Obama Does More for Women’s Health Pre-Inauguration Than Bush in 8 Years: “President-Elect Obama has not been inaugurated yet and, already, he’s taken some critical steps towards restoring the United States as a leader in global women’s health,” writes Amie Newman at RH Reality Check. Newman goes on to identify global reproductive and sexual health mandates that Obama has prioritized since he won the election way back on, oh, Nov. 4.

Plus: NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation has unveiled a new initiative, Free.Will.Power. Check out the t-shirt design contest.

Baby, You’re in the Home (and Garden): The New York Times published a cool story on the increasing number of women opting for home births (still a very small percentage of all births) that took a very New-York perspective: How does one give birth in a small apartment — especially if the room is filled with family and the walls between neighbors are thin?

If the story had left it there, it’s placement in the Home & Garden section might have been more justified. But as it reads — complete with condemnation of home births from the American Medical Association — it’s better suited for Health.

Plus: Don’t miss the related slide show of home births. And here’s a great trivia question: Who was the first American president to be born in a hospital? Answer: Jimmy Carter.

Sexual Assault on Campus - Changing the Culture: Terrific story in the Star Tribune about rape prevention programs on college campuses that focus on men. Check out the intro below, and be sure to read the rest:

Tyler Jones was tipping back a couple of beers with friends at a Dinkytown bar when he suddenly had to take a stand.

“Hey, see that girl over there?” Jones recalled an acquaintance asking, nodding toward a woman he wanted to take home. “She’s almost drunk. Not quite drunk enough. … What shot should I buy her?”

There was a time, Jones says, when he might have laughed off the remark. Not anymore.

“You want to buy her something really strong to like, basically knock her out?” Jones, a University of Minnesota senior, recalled saying. “Man, that’s not right. That’s rape. That’s sexual assault.”

The acquaintance looked stunned. “Whatever,” he mumbled, and walked away.

It was one moment at one bar. But it’s also a sign of a big shift in strategy on campuses trying to tackle a culture that some say tolerates sexual assault. Instead of teaching women not to walk alone at night or to carry Mace, some colleges are trying something much harder — changing college men. Jones, fresh from sex assault prevention training, is in the vanguard of the movement.

Hat-tip: Kay Steiger

Women Gain Some Access, but Not Political Power: “Women still lag far behind men in top political and decision-making roles, though their access to education and health care is nearly equal, the World Economic Forum said Wednesday,” reports Reuters. “In its 2008 Global Gender Gap report, the forum, a Swiss research organization, ranked Norway, Finland and Sweden as the countries that have the most equality of the sexes, and Saudi Arabia, Chad and Yemen as having the least.”

Where does the United States rank? A measly 27th — below Germany (11th), Britain (13th), France (15th), Lesotho (16th), Trinidad and Tobago (19th), South Africa (22nd), Argentina (24th) and Cuba (25th). Here’s the full report (PDF).

The EPA’s Stalin Era: Yes, it really has been that bad, reports Rebecca Claren at Salon. To wit: “[T]he story of the hundreds of sick people who live near the former Kelly Air Force Base illuminates an entirely new manner in which the Bush administration has diluted science and put public health at risk. This year, largely in obeisance to the Pentagon, the nation’s biggest polluter, the White House diminished a little-known but critical process at the Environmental Protection Agency for assessing toxic chemicals that impacts thousands of Americans.”

Prescription Drugs May Deliver Phthalates: We’ve written before about the potential dangers of phthalates — chemical compounds commonly found in plastics, perfumes and lotions that are linked to reproductive abnormalities. But this one is news to me: Environmental Health News reports that prescription drugs can deliver high doses of phthalates.

“At least 47 prescription medications — including the colitis drug Asacol, an antacid and an HIV drug — contain phthalates, according to scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” writes Marla Cone.

Victoria’s Toxic Secret: Feminist Peace Network picks up the story concerning allegations that Victoria’s Secret’s bras are causing skin irritations. The suspect irritant? Formaldehyde.

Racial Barriers Between Doctors and Patients: “In politics, the racial barriers might have fallen, I thought, but what about in health care?” asks Pauline Chen, MD, in her latest doctor/patient column in The New York Times. Chen looks not only at the striking health care disparities and racial inequality, but also at the experiences of minority physicians:

Of all the surgical residents I trained with, “Eric” was easily one of the smartest. He possessed a great bedside manner, brilliant clinical skills and plenty of that Obama cool. Eric was African-American, and one night, when we were both on call together, he told me something I have never forgotten.

“You know, Pauline,” he said, “there are a lot of times when I go to a patient’s room for the first time and they ask me, ‘Are you transport? Are you here to wheel me to radiology?’” I can remember Eric shaking his head as he spoke. “They never assume I’m one of the doctors.”

Supreme Court Hears Gun Rights Case: Allison Stevens of Women’s eNews explains a gun-control case heard before the Supreme Court this week that could effect abusers’ access to guns in some states.

If the justices side with the U.S. government’s challenge — which argues the law should not be restricted to just a portion of the states — batterers in every state and territory would be subject to the gun control ban.

If the court rejects the government’s reading of the law and limits the application of the law to those states with specific anti-domestic violence laws, safety advocates are apprehensive that thousands of abusers across the country will be erased from criminal lists, giving them new access to guns, said Peter Hamm, a spokesperson for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a group in Washington, D.C., that lobbies for gun control.

A new report criticizes the FDA for ignoring studies questioning the safety of bisphenol A, a chemical found in many household products. From the Washington Post:

The Food and Drug Administration ignored scientific evidence and used flawed methods when it determined that a chemical widely used in baby bottles and in the lining of cans is not harmful, a scientific advisory panel has found.

