BPA Found In Canned Foods Marketed To Children

Bisphenol A—BPA—the ubiquitous polycarbonate chemical that has been found in a growing number of consumer products including food and beverage can linings, CDs and DVDs, dental sealants, nautical resins, and thermal receipt paper, has now been discovered in canned foods marketed to children.

Children, teens, and developing babies are especially vulnerable to the effects of estrogenic, hormone mimickers, such as BPA because of their developing systems, an enormous issue given that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently said that about 1 million pounds of BPA are released into the environment annually.

MSNBC wrote that Breast Cancer Fund researchers tested for BPA in six products marketed to children such as Campbell’s “Disney Princess” soup with “shaped pasta with chicken in chicken broth” and Annie’s Homegrown certified organic “Cheesy Ravioli.”

The team reviewed canned products “specifically marketed to kids: either ones with pictures of favorite cartoon characters or labels that said something about kids,” said Connie Engel, science education coordinator at the Breast Cancer Fund, wrote MSNBC. The Fund is a national nonprofit organization whose purpose is the identification and elimination of environmental links to breast cancer. “The levels we found in these canned foods were a little higher than those previously found in baby bottles and water bottles,” Engel said, wrote MSNBC.

The BPA’s source in these cases were from the resins that coat the cans’ interiors, which is typically the case when BPA is found in food and beverage cans. The resins are meant to block metals from leaching into the products and to prevent foods and beverages from developing a metal taste, said the team, wrote MSNBC. But, while BPA stops metals from leaching into foods and beverages, nothing stops BPA from leaching into consumed products. “Every advance usually has benefits and tradeoffs,” said Thomas Burke, a professor and associate dean at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. “For example, many kids of my generation got cuts from broken glass at the beach. Plastic bottles probably reduced the likelihood of that happening. But they were also a source of BPA,” he added, reported MSNBC.

As we have long said, BPA, with its hormone-mimicking properties, interrupts sexual development and processes, especially in developing fetuses, infants, and children and has been linked to toxic injury and implications in cardiovascular disease, intestinal problems, brain cell connection interference, increased risks of reproductive and immune system diseases and disorders, problems with liver function testing, interruptions in chemotherapy treatment, premature puberty, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and other female fertility and endocrine issues, and erectile dysfunction and male sexual problems in males as young as the developing fetus.

Still, many cite that most studies have been conducted on animals and that the real human impact from BPA remains unknown. Joe Braun, a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health pointed to similar issues with lead, now known to be exceedingly dangerous with long-lasting, very serious adverse reactions. “Historically we didn’t consider a child to be suffering from lead poisoning until he showed up in the hospital with encephalopathy and seizures,” Braun said. “Now we know much lower exposures can have a big impact,” reported MSNBC.