If you consider how many years it took for the government and the tobacco industry to suggest that smoking “may” be detrimental to a person’s health you may find comfort in knowing that it did not take as long for the government to declare Bisphenal A dangerous. Bisphenal A (BPA) is a dangerous chemical that can cause neurological problems in unborn fetuses, newborns and even adults. However, even though it has been suggested that there is no conclusive evidence to this fact, Health Canada says it is “better to be safe than sorry”.

Depending on whom you talk to, BPA is either perfectly safe or a dangerous health risk. The plastics industry says it is harmless, but a growing number of scientists are concluding, from some animal tests, that exposure to BPA in the womb raises the risk of certain cancers, hampers fertility and could contribute to childhood behavioral problems such as hyperactivity.

I say it is just better to be smart if there is even a slight chance these chemicals are dangerous to humans, ban them. Why do we have to pussy foot around while all the stake holders such as the chemical companies that manufacture the products containing BPA try and tell us that these chemicals are not dangerous. I seem to remember certain tobacco companies telling us that smoking was not dangerous to our health. Just because a chemical company has a five year supply of BPA stockpiled that they want to use up does not make it safe.

What then, are the main items that you are likely to encounter in every day products that contain BPA? Plastic water and baby bottles, food and beverage can linings and dental sealants are the most commonly encountered uses of this chemical. Unfortunately, it does not stay put. BPA has been found to leach from bottles into babies' milk or formula it migrates from can liners into foods and soda and from epoxy resin-lined vats into wine and it is found in the mouths of people who have recently had their teeth sealed. To think of all the money you spent at the dentist for your kids to have their teeth sealed, you will want to think twice about that next time. The fact is, ninety-five percent of Americans were found to have the chemical in their urine in a 2004 bio-monitoring study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

We use so much plastic today only because it is cheap and that alone is enough to override common sense. When I was a kid, everything seemed to come in glass bottles and there was no such thing as bottled water we actually drank from the tap.

All that nostalgia aside, we all need to understand one very important thing when it comes to BPA. Initially the findings suggested that toxic levels of BPA would be almost impossible to ingest, and that very well may be true, however that information is misleading.

When the Health Canada people started looking at BPA as a possible dangerous substance, early toxicity studies found that the high doses were safe. These studies did not look at the low doses that are now proving to cause harmful effects in animals, including chromosomal damage in female egg cells and an increase in embryonic death in mice. A follow-up to this is a study indicating a relationship of BPA blood levels to miscarriages in Japanese women.

The point of all this is to remember that it takes a very long time to declare something unsafe even though people may be dropping dead all around you. When the government gives in a little to say that it “may” be harmful to infants and developing fetuses it really means it is dangerous to everyone, they are just not telling you yet.