Since Health Canada set their limits, there have been a dozen studies that have shown adverse affects at amounts lower then the limit. One study using a sample 1,000 times less potent then Ottawa's limit showed the chemical able to change breast tissue to make it more predisposed to breast cancer. Scientists believer that there is a correlation between the increase in the number of cases of breast and prostate cancers and the increased prevalence of Bisphenol A in our food.
I don't know about anybody else, but I'm not predisposed to trust anyone from industry to tell me the truth about pollutants and toxics in our food. They after all have a vested interest in the results, not the scientists. I'm more inclined to believe the scientists who are so scared by the results that they getting rid of everything in their houses made with Bisphenol. It's not like they're getting paid to replace all the food and baby bottles in their houses made from the stuff. I think from now on I won't be bringing anything into my house with the number seven stamped on it.
Industry doesn't have the best record with the truth when it comes to pollutants and I see no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Remember these are the same types of companies that dumped Mercury in our rivers, all the while assuring us it was safe. That is until children in Japan and Northern Ontario were born with horrible birth defects, linked directly to the Mercury that had poisoned the fish their parents had eaten.
Industry has always played fast and loose with the truth when it comes to issues of pollution and safety. Why should this time be any different?
Article comments
1 - A person at Washington State
A good article.
Hmmm... So the industry's studies all say the chemical is harmless, but independent and university scientists are saying it is certainly harmful to mammals with similar hormonal systems to ours, and is probably harmful to us.
Not hard to see who is more believable. Who has the highest stakes riding on how their studies turn out? Not the university scientists; they still get paid even if things don't turn out the way they thought. In fact, that's how this whole thing came up in Patricia Hunt's study at Washington State. She wasn't even looking for this at first; she was studying something else and just needed to find out why her mice had developed unforeseen reproductive defects. Corporate science, on the other hand--it may not be quite on the scale of cigarette companies releasing "studies" proving their products safe, but bias is bound to creep in. When billions of dollars and maybe the job of the researcher are at stake, the methodology and interpretation of the results are bound to reflect that influence.
Kudos to Canada for taking a proactive stance on this. Maybe it's not as big a problem as the evidence suggests...I hope it's not...but I'd rather be safe than sorry, and I'll trust the government and independent research before I'll trust the ethics of the corporate world. I wish I could say the government in the US was doing as good a job looking out for people and seeing the big picture.