In a highly critical report to be released today, the panel of scientists from government and academia said the FDA did not take into consideration scores of studies that have linked bisphenol A (BPA) to prostate cancer, diabetes and other health problems in animals when it completed a draft risk assessment of the chemical last month. The panel said the FDA didn’t use enough infant formula samples and didn’t adequately account for variations among the samples.

Taking those studies into consideration, the panel concluded, the FDA’s margin of safety is “inadequate”. The panel is part of the Science Board, a committee of advisers to the FDA commissioner, and was set up to review the FDA’s risk assessment of BPA.

The FDA’s findings were at odds with a report released in September by The National Toxicology Program, which found that there is “some concern” that BPA can affect neural and behavioral development in fetuses, infants and children. Another study found an association between BPA and cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and liver-enzyme abnormalities in adults.

The possible connection between chemicals such as BPA and cancer was the focus of a Boston Globe op-ed this week. Rita Arditti, one of the founders of the Cambridge, Mass.-based Women’s Community Cancer Project, writes that “because we still do not know what the causes of breast cancer are, primary prevention remains an elusive goal while mammography and early detection are the focus of attention.”

Here’s what we do know:

Since World War II, the proliferation of synthetic chemicals has gone hand-in-hand with the increased incidence of breast cancer. About 80,000 synthetic chemicals are used today in the United States, and their number increases by about 1,000 each year. Only about 7 percent of them have been screened for their health effects. These chemicals can persist in the environment and accumulate in our bodies. According to a recent review by the Silent Spring Institute in Newton, 216 chemicals and radiation sources cause breast cancer in animals.

Nearly all of the chemicals cause mutations, and most cause tumors in multiple organs and animal species, findings that are generally believed to indicate they likely cause cancer in humans. Yet few have been closely studied by regulatory bodies. There is concern about benzene, which is in gasoline; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are in air pollution from vehicle exhaust, tobacco smoke, and charred foods; ethylene oxide, which is widely used in medical settings; and methylene chloride, a common solvent in paint strippers and glues.

There is also broad agreement that exposure over time to natural estrogens in the body increases the risk of breast cancer, so it is important to consider the role of synthetic estrogens in breast cancer development. Many other chemicals, especially endocrine-disrupting compounds - chemicals that affect hormones, such as the ubiquitous bisphenol A, which is found in plastic bottles and cans - are also thought to raise breast cancer risk. Endocrine-disrupting compounds are present in many pesticides, fuels, plastics, air pollution, detergents, industrial solvents, tobacco smoke, prescription drugs, food additives, metals, and personal-care products including sunscreens.

There’s no definitive evidence that these substances cause cancer, but all the information acquired so far makes a strong case for more research and precautionary measures as this research develops. The Massachusetts state Senate this year passed the Safer Alternatives Bill, which would create a program to replace toxic chemicals with safer alternatives when feasible. The bill was not taken up by the House. Advocates for the bill, under the umbrella group Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow, continue to work on its passage.

It’s mid-October, but the warm weather here in Chicago has me thinking we’re approaching summer. My small garden thinks so, too. Lettuce, basil, kale, peppers and chives are coming up strong, undaunted by the brown, crinkly leaves falling from the trees above.

Living in the city, planting space is limited and the season is (eventually) finite; I can’t rely solely on what I grow. But along with trips to the Green City Market downtown, and smaller farmers’ markets nearby, we probably eat locally grown produce for over half the year.

Of course, we are fortunate to have easy access to an abundance of fresh food choices. Huge swaths of Chicago are considered “food deserts” — in these neighborhoods, corner convenience stores and fast food restaurants greatly outnumber supermarkets, and access to affordable, healthy produce is severely limited by distance and cost.

Not surprisingly, residents in Chicago’s food deserts, the majority of whom are African American, experience a higher rate of diet-related illnesses (as a recent report shows), including diabetes, certain kinds of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Support for urban agriculture is growing, along with a push to increase the number of farmers markets located throughout the city — a new market opened in Englewood, an impoverished South Side neighborhood, earlier this year. Yet affordability remains an issue. As this story points out, equipment is not available to process food stamp debit cards at all farmers markets, and even at markets with the equipment, not all vendors accept the cards.

Meanwhile, as Rachel has mentioned, the federal Women, Infants and Children program (WIC) is adding a paltry $8 a month for use at farmers markets by mid-2009 (read the latest here).

Despite increased public interest in farmers markets and community-supported agriculture (CSAs) that offer consumers a stake in a local farm, the relationship between food, health and the environment, as well as the importance of affordable and sustainable agriculture, doesn’t exactly make for a crowd-rousing stump-speech.

In fact, we’ve heard almost nothing from the presidential candidates about federal food policy, even as food prices keep rising. Perhaps that will change in the final weeks, but I wouldn’t bet my kale on it.

The political aspect hasn’t escaped Michael Pollan, however. The author of, most recently, “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” Pollan penned an open letter to the president-elect that was published in The New York Times Magazine. It is perhaps the smartest and most engaging piece you’ll read this year on what a McCain or Obama administration should do to overhaul the way we grow food and radically change our approach to healthy eating.

Pollan begins by explaining, in no uncertain terms, the urgency:

[W]ith a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.

Complicating matters is the fact that the price and abundance of food are not the only problems we face; if they were, you could simply follow Nixon’s example, appoint a latter-day Earl Butz as your secretary of agriculture and instruct him or her to do whatever it takes to boost production. But there are reasons to think that the old approach won’t work this time around; for one thing, it depends on cheap energy that we can no longer count on. For another, expanding production of industrial agriculture today would require you to sacrifice important values on which you did campaign.

Which brings me to the deeper reason you will need not simply to address food prices but to make the reform of the entire food system one of the highest priorities of your administration: unless you do, you will not be able to make significant progress on the health care crisis, energy independence or climate change. Unlike food, these are issues you did campaign on — but as you try to address them you will quickly discover that the way we currently grow, process and eat food in America goes to the heart of all three problems and will have to change if we hope to solve them.

