A (Corporate) Rude Awakening: The SIGG bomb

By this time, most of you have probably heard about the controversy swirling around the Swiss water bottle company SIGG. If you haven't, check out this article by the folks over at EWG regarding the company's big lie about the lining of its aluminum water bottles. For several years, it has sought to capitalize on the consumer backlash against BPA in food and drink containers by assuring those consumers that SIGG bottles are BPA-free. Well--at least that's what their advertising sounded like. In fact, they were claiming that their bottles did not leach BPA--but that its epoxy resin liner did, in fact, contain the chemical. Regardless, word is out that the resin did leach BPA and, duh. As Professor Fred Vom Sall, of the University of Missouri's biology department said, if the liner is made of BPA then of course it is going to leach. That's what BPA does.

But what is most disturbing about this story is the manipulation of the science "backing up" the SIGG claims for so long. SIGG did their testing of BPA leaching in the parts per billion instead of the industry standard of parts per trillion. What's the big deal? The current standard of parts per trillion is a test that is 1000 times more sensitive. Passing off PPB as a legitimate test for leached BPA is underhanded; consumers cannot be expected, at this point, to understand the difference. And SIGG knew this.

What this all comes down to is this: we have no standard currently for the terms "green" and "nontoxic." Yet consumers have made it clear that they are sick of being poisoned by noxious components. As much as the plastics industry and even mainstream media and blogs (I'm thinking of The Consumerist)tries to downplay and even make fun of consumer concern about BPA and phthalates, the tide is turning. The scientific evidence is conclusive. And we need this out of consumer products. I've been amazed at how quickly companies and manufacturers have responded. The problem now is keeping these companies honest. There are the old stand-bys, the Born Frees, for example. But there will always be interlopers in the "green" arena.

As before, my advice is to take the time to do research on products that make claims to being "natural," "nontoxic," or "green." At this point, a product using the term "green" is one to be suspicious of, in my opinion. It suggests a lack of sophistication--and it suggests it is reaching for the least sophisticated consumer of the "green bunch." That's the person who wants to make an effort to choose safe products but who hasn't yet had the time to do the research and might not even know to do it. I know. I was that consumer for many years.

Science for Sale: Wyeth Paid for Positive Reviews of HRT

More on this later today, but I wanted to post this article from today's New York Times about Wyeth's use of ghostwriters to pen positive reviews of its hormone replacement therapy drugs, which were later shown by a large federal study to cause invasive breast cancer and a host of other serious problems. These weren't any old reviews--these were articles in respected journals. Ghostwriting in the pharmaceutical industry is itself invasive and appallingly unethical, and yet journal editors are still being blindsided by these compromised reviews.

Read the article here.

BPA in BPA-Free Bottles? A mystery in Canada

Some very strange news out of Canada today. Scientists there claim to have found BPA leaching out of polypropylene bottles. While they haven't named names, their documents suggest that when subjected to high temperatures, such as in a dishwasher, these bottles leach trace amounts of BPA, which is baffling to parents who assumed that non-polycarbonate bottles contained zero BPA. These results are also baffling to some of the most trusted manufacturers of BPA-free bottles, including ThinkBaby and BornFree.

"We have not only three major global testing labs that test our products, but we also do biologic testing on our bottles, and the biologic type of testing is even more sensitive than anything that Health Canada could ever pull off, and it would pick up anything that even behaved like BPA," said Kevin Brodwick, founder and president of thinkbaby, whose products are made with medical-grade plastic specifically formulated to be free of bisphenol A, PVC, nitrosamines, phthalates, lead, melamine and biologically toxic chemicals.


Test results, conducted at least every quarter, consistently show "zero, complete non-detect for BPA," said Brodwick

Indeed, Alicia over at The Soft Landing posted this thoughtful commentary on the test results, suggesting that perhaps cross-contamination, particularly in the dishwashers used, could be partly to blame for these test results, which have not yet been duplicated.

I agree with Alicia that we need to take a step back and wait for more explanation and context regarding these results. As with all scientific results, until there is at least replication of results, we can't jump to any conclusions. I, for one, remain quite confident in my Born Frees and believe, as Brodwick does, that there is a plausible explanation for these strange results. As always, I will keep you posted.