the whole Nalgene hysteria was brought about by a bunch of lefty liberal enviro nazi wackjobs, who heard from somewhere that plastics are bad for you. There was no real insight or research, just blatant left wing nutjob hysteria and propoganda byt he granola munching enviro nazis.
First the above is a pretty ridculuous and immature statement and doesn't really belong in this forum nor does it contribute to the topic...
There is sound science regarding the effects of exposures to BP and as others have indicated, the primary concern is related to endocrine disruption not cancer. The evidence linking BP exposure to cancer is marginal and poorly founded. The evidence linking BP exposures to endocrine disruption is better founded however there is considerable contraversy regarding effective dose in humans. At high doses, everyone agrees that BP can cause reproductive and immunological problems. The reproductive problems are more likely experienced by fetus of exposed pregnant mothers and by young children then by adults. Adult females that aren't pregnant are less sensitive and adult males seems to be much less sensitive to BP.
However, part of the problem is there is still a lack of good information to quantify the actual dose, daily intake rate etc. of the typical person. The second problem is the risk extrapolation from lab studies to real world exposures. For this particular chemical, which undergoes rapid phase I and II metabolism, working out the toxicokinetics in humans using animal models is particularly difficult. Then there is the issue of trying to work out fetal exposures via maternal exposure.
There is still a rather boisterous and exciting argument about whether or not BP in commercial products constitutes a true threat to humans. There are a number of scientists for and against this issue and the fact of the matter is that it will take a few more years and more research $$ to get a truer picture and to begin building a conscensus. We aren't there yet. This is of course how science operates and the dissenting views are often taken by the public as a license to believe what they want to believe.
My opinion, as a wildlife toxicologist, is that if you are an adult male then the risk related to BP exposures, particularly from lexan type water bottles is very low. BP tends to have a relatively low water solubility, so what gets leached into the water is going to be pretty low. Also, your likely exposure to BP via canned food, e.g. beans, tomatoes, soda pop, prepared soups etc., where BP forms part of the plastic matrix lining the tins has been shown to be quite higher. For example, soups and the juice from beans has detergent like properties and can much more readily solubilize and leach out BP from the plastic liner than pure water can. If you throw out your nalgene water bottle and continue to eat canned foods then you probably will have not at all changed your overall exposure to BP.
As somebody else said, thinking about additives and foods and even the relative helath (saturated fats etc) of your diet is more likely to have direct benefits to your health than becoming a chemical-phobe. Then again, part of what the science of risk assessment attempts to do is weed out harmful compounds and reduce human and environmental releases of harmful chemicals. Most of us agree that we haven't done the best job of this, but we are progressing from past decades.
Sometimes this will mean demanding alterations of industrial practices that affect consumer product availability and price. Overall I think this is a good thing even if there may be a few mistakes made along the way in the name of 'err on the side of caution'. Lets not forget that unchecked capitolism has often leds to complete environmental disasters - think Love Canal, Minimata disease and a host of other horror stories from the 50's and 60's.
The very fact that Nalgene responded to BP contraversy well before it was mandated to do so is I think a story of how a company is responding to its own market demands. I usually like to say this is actually captolism at work. Market, including suppliers and retailers (e.g. MEC) demanded that nalgene switch its practice. Nalgene responded to this demand by changing its products. Nalgene may have suffered some financial losses because of this, but it also won over many new customers because it did respond to its customer base and will be viewed as a green company because of this.
IMO it is a much bigger risk that the low risk this seems to be.