Pollan takes readers on a detailed yet easy-to-follow journey of how the United States food system developed the way it did — and what it can count as its chief success: namely, we produce cheap calories in great abundance.

He then offers an agenda for a 21st-century food system with specific proposals under three main sections: resolarizing the American farm; reregionalizing the food system; and rebuilding America’s food culture. His plan plan for a decentralized food system includes such essentials as modifying the food stamp program and expanding WIC:

Food-stamp debit cards should double in value whenever swiped at a farmers’ markets — all of which, by the way, need to be equipped with the Electronic Benefit Transfer card readers that supermarkets already have. We should expand the WIC program that gives farmers’-market vouchers to low-income women with children; such programs help attract farmers’ markets to urban neighborhoods where access to fresh produce is often nonexistent. (We should also offer tax incentives to grocery chains willing to build supermarkets in underserved neighborhoods.)

Federal food assistance for the elderly should build on a successful program pioneered by the state of Maine that buys low-income seniors a membership in a community-supported farm. All these initiatives have the virtue of advancing two objectives at once: supporting the health of at-risk Americans and the revival of local food economies.

The adventurous agenda includes suggestions for changing our relationship with food. For children, that means starting early: Plant gardens at every primary school, overhaul school menus and increase “school-lunch spending per pupil by $1 a day — the minimum amount food-service experts believe it will take to underwrite a shift from fast food in the cafeteria to real food freshly prepared.”

We also need to cease negotiating health messages with the food industry. Pollan calls for the surgeon general to take over the job of communicating with Americans about their diet. Currently it falls to the Department of Agriculture, which you might say has a conflict of interest.

But why not start at the top? In addition to encouraging the White House to go meatless one day a week, Pollan calls for the ultimate suburban sacrifice: tear out a portion of the White House lawn and plant an organic fruit and vegetable garden.

OK, insert your favorite arugula-loving-liberal joke here. But at another crucial point in history, White House support was influential:

When Eleanor Roosevelt did something similar in 1943, she helped start a Victory Garden movement that ended up making a substantial contribution to feeding the nation in wartime. (Less well known is the fact that Roosevelt planted this garden over the objections of the U.S.D.A., which feared home gardening would hurt the American food industry.) By the end of the war, more than 20 million home gardens were supplying 40 percent of the produce consumed in America. The president should throw his support behind a new Victory Garden movement, this one seeking “victory” over three critical challenges we face today: high food prices, poor diets and a sedentary population.

Eating from this, the shortest food chain of all, offers anyone with a patch of land a way to reduce their fossil-fuel consumption and help fight climate change. (We should offer grants to cities to build allotment gardens for people without access to land.) Just as important, Victory Gardens offer a way to enlist Americans, in body as well as mind, in the work of feeding themselves and changing the food system — something more ennobling, surely, than merely asking them to shop a little differently.

Read the whole piece (it’s well worth it!). Readers have posed interesting questions and suggestions in the comments, and the Times breaks out Pollan’s responses. Finally, here’s more good stuff from the “food issue.”

*Photo of scenes from Chicago Green City Market by schopie1, reprinted under a Creative Commons license.

Our Bodies Our Blog has invited the folks at Breast Cancer Action to write monthly guest posts on breast cancer and related issues.

by Pauli Ojea

Breast Cancer Awareness Month is nearly here. You can probably tell by all of the pink ribbon products you’re starting to see as October draws near. Lipstick, blenders, candy, cars — even toilet paper is being sold in the name of breast cancer awareness.

One pinked-out product you’ve probably noticed is Yoplait yogurt. Yoplait makes a 10-cent donation to a breast cancer organization for every pink lid consumers mail back to the company. Let’s put that in real terms: If you ate three yogurts a day for the four-month duration of the campaign (and sent in all your lids), your donation would equal $36. That’s a lot of yogurt — and not all that much money.

But what’s more troubling is what’s underneath the lid — the yogurt itself might not be that good for your health.

Yoplait yogurt is made with milk from cows that have been injected with a synthetic hormone called recombinant bovine growth hormone (referred to as rBGH or rBST). There are a number of health concerns surrounding the use of rBGH, and breast cancer is one of them.

Here’s a very simple explanation of the science: When rBGH is injected into a cow, that cow’s milk will contain higher amounts of another powerful hormone called insulin growth factor 1 (IGF-1). IGF-1 is natural and necessary, but too much of it may cause health problems. Studies have shown that elevated levels of IGF-1 in humans may increase the risk of breast cancer. More research is needed to better understand whether the elevated levels of IGF-1 in milk make their way into our bloodstream.

Although it hasn’t yet been proven that the use of rBGH will definitively lead to breast cancer, the current evidence is cause for concern — and for action.

Corporations like Wal-Mart and Starbucks do not use milk from rBGH-treated cows in their store brand products. If these companies can do it, Yoplait can too.

When a company puts a pink ribbon on its product’s package, that company is sending the message that it cares about women’s health. And if a company cares about women’s health, shouldn’t it be doing all it can to make sure that its products are not inadvertently contributing to the high number of breast cancer cases? We at Breast Cancer Action sure think so.

Every year we sponsor the annual Think Before You Pink campaign — which demands transparency and accountability on the part of companies that align themselves with breast cancer and urges companies to do all they can to ensure their products don’t contribute to the high rates of the disease. We use the term “pinkwashing” to describe companies — like Yoplait — that participate in breast cancer fundraising or “awareness” campaigns but manufacture products that may be linked to the disease.

This October, we’re asking General Mills — the maker of Yoplait — to do the right thing for women’s health: We’re urging them to go rBGH-free. You can help by sending an e-mail to General Mills telling them to put a lid on rBGH. After all, corporate conscience belongs in a company’s products, not just its marketing.

