Wednesday, August 13, 2003

Health Alert! MICROWAVES AND PLASTICS

I received an urgent e-mail to watch out for dioxins in plastics.  I was alarmed because I often freeze my water bottle.  This action could cause breast cancer according to Dr. Edward Fujimoto of Castle Hospital.

However according to Cornell Cooperative Extension, this is a hoax.

• Research found no papers published by Dr. Edward Fujimoto.
• The FDA has cautioned about plasticizer migration during microwaving of foods, not dioxins.
• The Urban Legends Reference Pages makes a good point.  Just because a doctor "appears on TV does not mean he's a leading practitioner in his field; it generally means only that he has something to say that a news director considers newsworthy, accurate or not ."
• It turns out that this doctor is a PhD working at Castle Medical Center in Kailua, Hawaii.
• If dioxins in plastics were causing an outbreak of "cancer, you'd be hearing about it somewhere other than an e-mail forward of an anonymous summary of a morning news spot on a Hawaiian television station."
• Dr. Ed Machuga, Consumer Safety Officer at the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Nutrition says that there is no evidence that plastic can produce dioxins when heated in a microwave becaues they don't have the chemical composition

So come on, people, don't forward e-mails unless you have substantiated the facts.  Otherwise you are just adding to the spam in my Inbox.

For the truth in this matter, check out Cooking Safely in the Microwave Oven on the USDA website.