Bias in Bisphenol-A Studies

Two government agencies are issuing very different

messages about the safety of a plastic used to package food.

Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Two government agencies are issuing very different messages about the safety of a plastic used to package food. Lester Graham reports:


The Food and Drug Administration recently declared there’s “an adequate margin of safety” for a plastic called bisphenol A or BPA. But right after that the National Toxicology Program found BPA is of “some concern.”

Sarah Burkhalter is with the online environmental news service Grist-dot-org. She has found there are 115 studies on BPA… and the FDA is chiefly relying on plastic industry studies.


“104 of those were done by government scientists and university labs. 90 percent of them found BPA could harm human health. All eleven of the industry studies found that BPA was safe. So it makes sense that relying on those industry-funded studies that the FDA would find it to be safe.”


BPA is used in all sorts of things, including the linings of cans of food and baby bottles.


For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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