After recent scientific findings showed the plastic used to manufacture Nalgene brand bottles emits a toxic gas when exposed to certain chemicals such as bleach, Charlottesville's Ragged Mountain Running Shop has decided to stop carrying the polycarbonate Nalgene water bottles.
This fact was brought to the attention of Ragged Mountain Running Shop by John Peterson Myers, chief scientist at Environmental Health Sciences in Charlottesville.
"As soon as we heard about it, we took it off our shelves," said Mike Elchinger, manager of Ragged Mountain. "[We did not want to carry] a potentially dangerous product in our store."
According to Myers, the polycarbonate bottles manufactured by Nalgene pose the greatest health risks because of a unique compound called disphenol A.
"The bonds that bind together polycarbonate dissolve over time and when they are heated or if alcohol is put in them or if they are exposed to an acid or base, they dissolve," Myers said.
While there are not many human studies to illustrate the harmful effects, over 100 animal studies resulted in such findings, he said. The compound changes the way the eggs divide, resulting in an abnormal number of chromosomes in the eggs. This process, known as aneuploidy, is the biggest single known cause of miscarriages in people, according to Myers.
He also said while the risks are very serious, there is no conclusive evidence on the effects in humans, particularly because the effects manifest themselves long after birth.
According to Myers, the animal studies show harmful effects on male reproduction and a predisposition in females for a higher risk of breast cancer.
"All these studies are by independent scientists all over the world," Myers said. "This compound interferes with the action of over 200 genes, that's 1 percent of the human genome."
While infants and young children are most at risk, the disphenol A compound can make prostrate tumors more aggressive for older adults, he said.
He added that adult mice exposed to disphenol A develop a condition known as insulin resistance, which is a main contributor to diabetes.
A spokesperson of Nalgene products, who remained anonymous because of company policy, said Nalgene polycarbonate bottles were safe.
The danger of polycarbonates is "true of cheap forms of polycarbonate and it came up in the mid 90s based on some baby bottles that were produced overseas," the source said. "But the resins used in the United States are of higher quality and so this is not an issue."
The company is therefore not recalling their bottles.
Elchinger said in one particular article he found, the industry conducted eleven studies which did not support the claim that polycarbonate bottles were dangerous while 94 out of 104 studies conducted by government funded research organizations supported the dangerous effects described by Myers.
Elchinger said his store stopped selling the Nalgene bottles a week and a half ago and as of now, offers no alternative.
Myers said the industry is "taking tools out of the tobacco science game-book and trying to prevent public health authorities from taking steps that science clearly justifies."
Myers added that the FDA is unwilling to revisit decisions made in the 1980s about this compound, ignoring the new science.
"There was a hearing last week about the disphenol-A compound in Sacramento and the industry was grotesquely misrepresenting the science, just as indicated by the results they present from the industry science," he said.
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