Like lead before it (and we all know how that turned out), bisphenol A is taking its turn in the spotlight, decked out in misinformation and escorted by ongoing controversy. Welcome to the party.
Before last week, it would seem the FDA had pretty much put this one to rest. But it didn’t really go away. In fact, it was really only a matter of time before someone brought this up again, and courtesy of The Washington Post, bring it up they did. Though I realize that, as a reporter, I “dig” for a living, it doesn’t take a backhoe to unearth that the FDA based its proclamation that BPA does not pose a safety concern on research funded by the American Plastics Council. Um, that sounds a little like a conflict of interest to me.
Not to paint the American Plastics Council with broad strokes of deliberate corporate malfeasance, but really. Go outside and count the number of hard-plastic water bottles you see people toting. It’s slightly naïve to expect an organization with such high stakes in the proliferation of plastics to contribute an unbiased report. I’m not saying their findings were false or doctored or even misinterpreted. But it’s just flawed logic for a governmental organization to base a decision on information that could be construed as slanted.
Still, there’s no need for hysteria—maybe BPA is indeed safe—but the dearth of full-disclosure reporting worries me.
Like I said, it’s strikingly similar to the last decade’s worth of back-and-forth between the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and various NGOs and consumer-advocacy groups on the subject of lead. The CPSC kept saying it was safe—“safe” according to grossly inadequate testing procedures—yet many kept pushing back. And now, lead is being phased out under the newly enacted Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act (if you don’t know, see here). Unfortunately, you can’t really take back years of lead exposure in kids because of contaminated bibs, toys and lunch boxes. What effect will they have? Only time will tell.
Maybe BPA isn’t that terrible upon first, second or even third use. But the key here is that, as the plastic is heated and/or washed with hot water over time, more and more of the chemical leaches into food and beverages kept in the containers. And, again, there’s no telling how much is too much until it’s too late to turn back.
There are always those who want to dismiss the latest panic over the potentially harmful chemical du jour as a figment of the overprotective mother’s imagination. The argument usually goes something like this, “I lived in a house with lead paint my whole life and I’m all right.” I’m not a doctor, nor am I a scientist, but it seems that, with the healthy consumption of goods that characterizes today’s society, it’s not even comparable. Maybe you lived in a house with lead paint, but perhaps you didn’t have Chinese-manufactured, poorly regulated toys teeming with lead paint spilling out of your toybox. You might have owned one or two sports bottles. But you probably just as often drank out of your tap or hose. Today’s designer drinkware just doesn’t encourage that.
So while it’s too soon to say whether or not BPA poses a health risk, it’s never too early to start educating yourself. Your future product lines just might depend on it.
