A consumer class action complaint has been filed on behalf of four Georgia families against the top four polycarbonate plastic baby bottle manufacturers for their use of the synthetic hormone known as Bisphenol-A (BPA) as a chemical component in their plastic baby bottles and toddler training cups.
Bisphenol-A, also referred to as "BPA" was developed in the 1930s as a synthetic estrogen, but instead gained wide usage beginning in the 1950s for its rigid and shatterproof qualities in scores of plastic products, including baby bottles and children's training cups. Unfortunately, over 150 independent peer reviewed studies by the world's leading scientists and researchers in this area have repeated shown that BPA can activate estrogen receptors that lead to the same effects as the body's own estrogens. Exposure to BPA (even at very low doses) has been linked to prostate and breast cancer, diabetes, premature onset of puberty in females, lowered sperm count and infertile sperm in men, developmental toxicity, attention deficit disorders and neurological toxicity in laboratory animals.
BPA is also classified as an endocrine disruptor, which can interfere with or disrupt the finely orchestrated balance of hormones that are active during critical periods of the development and formation of the brain and sexual organs in the fetus, infants or young children who have been identified as being particularly vulnerable and therefore are at an even greater risk to the harmful effects of BPA.
The Georgia class action concerns the intentional and negligent failure by the baby bottle and training cup manufacturers, such as North Philips Electronics North America (Avent America, Inc. is subsidiary), Evenflo Company, Inc., Gerber Products Company, and Playtex Products, Inc., to disclose the fact that a dangerous synthetic hormone (BPA) is a component of the chemical formula which leaches from the plastic baby bottles and cups and migrates into the baby formula, food and liquid which the infants ingest and thereby exposes them to an increased risk of harm. Studies have also shown that heating these baby bottles in a microwave oven, or washing them in a dishwasher at high temperatures can accelerate the leaching process.
