US Person has posted several times about the dangers of chemical compounds in our environment {13.01.14, True America: Better Dead Through Chemistry; 17.02.14, True America: Got Estrogen?} One of the suspect chemicals being investigated is the common plastic additive, bisphenol-A (BPA). In February a group of FDA scientist published a study saying that low-level exposure to BPA was safe. Immediately the business press under the guise of debunking bad science began touting the study as a clean bill of health for BPA. However, Mother Jones tells US that a group of leading academic scientists working on a related project with the FDA were put out by the announcement that BPA is safe for chronic exposure partly because they think the study clearing the chemical was bungled. Researchers conducting the BPA study were told by the NIH that their lab was contaminated with BPA making experimental animal controls useless for comparison purposes. The FDA chose to ignore this basic rule of scientific research by burying the fact of contamination at the end of the study paper. About 1,000 other studies have found low-level exposure to BPA--a synthetic estrogen--can lead to serious health problems. The possibility exists that the effects of BPA which mimics a natural hormone in the body, can be genetically passed to future generations.
The academic scientists are most upset by the FDA's flawed BPA study will impact their $32 million taxpayer-funded project to develop the most effective methods for assessing the effects of BPA. Known as the CLARITY BPA study, it is supposed to shape future regulation of the substance, but the recent FDA finding of harmlessness is preempting CLARITY results and giving mixed messages to the public. The FDA relied in the past on two flawed studies to justify the safe regulatory status of BPA. Both of those studies used a breed of laboratory rat (River Sprague Dawley) that is all but immune to the effects of synthetic estrogen. Industry studies are often prone to flaws because a favorable result is a foregone conclusion, compared to academic studies which have more rigorously objective quality controls. Also, regulatory agencies follow strict guidelines for toxicology studies which are not updated frequently to reflect the latest information or testing methods. These shortcomings are supposed to be addressed by the CLARITY group (Consortium Linking Academic and Regulatory Insights on Toxicity) The Consortium has not been a happy one according to internal communications obtained by Mother Jones: academics and government scientists are disputing study design and methods. The latest FDA study finding BPA safe is another shot across the bow of academia. The agency, no doubt under chemical industry pressure, is sticking to its latest safety finding. It denied a petition from the NRDC asking that BPA be banned from food packaging and containers on the grounds of insufficient data linking the chemical to disease. That decision is not hard to understand given the agency's demonstrated bias in favor of a chemical widely used in commerce. Bad science indeed!