Toxic chemical level highest in award-winning 'BPA-free' baby bottle

By Sarah Schmidt, Canwest News Service, August 8, 2009
Edmonton Journal
Aug. 11, 2009

An award-winning baby bottle contained the highest traces of the toxic chemical among so-called "BPA-free" bottles when Health Canada tested for leaching into water, according to newly released test results.

Dr. Brown's Natural Flow bottle, described as a product "parents can't live without" for the past five years by the influential magazine American Baby, showed trace amounts of 0.9 parts per billion in the water after 238 hours at 60 C. Other "BPA-free" brands also showed detectable, although lower, levels under these conditions, ranging from 0.002 to 0.025 parts per billion. These included Gerber, Medela, Whittlestone, Nuby and a house brand sold at a dollar store in Canada.

There were no detectable levels found in the BornFree and Thinkbaby bottles after 238 hours. The Green to Grow brand was not analyzed at the 238-hour mark after Health Canada found no detectable levels after 94 hours. Thinkbaby bottles showed no detectable levels after two hours, 22 hours and 94 hours, while BornFree showed minute traces at the two-hour mark, but came up completely clean after that.

Health Canada did not include the Adiri Natural Nurser bottle--pitched to parents as "100-per-cent BPA free" --in the water migration survey.

But in a second test using 10-per-cent ethanol, Health Canada found three bottles with detectable levels of the chemical in one of the four time-specified readings --Adiri, Dr. Brown and Whittlestone.

Health Canada released the detailed breakdown of the results after a barrage of criticism in the past week from consumer advocates and bottle manufacturers demanding transparency and questioning the veracity of the test results. But the release has only raised more questions about the study.

The aim of the study, conducted last year after Health Canada announced an imminent ban on polycarbonate plastic baby bottles, was to compare the levels of BPA migrating from polycarbonate baby bottles to those made from substitutes, under real-life conditions used by parents.

The study found much higher readings of leaching among the polycarbonate bottles--reaching 59.92 part per billion after 238 hours.

By then, the market had already been flooded with "BPA-free" alternatives made of substitute plastics without any bisphenol A, which were pitched as an option for parents concerned about the health risks associated with the newly labelled toxin.

Bisphenol A, a hormone disrupter that can cause reproductive damage and lead to prostate and breast cancer in adulthood, is a building block in polycarbonate plastic, but not in substitutes, such as polypropylene, so the Canadian ban is restricted to polycarbonate bottles.

Pete Myers, an internationally recognized scientist who has published extensively about health risks associated with bisphenol A, said the trace levels found are "not very concerning" from a health perspective.

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