April/May 2007
Why Having More No Longer Makes Us Happy
Bill McKibben
Communities Uniting for climate Action
Lesley Adams
Are Big Enviro Groups Holding Back the Anti-Warming Movement?
Megan Tady
Al Gore and the Wedges Game
Kelpie Wilson
Jody Woodruff
Plastic Bottles and Can Liners Under Scrutiny Again
Jody Woodruff
Creating a New Level of Awareness. Interview with Dr. Joe Dispenza
Katie Elliott
Ashland Independent Fillm Festival
Bowing to Fate, Growing to Destiny: A look at Women's Themes through Film
Marla Estes
Awakening to Our Full Potential
Arjuna Ardagh
Life Organizing: A New Way to Flow with Time
Jennifer Louden
Homelessness in the House
Coenraad Rogmans
Dharma Publishing
Karen Egan
Cosmic
Calendar
Salina Rain
Plastic Bottles and Can Liners Under Scrutiny Again
By Jody Woodruff
Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a chemical building block that is used primarily to make many types of polycarbonate plastic bottles and epoxy resins lining over 100 billion different canned products.
Fred vom Saal, a University of Missouri professor, began researching bisphenol-A’s effects on devel-oping fetuses in the mid 90s. He focused on whether this chemical is able to bypass the natural barrier the body creates to protect fetuses from damage. His research team found that bisphenol-A can bypass the protective barrier, but also has negative effects at concentrations “2500 times lower than the plastic industry said could cause harm.”
A plastic company denies reports by vom Saal that they sent a representative to bribe the researchers into not publishing their findings. They claim they only wanted vom Saal to research several other points prior to publishing.
Vom Saal’s research team published their findings and reported the attempted bribe to the FDA and other sources. Furthermore, later research by this team showed a link between bisphenol-A and obesity in mice. He points out that BPA is one of the highest volume produced chemicals in the world—by now in everyone’s body. It also mimics estrogen activity in both humans and animals. Vom Saal surmises that the same chemical could be related to the current rise in human obesity. “If you look at the increase in obesity and increase in bisphenol-A use, they absolutely line up.” He claims his studies have been backed up by other researchers.
The executive director of the Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group of the American Chemistry Council states that “Government and scientific bodies around the world have reviewed the scientific evidence regarding safety of bisphenol-A and reviewed it very carefully. In every case, they have come to the conclusion that bisphenol-A is not a risk to human health, in particular from the very low levels of exposure that people might receive from use of consumer products … if you look at single studies, you can get yourself very confused and come to conclusions that are quite inconsistent with the full scientific database.”
Vom Saal is fighting to get the government and others to recognize the danger of BPA as it is used today. He knows that it will take more than studies on mice to convince them and is now conducting research focusing on how BPA affects people. Another major difficulty, he claims, is that the government panels are regularly stacked with people from the plastics industry. An example of possible conflict of interest is the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR), an arm of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. CERHR is managed, in part, by Sciences International, a private consulting firm that has close working relationships and financial ties to companies that manufacture the same chemicals Sciences International is reviewing for CERHR. Sciences International is also the company that helped the RJ Reynolds tobacco company fight stricter regulations on a toxic pesticide proposed by the EPA.
David Michaels, the Dept of Environmental and Occupation Health, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Sciences, comments that one effective strategy used by polluters and manufacturers of dangerous products to oppose public health and envi-ronmental regulations is to question the validity of scientific evidence. He states that it is unusual for scientific research not to be challenged by an industry whose products are alleged to have toxic properties.
But if it is true that BPA is a potential carcinogen, if it may also increase the risk of Type II diabetes, obesity and also pose a danger to fetuses, what steps can individuals who may be exposed to some form of the chemical every day do to help themselves? Believers in the potential harm of BPA suggest giving up bottled water and investing in a high quality water filter to eliminate other harmful chemicals from your tap water. Purchasing stainless steel water bottles for when you are away from home. And of course, support and lobby for unbiased research.
The debate goes on.
Jody Woodruff, a retired social worker and educational film writer, now writes freelance from Talent, Oregon.
