Mother Jones Investigates Safety of BPA-Free Plastics

“Today many plastic products, from sippy cups and blenders to Tupperware containers, are marketed as BPA-free. But [George Bittner’s] findings—some of which have been confirmed by other scientists—suggest that many of these alternatives share the qualities that make BPA [bisphenol A] so potentially harmful,” writes Mariah Blake in a new investigative report examining the purported effects of BPA-free plastic on human health. Published in the March/ April 2014 issue of Mother Jones, the report relies on research conducted by CertiChem, a laboratory founded by University of Texas-Austin Neurobiology Professor George Bittner, whose previous work in Environmental Health Perspectives claimed that “almost all” store-bought food containers “tested positive for estrogenic activity,” including those marketed as BPA-free.

In particular, the report points to these findings as evidence that the independent studies used by industry and regulatory authorities are unreliable. “Many of the same scientists who were involved in doing tobacco industry research are now doing chemical industry-funded research on chemicals like BPA,” concludes Blake. And just like [with] Big Tobacco, [where] industry-funded studies generally did not find that smoking or second-hand smoke was harmful, these studies are not finding that BPA and similar chemicals are harmful.”

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