Recently, there has been a veritable &$^%* storm in the media about the baby deforming, BPA leaching uber monster Sigg. Almost everyday for the past several weeks, a new PR nightmare emerges for Sigg in the green blogosphere in the form of a 300 word “Shame on you, Sigg” blog post. It’s been so rampant that it inspired a bit of an obsessive research project where I attempted to learn the truth about BPA.  I’ve poured through nearly 50 studies on the subject, talked to environmental groups, journalists, academia, and all I can say is that the science about BPA is murky;  and in some cases, this murkiness seems to be intended. Surprise!

This is not to say that one should line up shots of pure-uncut BPA on the bar and take them down with salt and lemon. Far from that.  To sum it up, it’s everywhere.  Bishpenol A is one of the top 50 chemicals in use today and 90% of Americans have it in their urine.  But it’s not just in Sigg water bottles. It’s in almost every aluminum can that you drink from, every can of tomatoes that you make sauce with, almost all canned goods in general;  in short, you’re exposed to it from thousands of food products on the shelves of your local grocery store. Want to see a rundown of what leaches from soda pop cans and how much?  Click here to see the BPA levels in canned beverages conducted by Health Canada, and scroll down a bit.

So why is everyone just picking on Sigg?

Truth be told, it appears that Sigg has been dodging the question about whether the chemical content of their bottles contained BPA.  CEO Steve Wasik, in official statements to the press as well as clients basically avoided the question by saying that their pre-BPA liner was proprietary, and its chemical makeup couldn’t be disclosed. Dodgy yes, but not necessarily untrue. To address concerns, Sigg tested its bottles to see if they leached BPA but only to a parts per million degree.  Third party tests show that Sigg bottles did leach BPA on a parts per billion scale.  Put it this way, if your bottle/food product/soda can contains BPA in its epoxy lining, it leaches.  Period.

So the real question with Sigg is this:  did they set up a test to ensure a desired outcome?  Or was their test simply negligent?  Or were they just trying to buy time until they could get another, BPA-free liner?  Whatever the case, the BPA fury storm was hurricane force, and they had to do something.  What Sigg is guilty of is being horrendously clumsy.  And the real crime is that Sigg did not disclose the truth about the trace levels of BPA when people asked, or as Wasik says, “decided not to announce.”  Wasik has now come out publicly apologizing for his actions, here, after being subjected to an internet crucible. But are they baby killers, hormone disrupting villains?  Maybe, maybe not.  This is where the ‘science is murky’ part comes in to play. Look at the same Health Canada report linked above and you’ll find this paragraph:

“Based on the average BPA level in canned drinks (0.57 µg/L*), if an adult (60 kg body weight) consumes one canned drink (355 mL) per day, the dietary intake of BPA would be equivalent to 0.2 µg/day which represents 0.0135% of the provisional TDI. Based on the highest BPA level in canned drinks (4.5 µg/L*), an adult (60 kg body weight) would have to consume approximately 940 canned drinks in one day to approach the provisional TDI set by Health Canada.

So, what’s a CEO to do?  From looking at these studies, BPA sure doesn’t seem to be a big deal. Even the most dedicated World of Warcraft players can’t drink 940 cans of soda a day. The problem is that perception is reality, especially when the media latches on to an issue like BPA leaching, making it a darling.

But here’s how to avoid having your company being labeled a baby killing, BPA loving wretch: deal with the issue in a transparent manner when the issue is brought to your attention. That’s what Laken, another epoxy lined water bottle company did. To Laken’s credit, when retailers started asking, they had the guts to disclose that their bottles (pre-August 2008) contained BPA.  And sales suffered because of it.  But still, Laken embraced the issue, head on.

By January 2009 they were leading the charge in the aluminum water bottle industry by demanding transparency about BPA leaching bottles within their market.  It wasn’t easy; some stainless steel water bottle companies (stainless steel doesn’t need a liner) were using the bad news about BPA to hammer their aluminum competition.

When I spoke with Greg Garrigues, Laken USA president, he summed his company’s attitude up as, “when the issue emerged we listened to our customers and engaged them in the conversation, and made positive steps forward to address their concerns.”  Check out the letter written by Garrigues on the company’s website. It’s well worth the read. Here’s a rather nice excerpt:

From 2007 until June 2008, Laken’s bottle coating was a high density phenolic epoxy, and was favorably exceeding the most stringent global testing standards — which was the EU standard — for leaching BPA. At this same time concern for BPA in coatings for aluminum canned goods and bottles came to Laken’s attention. As a measure to follow through with diligence, Laken tested its bottles once again, but this time to a much higher level of precision. Governing bodies require measurement to Parts Per Million, but Laken chose to test to Parts Per Billion. At this level Laken found that the phenolic epoxy coating showed trace amounts of BPA presence. That being said, if we used the same “blinders on” testing that some of our aluminum bottle competitors have been using we could have claimed that LakenUSA bottles demonstrated no presence of BPA.

Beyond that, instead of giving talking point equivocations to their PR people, they actually employed them to spread the word about the issue. Laken is now BPA free.

So, now I’m confused, what is really the big deal about BPA?  Is it really bad or is this issue being overly politicized?

The science of whether BPA is indeed harmful is an ugly and difficult question to answer.  Here’s what we do know: Bisphenol A is a hormone disruptor. Several studies have demonstrated low-dose BPA exposure with: changes to the genital tract; testosterone decline; enlarged prostate; a predisposition to breast cancer; and hyperactivity.  Pretty wicked scary stuff, indeed.  But how much can we take in without harm?  Does all this stuff happen if it’s ingested in low doses, rather than injected into lab animals being tested?  There are all sorts of reports out there claiming that BPA is simply metabolized, and that all the really bad stuff only happens if you inject it into the test subject.

To address this issue, a study was conducted by BPA guru and University of Missouri professor, Dr. Fred Vom Saal et al, that looked at this question precisely.  Full text, here.  Ultimately, what’s demonstrated in the study is that the natural means by which the body eliminates foreign chemicals by glucuronosyltransferase doesn’t occur in fetuses and neonatal mice to the degree that it does in adults.

So is your Sigg bottle really scary if you’re an adult?  Another research group that informs the World Health Organization, The NSF, says no.  Check out their fact sheet, here.  But who is the NSF and are they an industry front group posing as a consumer safety organization?  I’ll reserve my opinion, and let you decide by reading this quick about page, here.

So, why did I read this damn article? I’m still confused, and nobody can give me a straight answer.

Luckily, Congressman Henry Waxman, after learning about reports that industry lobbyists had a hand in the FDA’s official ruling that BPA was safe, has pressured the FDA to take a ‘fresh look,’ at the harms that BPA can cause.  The report is due out this fall.  Whatever the outcome, it’s clear that there is a lot of outrage about the potential effects of BPA already.  From my perspective, it’s better to be safe than sorry, and ingesting any sort of synthetic chemicals is always a gamble.  As NRDC Science Fellow Dr. Sarah Janssen put it in an ABC article on the subject, “We take the position that while the jury might still be out on the science on how dangerous this chemical is, it’s an easy exposure to avoid.”

So why don’t I care about Sigg?

Well, the truth is, I do.  But I care more about that fact that BPA is ubiquitous in many thousands of the products we consume everyday.  It’s not just in the Sigg bottles of old.  It’s not just in baby bottles.  To me, it seems that outrage shouldn’t just be focused on Sigg, but aimed at every company who puts food or drink in an epoxy lined can.  The firestorm on BPA that the Sigg issue ignited is living proof that the consumer ultimately has the power.  Use it. 

[Photo: RLHyde, Flickr]