Pauli Ojea is the community organizer at Breast Cancer Action, where she mobilizes people to do something besides worry. Visit ThinkBeforeYouPink.org for more information and to take action.

Nominate a Great Leader: Know an advocate for women who deserves worldwide attention? Women’s eNews has issued a call for 21 Leaders for the 21st Century. Send your nominations to 21leaders@womensenews.org. The deadline is midnight on Oct. 6, 2008. Learn about past award recipients here.

Countdown to Conscience Clause Regulation: You’ve heard about the proposed Health & Human Services regulations that would allow federal health officials to withdraw funding from medical providers and services receiving HHS support that do not let employees opt out of providing basic health care — and information — they find objectionable. Now’s your time to act.

Rachel has written extensively about HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt confusing the public (and health experts) with his justification for the regulations — which would affect not only abortion and contraception, but a whole range of health care services — and she wrote a terrific analysis this week at RH Reality Check on the roadblocks Leavitt and HHS have imposed, making it difficult to get information about the rule and delaying the posting of comments for public viewing.

Sen. Hillary Clinton and Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, joined forces this week to write a great op-ed in The New York Times that asked: “The Bush administration argues that the rule is designed to protect a provider’s conscience. But where are the protections for patients?”

The public comment period ends Sept. 25. You can submit your comments directly (although as of this morning the site was done for “planned system maintenance,” scheduled to return at 1 p.m.). Planned Parenthood and the ACLU have both set up customizable comment forms.

And, while you’re at it, you might nominate HHS Secretary Leavitt for Ellen Goodman’s annual Equal Rites Awards.

It’s Not Just the Rape Kits: On the subject of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin approving billing sexual assault victims for the cost of forensic rape examinations when she was mayor of Wasilla, Amie Newman writes: “There is good reason to hunt down the facts about the rape kits.  But the larger issue — of rape, sexual assault and how we deal with violence against women in this country — has been overlooked.”

Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before: The September 2008 issue of Sexuality Research & Social Policy reviews federally funded abstinence-only programs and finds — surprise — that such programs don’t delay teens from having sex and their continued use is not warranted.

The articles in this special issue were selected from research presented at a January 2007 conference, “Human Rights, Cultural, and Scientific Aspects of Abstinence-Only Policies and Programs,” sponsored by the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University, with the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

From the introduction:

Taken as a whole, these articles build a strong scientific and human rights case against AOE. Together, they find that the very idea of an abstinence-only approach to sexuality education is scientifically and ethically flawed. Such programs reflect a religious and cultural belief system of socially conservative groups who have attained considerable political leverage at both state and federal levels. AOE programs not only fail the usual public-health standard of program efficacy but also actively restrict lifesaving information and promote misinformation about scientifically accepted public-health strategies such as condom use.

As the articles in this special issue show, science should drive public-health decision making — which, in turn, should inform public policy on health promotion and disease prevention (Koplan & McPheeters, 2004). In the case of AOE, politics and ideology have influenced public health policy and undermined scientific evidence about the best approaches to preventing unwanted outcomes regarding adolescents’ sexual behavior. Science, not ideology, should shape the future of public-health prevention policies for youth.

Plus: Kaiser Family Foundation has released a new fact sheet (the first update since 2006) on sexual health topics facing teens, including general sexual activity; sexual partners and relationships; sex, substance abuse and violence; pregnancy; contraception and protection; STDs; and access to health care services.

World Wide Web of Pesticides: The Center for Public Integrity’s latest investigation, “Wide Web of Pesticides Can Endanger Consumers,” looks at the practice of selling pesticides over the internet, which allows consumers to circumvent regulations meant to protect the public from harmful chemicals.

The dangers of online pesticide sales are many: little accountability on the extent of the practice; lack of training for those who purchase professional grade chemicals online; overexposure to dangerous chemicals and whether they are being properly used. For most states, the lack of resources prevents them from effectively monitoring online pesticide sales. While Colorado, New York, Michigan, Minnesota, California, and Nebraska are recognized as states working consistently to stem illegal Internet sales, many argue that the EPA should be doing more, highlighting the challenge regulators face of trying to control an online global marketplace where buyer and seller often never meet face to face.

This is the second article in the Center’s new series The Perils of the New Pesticides. The first, “A Checkered Past,” looks at the EPA’s flawed efforts to monitor poisonings by pesticides deemed safe. In addition to the excellent coverage, visitors can search pesticide incidents on file with the EPA by state and by year.

“The EPA’s pesticide incident-reporting system has not been public until now. Called one of the ‘Ten Most Wanted Government Documents‘ by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the database was released under the Freedom of Information Act to the Center for Public Integrity in early 2008,” according to the introduction.

Going Greener: “Innovations in designing green chemicals are emerging in nearly every U.S. industry, from plastics and pesticides to toys and nail polish. Some manufacturers of cosmetics, household cleaners and other consumer products are leading the charge, while others are lagging behind,” writes Marla Cone in the L.A. Times.

Part 2 of the series on a greener future looks at industries that remain dependent on hazardous substances.

The Price of Beauty: Having trouble getting a medical appointment with your dermatologist? Have you mentioned that you’re interested in Botox?

“Like airlines that offer first-class and coach sections, dermatology is fast becoming a two-tier business in which higher-paying customers often receive greater pampering. In some dermatologists’ offices, freer-spending cosmetic patients are given appointments more quickly than medical patients for whom health insurance pays fixed reimbursement fees,” writes Natasha Singer in The New York Times.

“In other offices, cosmetic patients spend more time with a doctor. And in still others, doctors employ a special receptionist, called a cosmetic concierge, for their beauty patients.”

