[Mase]

Plastic and plastic lined food containers are also a problem, especially if they are heated or used in cooking.

This is nothing more than chemicalphobia and this science of junk won't die the death it so deserves because the media refuses to report the truth. The alleged health effects associated with phthalates and BPA are not back up by sound science. These same people also claim that BPA is just like estrogen when the structures of these two compounds look nothing alike.

I'd hazard a guess that your fear of the other so called "POP's" is also based on an irrational fear of chemicals. This fear is constantly fomented by the toxic terrorists.

A Toxic Setback for the Anti-Plastic Campaigners

[Rockingham]

I once believed as you do, but about five years ago, a friend suggested that I look at the medical literature. A few weeks later, with some free time at a university library, I went to the medical treatises and the medical journal databases and read extensively on the subject. Contrary to my initial opinion, after followup reading, I gradually became convinced that there was good cause for avoiding BPA and other POPs.

About once a year, I take another look in detail at the issue. Nothing that I have seen so far has allayed my concerns. Am I correct? Or, more to the point, are the doctors and scientists who have raised the alarm well-founded in their concerns? My impression is that the evidence against BPA and other POPs is accumulating, much as the evidence did against cigarettes, lead in gasoline, and against other chemical pollutants.

For me at least, the balance has tipped in favor of caution even at the price of minor inconveniences. You may conclude otherwise, but take a look at the medical evidence. Simply reading the medical journal abstracts in the Pubmed database should be enough to persuade you that, at the very least, the issue is open to debate.