Eideard

In a shift of position, the Food and Drug Administration is expressing concerns about possible health risks from bisphenol-A, or BPA, a widely used component of plastic bottles and food packaging that it declared safe in 2008.

Meaningless to tea baggers who whine about the change Obama brought to government.

The agency said that it had “some concern about the potential effects of BPA on the brain, behavior and prostate gland of fetuses, infants and children,” and would join other federal health agencies in studying the chemical in both animals and humans.

The action is another example of the drug agency under the Obama administration becoming far more aggressive in taking hard looks at what it sees as threats to public health. In recent months, the agency has stepped up its oversight of food safety and has promised to tighten approval standards for medical devices.

Concerns about BPA are based on studies that have found harmful effects in animals, and on the recognition that the chemical seeps into food and baby formula, and that nearly everyone is exposed to it, starting in the womb…

BPA has been used since the 1960s to make hard plastic bottles, sippy cups for toddlers and the linings of food and beverage cans, including the cans used to hold infant formula and soda. Until recently, it was used in baby bottles, but major manufacturers are now making bottles without it. Plastic items containing BPA are generally marked with a 7 on the bottom for recycling purposes…

Reports of potential health effects have made BPA notorious, especially among parents, and led to widespread shunning of products thought to contain the chemical. Canada, Chicago and Suffolk County, N.Y., have banned BPA from children’s products.

RTFA. Reflect upon the agency we used to call the FEMA of Food Safety. It’s starting to change.

The risk of infant death following planned home birth attended by a registered midwife does not differ from that of a planned hospital birth, found a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

The study looked at 2889 home births attended by regulated midwives in British Columbia, Canada, and 4752 planned hospital births attended by the same cohort of midwives compared with 5331 physician-attended births in hospital. Women who planned a home birth had a significantly lower risk of obstetric interventions and adverse outcomes, including augmentation of labour, electronic fetal monitoring, epidural analgesia, assisted vaginal delivery, cesarean section, hemorrhage, and infection.

The safety of home births is under debate. American, Australian and New Zealand Colleges of Obstetricians and Gynecologists oppose home births while the United Kingdom’s Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Royal College of Midwives are supportive, as are midwife organizations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Canada’s Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has encouraged further research into the safety of home birth, and this study addresses that directive.

“Women planning birth at home experienced reduced risk for all obstetric interventions measured, and similar or reduced risk for adverse maternal outcomes,” writes Dr. Patricia Janssen from the University of British Columbia and coauthors. Newborns born after planned home births were at similar or reduced risk of death, although the likelihood of admission to hospital was higher.

Factors in the home environment that decrease risks are not well-understood and could be due to sample bias. “We do not underestimate the degree of self-selection that takes place in a population of women choosing home birth. This self-selection may be an important component of risk management for home birth.” They write that the eligibility screening by registered midwives safely supports a policy
of choice in birth setting.

“Our population rate of less than 1 perinatal death per 1000 births may serve as a benchmark to other jurisdictions as they evaluate their home birth programs,” the authors conclude (.pdf).

Terrific study. Designed for comparison and peer review.

Nowhere near as political as some author [me] tried to make it with the headline.

Embarrassing disclosures about the vast expenses claims of British members of parliament amount to a “McCarthy-style witch-hunt” that risks driving politicians to suicide, a lawmaker warned on Friday.

Nadine Dorries, a member of the opposition Conservative party, wrote on her blog that the two-week scandal, in which the Daily Telegraph newspaper has drip-fed details of how members of parliament have abused their generous expense allowances, was forcing politicians to the brink…

European and local elections to be held on June 4 are expected to reflect the level of popular disgust, with lower voter turnout and a move toward fringe parties predicted.

“The atmosphere in Westminster is unbearable,” Dorries wrote on the blog (blog.dorries.org). “People are constantly checking to see if others are OK. Everyone fears a suicide. If someone isn’t seen, offices are called and checked.”

Asked about her comments on BBC radio on Friday, she sought to back away from the suicide suggestion, but said the disclosures, including that politicians charged for duck ponds, horse manure, bath plugs and pornographic films, were forcing members of parliament to breaking point…

“I have to say the last day in parliament this week was completely unbearable. I have never, ever been in an atmosphere or an environment like it, where everyone walks around with terror in their eyes. People are genuinely concerned.”

Dorries, whose own use of expenses to buy household goods was exposed by the Telegraph, joins a number of politicians who have attacked the disclosures rather than apologizing.

Is this a threat of suicide – or a promise?

Losing corrupt politicians by whatever means is a praiseworthy goal. If they enhance and accelerate the process – by their own hand – that’s just the icing on the cake.