Doctors Have Babies, Too: “For the growing number of women entering medicine, becoming a doctor increasingly includes a complication: pregnancy,” writes Liz Kowalczyk in the Boston Globe.

In the last 10 years, most teaching hospitals have adopted maternity leave policies for residents. Even so, new moms face a range of difficulties beyond exhaustion, from time limits placed on maternity leaves by boards that certify physicians in their specialties to resentment from fellow residents who must shoulder extra work while they’re gone. Academic medical centers also feel the pressure when a resident gets pregnant, because they depend on these physicians-in-training to provide most of the round-the-clock care to patients, especially in Massachusetts with its large number of teaching hospitals.

“As far as we’ve come, there still are significant barriers to parenting during residency,” said Dr. Debra Weinstein, vice president for graduate medical education for Partners HealthCare System, the parent organization of Mass. General and the Brigham.

Ain’t I a Mommy?: Great piece at Bitch by Deesha Philyaw, who wonders why with so many motherhood memoirs, so few of them are penned by women of color.

“The absence of black mommy memoirs mirrors the relative absence of black women’s voices in mainstream U.S. media discourse about motherhood in general,” writes Philyaw. “The abundance of ink and airtime devoted to a vocal minority of women promotes the idea that this minority’s experience is somehow universal. Low-income and working-class women, black women, and other women of color don’t see their mothering experiences and concerns reflected in the mommy media machine, and we get the cultural message loud and clear: Affluent white women are the only mothers who really matter.”

Motherhood, Activism and Politics: Writing at The American Prospect Online, Kara Jesella looks at maternalist politics, which have a long history in American culture.

At a public meeting Tuesday before a Food & Drug Administration subcommittee, the FDA stuck to its claim that exposure to Bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA, is safe.

Inconveniently for the FDA, a new study published today found an association between BPA and cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and liver-enzyme abnormalities in adults.

It was the first large study of BPA in humans, and it comes on the heels of a Yale study that found monkeys exposed to low doses of BPA (the same doses the Environmental Protection Agency says is safe for people) experienced memory and mood disorders.

And that study came out just as the National Toxicology Program reaffirmed an earlier draft report that found there is “some concern” that BPA can affect neural and behavioral development in fetuses, infants and children. (Here’s the NTP’s fact sheet on BPA.)

At this point, the FDA’s denial brings to mind a certain presidential candidate’s insistence that the economy is fundamentally sound as Wall Street burns and financial institutions come crashing down.

In the most recent study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association and available in full, researchers from the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, England, found that adults with the highest levels of BPA had almost three times the rate of cardiovascular disease, more than two times the rate of diabetes, and an increased prevalence of liver-enzyme abnormalities, compared with those with the lowest levels.

The study included a representative sample of 1,455 U.S. residents ages 18 to 74, broken up into quartiles based on urine concentrations of BPA. The data was acquired from the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Previous concerns have focused mainly on fetus- and infant-exposure to BPA; the chemical mimics the human hormone estrogen and exposure to low doses in animal studies has been shown to affect reproductive health and behavior. And since BPA is commonly found in hard plastic food items like sippy cups and children’s toys, as well as canned food items including baby formula, exposure may be more concentrated at young ages.

But BPA is really quite ubiquitous. It’s used in the manufacture of everything from CDs and DVDS to dental sealants, and traces of it have been found in almost all Americans tested.

The most recent study doesn’t prove cause and effect, but it does add substantial weight to the growing body of evidence that BPA just isn’t good for us.

In an editorial that accompanied the study published in JAMA, John Peterson Myers and Frederick S. vom Saal wrote that the results “should spur U.S. regulatory agencies to follow the recent action taken by Canadian regulatory agencies, which have declared BPA a ‘toxic chemical’ requiring aggressive action to limit human and environmental exposures.”

“Alternatively,” the editorial continues, “Congressional action could follow the precedent set with the recent passage of federal legislation designed to limit exposures to another family of compounds, phthalates, also used in plastic. Like BPA, phthalates are detectable in virtually everyone in the United States. This bill moves U.S. policy closer to the European model, in which industry must provide data on the safety of a chemical before it can be used in products.”

You might say we’re a little backward in the United States, since we apparently prefer to determine safety after usage. (By the way, advocates of a new risk paradigm know as The Precautionary Principle have come up with a more sound approach to environmental and public health policy: When there’s a threat to the environment or our health, take precautionary measures, even if no cause and effect has been scientifically proven. This principle shifts the burden of proof on the proponent of an activity, not the victims. Radical thinking, huh?)

At the meeting on Tuesday, Peterson reiterated his concerns. (Listen on NPR)

“It is very clear that the FDA cannot conclude with certainty that BPA is safe,” said Peterson. “That option is no longer open to you given these new data.”

Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women and Families, also spoke before the subcommittee, and she criticized the FDA for reaching its conclusion on BPA’s safety based on studies funded by the chemical industry.

“Since these food containers are not proven safe, the FDA should not be assuring us that they are safe. It does feel like there’s been a rush to judgment by the FDA and that does none of us any good,” said Zuckerman.

The chemical industry, which produces 7 billion pounds of BPA in the United States each year, has maintained that BPA is harmless. The Chicago Tribune today published a front-page, above-the-fold story on the risks of BPA that included responses from industry officials who took issue with the new study.

“Urinary concentrations tell you the exposure over the last 24 hours, but heart disease and diabetes do not occur overnight,” said Steven G. Hentges, executive director of the Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group of the American Chemistry Council. “Bisphenol A would have to be measured over the time period when heart disease or diabetes is actually occurring, so that’s a major limitation of the study.”

Dr. Anila Jacob, senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group, said the study raises questions about the BPA’s role in causing chronic diseases.

“We don’t know causality [in this study], but associations are important in public health,” Jacob said. “The first studies of tobacco found associations between smoking and lung cancer. These types of large epidemiologic studies are important in pointing us in the right direction.”

