FDA SHIFTS ON SAFETY OF BPA
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.
The agency said Friday 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.
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.
But health officials said there was no proof that BPA was dangerous to humans.
Nonetheless, health officials suggested a number of things people could do to limit their exposure to BPA, such as throwing away scratched or worn bottles or cups made with BPA (it can leak from the scratches), not putting very hot liquids into cups or bottles with BPA and checking the labels on containers to make sure they are microwave safe.
MUTANT HIV SPREADING
Strains of mutant HIV emerging in the United States and Europe threaten to undermine progress made in expanding access to treatment in poor countries, a study published online by the journal Science found.
About 60 percent of drug-resistant HIV strains circulating in San Francisco can spur self-sustaining epidemics as patients who haven't been treated spread them, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles said in the study. Similar trends are emerging in other rich cities, said Sally Blower, a professor of mathematical biology, who led the research.
Mutant strains are already starting to spread in poorer nations such as South Africa, where there is little access to back-up medicines when resistance develops, Blower said.
