Monday, October 24, 2011

Important information or just more nameless dread?

This is the kind of story that makes me crazy. 
I mean, if high levels of BPA really do cause problems in-utero for girl babies, hey, let's ditch the stuff. I'm perfectly happy with my metal water bottle. But stories that just float a little information out there are decidedly unhelpful on issues like this, and mostly just add to all the nameless dread that builds up in us from a steady diet of vague stories like this one.
 What exactly ARE "higher levels" of BPA, and why did these women have more in their system than others? In fact, how much BPA is OK to have in your system, and what's a typical amount you'd see in an average person? What are the lessons to be learned for future mothers-to-be so they can avoid hyperactive baby girls - or shall they just add BPA to the long list of possibly bad things to worry about when pregnant?
And note that you'd have to search for the actual study if you wanted to see exactly how many more toddlers got hyperactive due to higher levels of BPA in their moms, or even for a clear definition of the behaviours that researchers saw more of.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Impact of Early-Life Bisphenol A Exposure on Behavior and Executive Function in Children -- http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/10/20/peds.2011-1335

Drives me crazy when publicly funded research is locked away behind a pay wall.

Anonymous said...

O0opz... my mistake.

.PDF 12 pages http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/10/20/peds.2011-1335.full.pdf+html