Plus: The Tribune also published a Q&A on BPA that addresses how BPA gets into our bodies, and it promoted SafeMama.com (on the front page; nice) for information on product safety. Here is Safe Mama’s list of BPA-free bottles and sippy cups.

Fortunately the Nalgene bottles I’m more attached to are also transitioning away from BPA.

The National Toxicology Program this month released a report on the safety of bisphenol A, or BPA, reaffirming an earlier draft report that said there is “some concern” that BPA can affect neural and behavioral development in fetuses, infants and children.

“There remains considerable uncertainty whether the changes seen in the animal studies are directly applicable to humans, and whether they would result in clear adverse health effects,” John R. Bucher, associate director of the National Toxicology Program, said in a statement, as reported by the Washington Post. “But we have concluded that the possibility that BPA may affect human development cannot be dismissed.”

The chemical is commonly found in the liners of food cans and baby formula, and hard plastic containers, such as baby bottles, which makes exposure at an early age a particular concern.

The final report is at odds with the findings of the Food & Drug Administration, which declared in August that BPA does not pose a health hazard when used in food containers. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is investigating how the FDA draft report came to that conclusion. Flags were raised since the report was based largely on data obtained from two studies — wait for it — funded by chemical companies. U.S. companies produce about 7 billion pounds of BPA each year.

“What do you do when one arm of the government says everything is O.K. and another tells you to watch out?” asked a New York Times editorial on Monday. “The answer is a truism in every family rulebook — when in doubt, especially when it comes to children, err on the side of caution. That means it is a good idea to keep the young away from bisphenol-A, or BPA.”

Some businesses are doing just that. Wal-Mart and Toys R Us have already announced that they will stop selling childrens’ products made with BPA as of January. And companies such as Nalgene, which makes refillable hard plastic bottles, are switching over to non-BPA plastics.

Some states have proposed BPA bans, as have some federal lawmakers. In Canada, the main government health department has already declared BPA a “toxic chemical,” and the Canadian government has moved to ban polycarbonate infant bottles.

The Washington Post also reports that researches at the Yale School of Medicine found that the chemical interfered with brain function in monkeys, linking it to memory and mood disorders. The monkeys were exposed to levels the EPA deemed safe for humans.

“Our goal was to more closely mimic the slow and continuous conditions under which humans would normally be exposed to BPA,” said study author Csaba Leranth, a Yale professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences and of neurobiology.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Our findings suggest that exposure to low-dose BPA may have widespread effects on brain structure and function,” the authors wrote.

This marks the first time BPA has been shown to have an effect on primates.

Here are some practical steps you can take while the FDA seeks advice from chemical manufacturers:

* Watch for the numeral 7 on the bottom of plastic containers. That often means they contain BPA.

* Don’t microwave plastic food containers made with BPA. Better to use glass or porcelain.

* Watch out for canned foods for children.

* Search for baby bottles and other baby products that are BPA-free.

FDA Report Says No Risk From BPA: I’ve written before about the dangers associated with bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical used in hard, clear plastics, such as Nalgene and baby bottles, as well as in the linings of food cans and baby formula.

The chemical, which mimics a human hormone, has been linked to hormonal changes in animal studies. Canada recently banned polycarbonate infant bottles, and the U.S. National Toxicology Program earlier this year acknowledged “some concern” that BPA may affect neural and behavioral development “in fetuses, infants, and children at current human exposures.”

But according to a draft assessment released by the Food and Drug Administration yesterday, BPA does not pose a health hazard when used in food containers. From the Washington Post:

The report stands in contrast to more than 100 studies performed by government scientists and university laboratories that have found health concerns associated with bisphenol A (BPA). Some studies have linked the chemical to prostate and breast cancers, diabetes, behavioral disorders such as hyperactivity and reproductive problems in laboratory animals.

Exposure to the small amounts of BPA that migrate from the containers into the food they hold are not dangerous to infants or adults, the draft said.

Here’s the kicker:

The chemical industry and the agencies that regulate the use of BPA, the FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency, have deemed the chemical safe, largely on the strength of two industry-funded studies that found no problems. The American Chemistry Council welcomed the findings of the new report.

“Clearly, their effort was to minimize people being concerned about this,” Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women and Families, told the Post. “It just seems that whenever there is an opportunity to look at a new, important issue, they just seem to be siding with industry’s point of view.”

Wal-Mart and Toys R Us aren’t waiting around for the government to take action — as of January, both businesses will stop selling any childrens’ products made with BPA.

Marrying, or Divorcing, for Health Insurance: “In a country where insurance is out of reach for many, it is not uncommon for couples to marry, or even to divorce, at least partly so one spouse can obtain or maintain health coverage,” reports The New York Times. “There is no way to know how often it happens, but lawyers and patient advocacy groups say they see cases regularly.”

Here’s more on the Kaiser Family Foundation study mentioned in the story.

Report: “Failing Women, Withholding Protection”: The female condom first made its debut 15 years ago, but a lack of investment and marketing on the part of policymakers has limited the condom’s availability and marginalized its role in protecting women from HIV-infection and other sexually transmitted diseases, according to a new report issued by Oxfam International and the World Population Foundation. The report was presented at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. The full text is available here.

“This is a 15-year scandal born of ignorance and inertia. It has been made doubly worse as the HIV epidemic is now affecting women at a higher rate than men, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. We now know that millions of women might have been spared HIV, unwanted pregnancies, and empowered themselves in the process, if they had access to this simple method,” said Oxfam spokeswoman Farah Karimi.

“The female condom is the only method that women have to protect themselves. It has been embraced in many countries and cultures, it works and it is cost-effective,” added Karimi. “Political leadership and funding are needed now. No more excuses.”

