Its great that manufacturers have become keen to consumers desire to avoid Bisphenol A (BPA), but at what cost?BPA is a heavily produced industrial compound that has been detected in more than 2,000 people worldwide, including more than 95 percent of 400 people tested in a study in the United States. More than 100 peer-reviewed studies have found BPA to be toxic at low dose. BPA is commonly used to strengthen plastic andline food cans; its in dental sealants, receipt paper and many other itemsand the FDA thinks it isnt all that bad, apparently ignoring the findings of numerous prominent andwell-regarded studies.Known as an endocrine disruptor (chemicals that can act like hormones), studies show that BPA can mimic the female hormone estrogen. In 2009 the scientific group, the Endocrine Society, published a 34-page report stating strong evidence of ill health effects from endocrine disruptors, including harm to the reproductive system, causing malformations, infertility and cancer.The government of Canada has declared BPA to be a toxic substancein the United States, a handful of states have banned BPA in childrens productsbut on the federal level there has been no action.In an Op-Ed this week in The New York Times,Dominique Browning writes that although manufacturers might be removing BPA from their products, they are substituting chemicals that may be just as dangerous, if not more so. Other chemicals are being used instead (such as PES,BPS, BPAF, and other members of the Bisphenol family)in products marked as BPA-free. In testing in other countries, some of these chemicals have been found to be even more potent than BPA.As Browning points out:The problem is that our regulatory system allows manufacturers to introduce or continue to use chemicals that have not been adequately tested for safety. A manufacturer can replace BPA with another untested compound and get a few years use out of it before it, too, becomes the su! bject of health alerts or news media attention. By the time we know what those new chemicals do to us, entire generations are affected. We are the guinea pigs.She adds that Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey recently introduced a bill to change our main chemical safety law, the Toxic Substances Control Act, so that chemical companies would have to demonstrate to the E.P.A. that their products are safe before they are sold to consumers.
