SOME of the SNopes.com article: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates bottled water as a packaged food product and, for bottled water and all other foods and their packaging, FDA has determined that PET meets standards for food contact materials.
The basis for [the e-mail was] a college student's masters thesis that was not subject to peer review and did not reflect a level of scientific rigor that would provide accurate and reliable information about the safety of these products. Fortunately, FDA requires a much higher standard to make decisions about food contact packaging. DEHA, as mentioned in the email is neither regulated nor classified as a human carcinogen. Further, DEHA is not inherent in PET plastic as raw material, byproduct or decomposition product. DEHA has been cleared by FDA for food contact applications and would not pose a health risk even if present. DEHA is a common plasticizer used in many plastic items, many of which are found in the lab setting. For this reason, the student's detection (see comment above) is likely to have been the result of inadvertent lab contamination.
Also note that PET plastics used for bottled water containers are not unique to this product type and is the same as PET plastics used to package other common foods and beverages.
(Note that the
e-mail misidentifies the DEHA used in production of PET plastic as
diethylhydroxylamine. The plasticizer used in the production of PET is
actually
diethylhexyl adipate.)
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at one time included DEHA on the list of toxic chemicals maintained under the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), but they have since removed it from the list because DEHA "cannot reasonably be anticipated to cause cancer, teratogenic effects, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity, gene mutations, liver, kidney, reproductive, or developmental toxicity or other serious or irreversible chronic health effects." And, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (
IARC), diethylhexyl adipate "is not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans."
More recent studies have claimed that some plastic products (including plastic baby bottles) leach miniscule amounts of
bisphenol A, a substance that has been linked to reproductive problems and cancer in lab rats, into liquids. However, whether
bisphenol A poses the same risks to humans, and whether the small amount of
bisphenol A that might be ingested through the use of plastic bottles is sufficiently large to be of concern, are still subjects of considerable debate:
[Environment California's] report is the latest rebuttal in the debate between environmental researchers and government bodies who disagree on the health risks of bisphenol A. While some reports, such as the study released by Environment California Research & Policy Center, conclude the chemical is hazardous at low doses, American, European and Japanese government agencies conclude the exposure to most people is negligible.
"I think that some of the things (Environment California) say are based somewhat on their political views," said David Weiss, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, who reviewed the report and other studies on the topic.
He said the concentrations of the chemical are so low that they are below the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "levels of concern."
The acceptable intake established by the EPA is .05 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day. The study's findings are noted in "parts per billion," making a comparison difficult, though the study notes that the amount of bisphenol A found fell below the government standard.
Some cities, such as San Francisco, have enacted bans on toys and other plastic products containing
bisphenol A for children under three years old.
As for the claim that freezing plastic bottles releases dioxins into the water they contain, Johns Hopkins researcher
Dr. Rolf Halden says:
Q: What do you make of this recent email warning that claims dioxins can be released by freezing water in plastic bottles?
A: This is an urban legend. There are no dioxins in plastics. In addition, freezing actually works against the release of chemicals. Chemicals do not diffuse as readily in cold temperatures, which would limit chemical release if there were dioxins in plastic, and we don't think there are.