Jerome Groopman, “The Plastic Panic,” The New Yorker, May 31, 2010
“Bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA, may be among the world’s most vilified chemicals,” opens this May 31, 2010, New Yorker article that positions the present-day furor in the long and often convoluted history of toxicology. According to author Jerome Groopman, scientists cannot agree whether BPA is a cautionary tale against overstating risks or understating them. He notes that in the past, regulators were sometimes quick to bar substances like cyclamates based on public fears that later proved unfounded, while overlooking the adverse health effects of contaminants such as lead—“for years thought to be safe in small doses.”
Groopman ultimately blames the “inadequacy of the current regulatory system” for fomenting this “atmosphere of uncertainty.” Acknowledging “the potential pitfalls of epidemiological research,” he nevertheless criticizes Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency for failing thus far to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 and other consumer protection laws to standardize scientific methodology and minimize conflicts of interest. “Academic researchers have found that the enormous financial stakes—the production of BPA is a six-billion-a-year industry—have prompted extra scrutiny of their results,” he opines. “In 2007…a majority of non industry-supported studies initially deemed sound by the National Toxicology Program on the safety of BPA were dismissed as unsuitable after a representative of the [American Chemistry Council] drafted a memo critiquing their methods; experimental protocols often differ from one university lab to another.”
Groopman holds out hope, however, that new legislation introduced by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) will address some of these issues by granting EPA authority “to establish safety criteria in chemical compounds; to create a database identifying chemicals in industrial products; and to set specific deadlines for approving or banning compounds.” As the article concludes, “[W]hile the evidence of these chemicals’ health consequences may be far from conclusive, safer alternatives need to be sought. More important, policymakers must create a better system for making decisions about when to ban these types of substances, and must invest in research that will inform those decisions.”