Plus: Here are some facts about the female condom from “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” and our previous coverage on the condom’s redesign and how U.S. global policy affects condom promotion.

APA Report: Abortion Not a Threat to Mental Health: “The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion than if they deliver that pregnancy.”

That’s one of the conclusions put forth by the American Psychological Association Task Force on Abortion and Mental Health, which just issued this comprehensive report (PDF), an evaluation of all English-language studies published in peer-reviewed journals post-1989 comparing the mental health of women who had an induced abortion to the mental health of comparison groups of women.

Plus: For a closer look, read Lynn Harris’ good analysis at Broadsheet.

Coming Out as an Abortion Provider: Nell, who also blogs at Abortion Clinic Days, writes at the new Feministing Community site about her experience meeting her partner’s Republican grandparents and explaining what she does. Yes, there’s a happy ending.

Obesity Study Looks Thin: That’s the word from “The Numbers Guy,” aka Carl Bialik, who has a different take on a recently published study that projects 100 percent of American adults could be overweight by 2048.

What’s in a Midwife’s Bag?: Writing at Offsprung, Diane Dawson, a homebirth midwife, opens up her big black bag to reveal what she brings with her to deliver a baby. “I think that most people still think I show up with a smile and rabbit’s foot for luck. And maybe an herb or two in my purse. For the vast majority of pregnancies, this may well be enough, but I like to be a bit more prepared. …”

New State Law Calls for GPS Tracking on Abusers: “Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a measure to create a new early warning system by allowing satellite tracking of people who violate orders of protection,” reports the Chicago Tribune. “Opponents of domestic violence and prosecutors say the Cindy Bischof Law will add teeth to the orders, which some deride as mere pieces of paper ineffective in protecting people from stalkers or abusers. Bischof was among at least four women in the Chicago area killed this year by men with orders of protection against them.”

New York Governor Faces Suit Over Same-Sex Marriage Order: “An Arizona-based conservative Christian group said on Friday that it planned to sue Gov. David A. Paterson to block his directive to state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside New York,” reports The New York Times.

The group suing is the Alliance Defense Fund, which was founded by the Rev. James C. Dobson and others, all of whom are for limiting marriage to heterosexuals. The story also discusses how Senate Republican leaders plan on responding to the governor’s directive. Read our earlier post about plans in New York to recognize (but not yet allow) same-sex marriage.

The Rest of Us: In today’s Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, Rebecca Steinitz describes how mothers without an army of nannies and who have not “opted out” make it through summer vacation.

[I]t’s neither superwomen nor supermoms that I see when I drop my younger daughter off at school. While the first-graders zoom around us, I strategize about summer vacation with the preschool teacher and the nurse, the freelance film producer and the nutritionist who’s currently managing her husband’s plumbing business, the law professor and the stay-at-home moms — not to mention the dads. And, tales of mommy wars notwithstanding, we’re all talking to one another.

Do I live in some anomalous corner of working motherhood? I don’t think so. Despite frequent sightings of weekday-morning stroller-pushing moms and the much-ballyhooed dip of about a percentage point in the rate of women in the workforce between 2000 and 2004, statistics show that more than two-thirds of mothers work.

The story is chock-full of good statistics. Give it a read.

Do All Women Have the Right to Become Mothers?: “In many ways, access to and the affordability of infertility treatments speaks to our society’s view of who is considered worthy of motherhood,” writes Pamela Merritt at RH Reality Check.

Decades after eugenics was debunked and fell out of favor as a movement to “improve society,” the residue lingers: there is a strongly held belief that pregnancy and income should be connected. President Reagan tapped into that sentiment with his infamous comment about a “welfare queen,” but the core belief is as old as the American Dream: people who are poor are considered lazy, deserving of poverty and undeserving of anything it takes money to buy. Low-income women who are faced with infertility and seek treatment are suspected of trying to work the system and defraud society.

Plus: On Tuesday, June 3, RH Reality Check and Americans for UNFPA will host an online forum at 1 p.m. on global women’s health and the Republican and Democratic Party platforms. “Are the World’s Women Part of Our Political Agenda?” kicks off with a video statement from Anika Rahman, Americans for UNFPA president, and the insights of Democratic and Republican activists about their parties’ treatment of women’s issues. Rahmam will monitor the comments section through 4 p.m. to follow the discussion and respond to ideas on how to prioritize women’s health internationally.

Two Kinds of End-Of-Life Care: “There are two starkly different paths toward death in New York City’s hospitals, one for patients at elite private institutions, another for those at public hospitals, according to new data compiled as part of a consumer rating system,” reports The New York Times. Anemona Hartocollis and Ford Fessenden write:

Most elderly patients in their last two years of life have more intensive treatment, more tests, more days of hospitalization — and more out-of-pocket costs — at private teaching hospitals like N.Y.U. and Lenox Hill than their counterparts at Bellevue and the city’s other municipal hospitals, which have historically served the neediest New Yorkers. [...]

The rankings, compiled by Consumer Reports from a 15-year research project based at Dartmouth College, have huge implications for administrators, doctors and patients as they consider which model of care is best for those suffering from chronic, fatal illnesses like cancer, congestive heart failure, lung disease and dementia.

The study does not address the question of whether longer stays and more intervention prolong patients’ lives, and the Dartmouth researchers argue, in general, that less-aggressive treatment does not change.

Holy Smokes!: New York state on Tuesday will almost the double the tax on cigarettes — to $2.75 from $1.50, putting the price of a pack of cigarettes in New York City to around $8.50 (that also includes a $1.50 city tax).

From City Room: "It’s not clear whether the messages will have much effect on die-hard smokers, but social scientists have concluded that raising the cost of cigarettes has been a strong factor in bringing down the smoking rate. The city believes that cigarette-tax increases in 2002 helped bring about a 21 percent drop in adult smoking and a 52 percent drop in smoking among public high school students in the city."

