Safety of BPA

I read Britt Erickson’s article on the American Chemistry Council’s capitulation to market pressure brought by activist groups known for their scare tactics (C&EN, Oct. 17, page 13). Now I hope that C&EN makes some mention of the 2011 EPA-funded study of bisphenol A (BPA) metabolism performed by the Food & Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, and Battelle labs.

Richard Sharpe, the grand old man of the toxicological study of estrogenic effects of phthalates at the University of Edinburgh, found the recent EPA study scientifically robust. The results were indisputable. Sharpe went so far as to refer to the study as “majestically scientific.”

Unless BPA is injected into the blood in pure form, it is metabolized into estrogenically inactive glucuronide and excreted. The carefully controlled study again calls into question the results reported by activist researchers and raises the specter of cross-contamination in the smaller (and usually impossible to replicate) studies backed by the acolytes of the Chapel Hill consensus statement and the Environmental Working Group.

By Anthony Holt
Overland Park, Kan