ABOUT
Smart discussion of the latest science and news on toxins in your food, water, and air, and what government agencies should be doing to protect public health. Written by EWG staff.
GET EWG'S TIPS & ACTION ALERTS
Sign up here to stay informed.
Get EWG widgets & blog badges.
ENVIROBLOG TO YOU
ENVIROBLOG VIA EMAIL
What's going on with toxic chemicals in cosmetics?
NBC Nightly News talks cell phone radiation
Limit your exposure to cell phone radiation
SEARCH ENVIROBLOG
FEATURED
Find your sunscreen in EWG's 2009 report
Infant formula: How to choose it & use it
EWG's Tips for Parents: The Series
Buying our way to utopia? Not so much.
EWG's Tips to avoid BPA exposure
Let's talk some serious shop about TSCA reform
EWG on TV
Cutting the Pork from U.S. Farm Bill
Sunscreen safety & DC drinking water
Perchlorate in people, kids' personal care products & plastics, and sunscreen
BPA in baby formula & safe cosmetics
What can I do about fluoride in my water?
What is new carpet treated with? What can I do?
Are stainless steel water bottles safe?
Is mineral-based makeup safer?
PEOPLE TALKING TOXICS
TALK TO US
Did we miss something? Email Enviroblog.
« EWG's Healthy Home Tip 1: Choose better body care products | Main | Is there too much fluoride in your dog food? Read EWG's new report »
About BPA: Do you feel lucky?
By Elaine Shannon
Well, do you?
Clint Eastwood/Harry Callahan's pithy question rings in my head, every time I read the chemical lobby's defense of bisphenol A(BPA), a high-volume industrial plastics chemical. 
Many experiments have shown that BPA, a synthetic estrogen as well as a plastics hardener, disrupts the endocrine system and causes a growing list of chronic, often permanent disorders in lab animals.
To which industry routinely responds: 1) animals aren't people, and 2) in people, BPA is, as one industry spokesman put it, "efficiently metabolized and rapidly eliminated from the body."
Scientists who think BPA is as bad for people as for lab animals can't prove their cases by experimenting on people.
Epidemiological studies of human populations can't isolate the impact of a single chemical like BPA. The human body burden, now comprising close to 500 chemicals, according to Environmental Working Group's biomonitoring tests, is an unintended consequence of the age of innovation after World War I. The period produce a rich array of "miracle" materials, symbolized by DuPont's iconic 1935 slogan, "Better Things for Better Living Through Chemistry," and Monsanto's streamlined plastic House of the Future in Disneyland's Tomorrowland, vintage 1957.
There is much yet to learn about how BPA affects the human body, acting singly and in combination with all those other chemicals that pollute people.
So -- back to Dirty Harry's question: Do we feel lucky?
I don't. Not about this stuff. I'm not willing to bet that BPA, which is in water bottles, drink bottles, cans, and also medical devices such as IV drips, is benign, washes harmlessly through the human body and leaves no mark, especially on infants in critical stages of development?
Every new, independent scientific study of this chemical reinforces my skepticism of industry's see-no-evil position:
- Yale researchers have recently found that when embryonic mice are exposed to BPA, the chemical strips hydrogen-carbon structural units, called methyl groups, from the gene responsible for fertility. As a result, as the mice grew to maturity, their uterine linings did not develop normally, rendering them unlikely to carry pregnancies to term. "We've discovered the exact mechanism by which BPA affects this gene," Yale scientist Hugh Taylor told me. The gene in question -- HOXA10 -- is the same in mice and people.
- Scientists at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences report in this month's Environmental Health Perspectives journal that mice exposed BPA in the womb developed "numerous abnormalities" in the form of both benign and cancerous lesions throughout their reproductive tissues. The researchers, led by veteran reproductive scientist Retha Newbold, wrote that "The BPA doses were low and within the range of human exposure...The findings...raise concerns about widespread exposure to BPA and, in particular, exposure to fetuses, infants, and children."
- Scientists at the University of Rochester and University of Missouri-Columbia, also in the current Environmental Health Perspectives, estimate that BPA does not clear out of the human body as quickly as had been thought.
I could be wrong. Hope I am, given the fact that an estimated 93 percent of us would test positive for BPA, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Still, I've kicked most of that modern-living-plastic out of the kitchen and the kids' stuff.
How about you? Feel lucky about BPA? Do you think its dangers are still in the realm of the theoretical and untested? Or have you heard enough?
Share your thoughts here -- and join our new interactive forum on the nation's toxic chemicals policy.
You can also find my posts and add your own comments on Huffington Post.
« EWG's Healthy Home Tip 1: Choose better body care products |
Leave a comment