'Everywhere chemicals' in plastics alarm parents

0 Comments | USA TODAY, October, 2007 | by Elizabeth Weise and Liz Szabo

SAN FRANCISCO -- Consider the BornFree baby bottle. It's made from a plastic five times as expensive as the one routinely used for baby bottles. It has to be shipped all the way from Israel. And its retail price -- $9.50 -- is about triple that of a conventional bottle.

It's also a big seller in stores catering to parents who want the safest possible environment for their babies, stores where items labeled "bisphenol A-free" and "phthalate-free" line up next to the cloth diapers and breast pumps.

BornFree is "so popular, their products have been on back order because we can't keep them in stock," says Cara Vidano of Natural Resources, a store here for new and expectant parents.

To anyone not contemplating parenthood, phthalates and bisphenol A sound...