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Over the last twenty years, scientists have built a mountain of evidence that Bisphenol A, the key ingredient in polycarbonate plastic, should scare the daylights out of us. It should have been banned a long time ago, as a precautionary measure, but regulators were asleep at the switch -- allowing the chemical industry to run roughshod over them.
We don't know for sure that the chemical causes cancer, developmental disorders, or reproductive damage in humans, but there are more than enough alarming data to justify a ban. When respected scientists publish paper after paper indicating that a chemical is toxic, it's best to err on the side of caution and keep it out of our homes.
Unfortunately, a mix of deception and apathy has left us exposed for decades.
Last year, a highly-biased government panel pulled a snow job that would make the Tobacco Industry proud: They claimed that Bisphenol A is not a cause for concern two weeks after scientists issued a damning report about the chemical. Their trickery bought the chemical industry months of slack, until the Canadian government announced that it may ban baby bottles made from the questionable substance. Soon thereafter, Wal-Mart announced that it would no longer stock polycarbonate baby bottles and Nalgene Outdoor Products agreed to stop making their trademark water bottles.
But why did it take twenty years for retailers and regulators to react? There are three key reasons:
Humans are terrible at reacting to subtle threats: We fear the unknown, the immediate, but not things which harm us slowly in subtle ways. It's tremendously hard to prove that something is indeed toxic to humans, because scientists can't ethically dose people with lots of Bisphenol A and see what happens. Of course, in this case, there was also a healthy dose of deception on the part of the chemical industry and incompetence or corruption within our regulatory agencies -- no one was looking out for us.
Bisphenol A will not be the last chemical to get yanked from the market years after scientists raised serious concerns. My guess: sodium benzoate will be next.
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Photo Credit: mariaboismain /flickr
