"BPA is known to cause reproductive and behavioral issues, and is potentially linked to obesity and ADHD among other problems. Early childhood development is particularly sensitive to its effects. " BPA is a chemical of concern by the FDA. No definitive link has been shown yet. Still, discretion is the better part of valor. That said, I am still unconvinced and continue to use my BPA containing water bottle.

"Chemicals are in nearly everything, and as people speak out about their dangers, hopefully safer alternatives will be found." Chemicals are everything! Everything you eat, breath, see, everything (with the possible exception of pure energy. Water is a chemical. Oxygen is a chemical. You cannot find an alternative to chemicals. Please be careful when making such blanket statements. Reminds me of the town that banned dihydrogen-oxide because of the massive number of fatalities related both directly and indirectly to the chemical. People get scared for no good reason.

The nonprofit Environmental Health Research Foundation “found no evidence to suggest adverse health effects from the small amounts of BPA that may migrate from thermal paper to human skin.” In addition, there have been five decades of solid research confirming the safety of BPA and thermal paper. http://www.thermalpaperfacts.org/archives/105

There must be something to it since the leading U.S. thermal paper maker, Wisconsin-based Appleton Papers Inc., no longer incorporates BPA in any of its thermal papers (Raloff 2009) and The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has initiated a program to evaluate the safety and availability of alternatives to BPA in thermal paper (EPA 2010). Plus, many retailers are using alternatives and switching to electronic receipts. Visit www.evg.org - The Environmental Working Group for more information.

Most companies are driven more by market forces than by actual facts. The perception of a hazard is enough for a company to change course so as to keep making money. Print enough articles that BPA or melamine, or whatever, are hazardous, even if it turns out not to be the case in the form or dose involved, and the companies will respond. As an example, companies were quick to pull saccharine when it was proposed that it was hazardous. It turns out not to be hazardous, but the companies wanted to keep selling products.

Again, BPA may prove to be hazardous in the doses in question, but the fact that companies stop using BPA is a business decision, not an admission that BPA is dangerous. I personally worry more about the replacement chemicals used when a known substance such as BPA is pulled from a product. But I do understand the desire to err on the side of safety.

BAV - well said. BPA was found to be fatal when injected directly into mice. But traces of it in other products? It's a stretch to say some chemicals are dangerous. And companies are driven solely by market forces. The Environmental Industry is a huge money maker. Companies claim their products are BPA-Free and instantly charge twice as much for them. And they double their profits. A single blue ScotchBrite kitchen sponge is $1.99 the brown Eco-Friendly Version is $4.99. When the government banned teflon from industry because it was dangerous, why did they not ban it from the average household frying pan? When the
Food Pyramid was re-arranged in the 1970's to say that chicken was healthier than beef, it was because the government wanted to cut their subsidies to the cattle industry. And so on and so on.

Betsy, I generally agree with you. However, there has to be accountability on all sides. Some whack job makes up data that says that vaccines cause autism and the next thing we know, kids are dying of vaccine preventable diseases. No matter how many times you show that vaccines do not cause autism, you are stuck because of a baseless claim. We need to be careful of other potential baseless claims.

I agree also that cancer, autism, adhd, and allergies are being diagnosed more than ever before. This may or may not be due to actual rises in the rates of these diseases, but rather we are IDing them more often. Before a kid might have been an energetic kid. Now they have ADHD. Before you might have died of consumption. Now you die of cancer. Add to that that people are living longer so different things kill you now than in the past.

I do agree that climate change is on the rise. But again, that is likely due to CO2 rising. Another great example where a little of something is not toxic, but get a lot of it and it can be harmful.

My comment on corporate greed was merely that a company will pull a product if it doesn't sell. Period. It is not an indication that the product is dangerous, necessarily.

Did you know that women never went through menopause? That is, not until they lived long enough for it to reveal itself to the medical profession. We live and we learn. My God, and we keep living so much longer it's ridiculous! Why doesn't someone stop this nonsense!! I never want to live long enough to discover global warming killed me. That would be so funny!!!

I think it's great that a good, healthy discussion is going on. Awareness followed by change is happening and that is a good thing. Thanks for all of your comments!