Plus: World No Tobacco Day was May 31. Here’s more from the World Health Organization.

Did You Have an Abortion in Iowa?: If so, and if you experienced financial barriers at any point in the process, the Emma Goldman Clinic would like to hear about your experience. The information (which can be kept anonymous) will help the clinic in their work to provide assistance to women in similar situations.

Insight and Action: The website of the International Center for Research on Women is a terrific resource for background, research and advocacy information on issues such as HIV/AIDS, poverty reduction and violence against women.

The organization also features a special section on child marriage, which includes this photo exhibit as well as this six-minute video with images taken by award-winning photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair that depict the lives of girls in Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nepal who marry as children.

Screening for Domestic Abuse: Erin Marcus, associate medical director of the Institute for Women’s Health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, writes in The New York Times about the need for better methods to screen patients for domestic abuse.

"Those who support routine questioning say domestic violence is as or more common in women than many diseases for which doctors regularly check, including breast and colon cancer, and its health risks are well documented," notes Marcus. "Despite these recommendations, screening for domestic abuse in seemingly healthy women is nowhere near as widespread among doctors as testing for breast cancer or high cholesterol."

Who is the EPA Protecting Again?: Here's a story I meant to highlight earlier — an Environmental Protection Agency official told a Senate committee hearing in May that there’s "a distinct possibility" the EPA would not limit the amount of perchlorate, a toxic ingredient of solid rocket fuel, that is allowable in drinking water. Percholate is found in food crops, as well as human breast milk and baby formula. The L.A. Times has coverage of the EPA sitting on its hands:

State officials and water suppliers across the nation have been waiting for the EPA to set a standard for several years because perchlorate has contaminated the water supplies of at least 11 million people. Last
year, California, impatient with the EPA’s indecision, set its own standard.

Benjamin H. Grumbles, the EPA’s assistant administrator for water, said the EPA would decide by the end of the year whether to regulate perchlorate. Scientific studies have shown that the chemical blocks iodide and suppresses thyroid hormones, which are necessary for the normal brain development of a fetus or infant.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the committee, is understandably ticked:

"Congress will not sit idle while EPA fails to adequately protect our children. We must step in to require action that will ensure that our children and families can turn on their taps and be assured that what comes out is safe to drink," Boxer said.

Much of the water contamination comes from military bases and aerospace plants, as well as fireworks companies.

The Pentagon and its contractors for years have been lobbying against a federal standard, saying there are no proven health effects at levels to which people are exposed, and that cleaning up perchlorate could cost billions of dollars.

Our Bodies Our Blog has invited the folks at Breast Cancer Action to write monthly guest posts on breast cancer and related issues.

by Pauli Ojea

Last week, as part of a special section on health and the human body, The New York Times published a story on reducing breast cancer risk. The piece included the usual tips: exercise, maintain a healthy weight, limit alcohol consumption, breast-feed and avoid hormone therapy.

While these tips are generally good guidelines to follow by anyone who wants to stay healthy, keep in mind that they all pertain to personal lifestyle habits. By only addressing individual lifestyle choices, The New York Times missed an opportunity to bring up another important breast cancer factor: the environment.

More than half the women who get breast cancer don’t have a family history of the disease or lifestyle factors like the ones described in the article. If we’re really going to reduce the high rate of breast cancer, we have to do better at addressing the root causes.

Over the last decade, increased attention has been given to the relationship between the environment and breast cancer, and we’re slowly starting to see more information and resources on reducing individual exposure to suspect chemicals or activities. But what about the things people can’t control for themselves?

For example, a woman can make the individual choice to eat fruits and vegetables and to buy organic food in order to reduce her breast cancer risk. However, if her drinking water contains pesticides, she’s involuntarily exposed to toxins. On her own, there’s not much she can do about pesticides showing up in her drinking water. But working with others in her community, she may be able to influence policy decisions around pesticide use.

The example above is not a hypothetical one, as pesticides and other hazardous chemicals often make their way into our drinking water. A chemical that is of particular concern to Breast Cancer Action is an herbicide called atrazine.

Quick science lesson: Aromatase is an enzyme that helps convert testosterone to estrogen in the body. Atrazine acts as an aromatase promoter. Breast cancer is largely an estrogen-driven disease, so you don’t want anything that unnecessarily and artificially increases its production. In fact, one of the ways doctors are treating breast cancer patients is with drugs called aromatase inhibitors (AIs). AIs work by inhibiting the production of aromatase, which in turn, limits the production of estrogen.

So, there is a drug that cuts off aromatase, and there is an herbicide that makes more of it. This means that it’s possible that a woman could be taking an aromatase inhibitor for breast cancer treatment, while at the same time consuming small amounts of atrazine, an aromatase promoter in her drinking water.

What’s even more baffling is that two of the pharmaceutical companies that make aromatase inhibitors (Novartis and AstraZeneca) own the agricultural company (Syngenta) that makes atrazine. The pharmaceutical companies say that inhibiting aromatase is good for breast cancer, while the agricultural company says there is nothing wrong with some aromatase promoter in our drinking water. Frustrated? You can read more about these conflicting stories in the latest issue of BCA’s The Source.

While none of us can individually stop atrazine from getting into our drinking water, collectively, there is something we can all do to ensure that no one — not women with breast cancer, not farmworkers, not consumers — is exposed to this chemical. There’s a bill in Congress right now that would ban atrazine and ultimately protect all of us from being exposed, and you can click here to show your support.

Advocating for legislation that protects our health requires people power, and it’s where your personal actions can help make something a little better for everybody else.

Pauli Ojea is the community organizer at Breast Cancer Action, where she mobilizes people to do something besides worry. Click here to show your support for a ban on atrazine, and here to read more about atrazine at The BCA Source.