Study says public health at stake from BPA exposure

Plastics News "An examination of more than 80 published human biomonitoring studies has concluded that the general population is exposed to bisphenol A and is at risk from internal exposure to unconjugated, or biologically active, BPA."

“The biomonitoring data indicate that human exposures are higher than have been suggested from the toxicokinetic studies,” said the report, released online the evening of March 24. Toxicokinetic studies look at the change in concentration, over time, of a chemical or a metabolite in blood/plasma or other tissue.

“These [biomonitoring] studies overwhelmingly detect BPA in individuals including adults, adolescents and children. The health of the public is at stake,” said the report from a team of global researchers led by Dr. Laura Vanderberg of Tufts University. “Because of the significant data showing human exposures to unconjugated BPA and animal data indicating increased susceptibility to disease at levels found in humans, we recommend that the precautionary principle be followed until further data on exposure of fetuses and children to BPA become available.”

“It is likely that fetuses and children are particularly vulnerable to BPA exposures and, at the same time, are exposed to higher levels of unconjugated BPA,” said the report, which was published in the Journal of Environmental Health Perspectives.

However, Steve Hentges, executive director of the polycarbonate/BPA global group of the American Chemistry Council in Arlington, Va., disputed those conclusions.

“The opinions of the authors are quite inconsistent with the views of expert scientific and government bodies that have also reviewed these biomonitoring studies,” Hentges said. Eleven safety agencies around the world, including the European Food Safety Agency, have said that BPA is OK for use in food contact applications.

Hentges said the opinions expressed by the authors do not appear to be on analysis that is contained in the studies, but rather just their opinions. “There was some deception in what they described and they were selective in what they reported,” Hentges said.