposure to this chemical in the general public. And current levels...continued→
I am a typical mom who makes most of the purchasing decisions in my family. I cut coupons, read labels, shop in bulk, and do my best to purchase healthy products. Because I am concerned about exposure to Bisphenol A...continued→
Today, I released a new report on the need for scientific journals to enforce strict and effective conflict disclosure policies for authors, peer reviewers, and even journal editors. The report, titled, Effective and Practical Disclosure Policies: NRDC Paper on Workshop to...continued→
House committee passes the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a bill that will make significant investments in clean energy and reducing global warming pollution. President Obama announces ground-breaking global warming pollution standards for cars and trucks. Secretary Chu...continued→
The Waxman-Markey bill on investing in clean energy and reducing global warming pollution nears consideration. Get updates from NRDC's bloggers here. College students demand higher tuition to help pay for green projects. The first clean-up effort of the Great Pacific Garbage...continued→
In the last week, I’ve written about the urgent need for federal reform of the toxic chemical regulatory process in the United States. Today, I’ll wrap up my series with a plea for a special focus on endocrine disruptors, a...continued→
In the months after last November’s election, NRDC’s health program developed a list of more than 50 steps that the new administration needed to undertake quickly. Many of these steps address problems in the Environmental Protection Agency’s core chemical decision-making...continued→
As I wrote earlier this week, our national system for regulating toxic chemicals is broken and desperately in need of repair. Luckily, five key developments have set the stage for the best opportunity to make significant gains on chemical policy...continued→
President Obama kicked off the week by telling the EPA to reconsider a request by California to impose stricter limits on tailpipe emissions. In other news: Exposure to the coal ash spill in Tennessee could lead to serious health problems....continued→
In this era of change, not much has changed at the FDA , where officials continue to say that bisphenol A (BPA) in our food supply is safe despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We are hopeful that once a new...continued→
On CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, Michael Oko talks about the roots of the growing green youth movement [video below]... In a blog tracking the events and people in Davos, Switzerland the Wall Street Journal interviews Frances Beinecke about...continued→
Peter Lehner tells WAMC-AM, NPR's Albany affiliate, how Gov. Paterson's energy plan will benefit New York's economy and environment... Noah Horowitz gives NPR a tour of improvements to television energy efficiency at the Intl. Consumer Electronics Show... In The New York...continued→
A number of bloggers shared wrap ups of environmental news in 2008 and offered predictions for 2009: Grist lists the top green stories of 2008 from bpa getting a bad rep to the offshore drilling ban getting lifted. Joe Romm...continued→
I had breast cancer almost ten years ago, and I found chemotherapy to be more trying than I could have imagined. I prefer to leave it in the past, but recent reports brought it all back and triggered an alarming...continued→
Following a scientific advisory panel announcement yesterday that called FDA’s margins of safety for the chemical BPA “inadequate” NRDC has been at the forefront of BPA discussion in the news. Jen Sass appeared on NBC Nightly News last night to...continued→
This has been a big week in the saga around bisphenol A (BPA) - a chemical in food packaging that poses a considerable health risk, especially to infants and children. Our health team has been working on this for years, and we are hopeful that...continued→
Frances Beinecke warns that offshore drilling entails needless risks, urging instead for investment in clean renewable technology in a well circulated McClatchy Newspapers article… USA Today ran an article focusing on the major health concerns held by NRDC and a...continued→
An external subcommittee of scientists just administered a dose of bitter medicine to the FDA. The subcommittee reviewed a deeply flawed FDA report on the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA) and concluded that the Agency bungled the science, failing to protect people from this chemical....continued→
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I am a breast cancer survivor, and in the years immediately after my diagnosis, I sometimes found the annual proliferation of pink ribbons difficult--it was hard to be reminded of cancer every time...continued→
Frances Beinecke gets the last word and voices NRDC’s opposition of offshore drilling in a Chicago Tribune article on the future of oil drilling in America… An editorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer lambastes the Bush administration for its blatant attempts...continued→
In the Wall Street Journal both Julia Bovey and Linda Greer discuss the possibilities and benefits that may come from Wal-Mart’s move to set energy-efficiency requirements for all of the company’s Chinese suppliers; the article also mentions NRDC’s work this...continued→
The San Francisco Chronicle is the first to report on NRDC’s petition to the FDA requesting for the ban of the chemical BPA from all food products nationwide …Chris Paine criticizes unsavory aspects of a plan to build a nuclear...continued→
I’ve written earlier posts about scientific studies linking bisphenol A (BPA) exposure to health problems. In the past few years, numerous studies suggest the chemical can lead to serious illnesses, such as reproductive abnormalities, prostate and breast cancer, neurological damage,...continued→
Sustainablog suggests ten ways to change the world through social media. Salon interviews British journalist Rose George about environmental health issues connected with human waste. It's Getting Hot in Here blogs about what green jobs could do for Navajo...continued→
You may have noticed that there's a growing amount of environmental news and opinion on the web these days. Switchboard's a great starting point, of course, but we also like to keep an eye on other great blogs and websites, to see what they're...continued→
In Arizona Republic Frances Beinecke faults the Bush administration for failing to provide leadership on energy issues for the last 8 years… David Goldstein criticizes Energy Star for maintaining lackluster and industry influenced requirements for refrigerators in a Consumer Reports...continued→
Yesterday, I attended FDA's public meeting on BPA and gave public comments. One thing that struck me was there were 20 public commentators - 2 were from industry, 2 were from animal rights groups (they were relatively neutral on the...continued→
I'm a new mom. And I'm also a physician and a scientist who studies hormone disruptors, chemicals that mimic hormones and interfere with the function of other hormones in our bodies, like estrogen. As a new mom I worry about...continued→
The Atlanta Journal Constitution references NRDC statistics that place Georgia as one of the top three states in America spending a large portion of income on gasoline…The Daily Green reports that Mayor Bloomberg has signed a law that will...continued→
In the past week, there have been a lot of news reports and blog chatter about BPA, also known as bisphenol-A. Finally, government agencies, consumers, and manufacturers are starting to take this toxin seriously. But BPA is only one member...continued→
The dominos are really starting to fall, as major manufacturers and retailers line up to announce that they are removing bisphenol A (BPA) from their products, or are pulling these products from their shelves. Although it’s gratifying to see this...continued→
It’s been a bad week for bisphenol-A, and that’s a good thing. Not one but two government agencies came out for the first time publicly saying that this chemical--found in plastic water bottles, canned food, and numerous baby products--could harm...continued→
The National Toxicology Program (NTP) today released a draft evaluation of the widespread chemical, bisphenol A, becoming the first federal agency in the world to express concern regarding this chemical’s potential to cause harm to fetuses, infants and children. Bisphenol A...continued→
I had breast cancer nine years ago. I have a strong constitution--and a strong will--and those carried me far during my diagnosis and treatment. But still it was a difficult time for me and my family. One thing that brought...continued→
How to generate millions of jobs, break our dependence on oil and reduce the pollution that causes global warming.
