Despite claims by a Swiss company that their old aluminum bottles do not leach bisphenol A, a leading expert says his tests show they do release the gender-bending chemical.
University of Missouri biology professor Frederick Vom Saal said a company-sponsored test of the Sigg metal bottles was a sham.
That test measured the presence of the toxic chemical in parts per billion, he said, while the current standard is parts per trillion one thousand times more sensitive.
“This is appalling. All BPA-lined products leach BPA- end of story, no argument, no exceptions,” said Vom Saal, who has studied bisphenol A for more than a decade.
Sigg company CEO Steve Wasik told the Star he stood by the tests, and by his previous statements that the bottles touted as a replacement for hard plastic bottles containing BPA were safe and did not leach any trace of the chemical, under even harsh conditions.
Bisphenol A is found in polycarbonate bottles and the epoxy lining of food and baby formula cans, and has been found to behave as a synthetic estrogen. The Canadian government banned it in plastic baby bottles last year, after reviewing dozens of studies linking it to breast cancer, prostate cancer, change in brain function and behaviour, and the merging of the sexes in animals.
As an endocrine disrupter, even minute exposures to BPA one part per trillion can cause detectable effects, Vom Saal said.
Consumer concern about the chemical led many people to ditch their old hard plastic water bottles and buy Sigg aluminum bottles instead, thinking they were a safe alternative.
Last month, Wasik disclosed that since August 2008, the company’s aluminum bottles had been lined with a new “powder-based, co-polyester coating” that was “100 per cent free of BPA.” The older model, his online letter says, had “a water-based epoxy liner which contained a trace amount of BPA.”
Vom Saal said he tested the bottles about four years ago and found they did leach bisphenol A in parts per trillion. He never published his results, as at that time the company’s website publicized their liner as an epoxy resin including BPA, he said.
Testing baby bottles for bisphenol A last year, Health Canada set the threshold at 50 parts per trillion 40 times lower than the Sigg tests.
Catherine Porter
ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
