In February, a group of Food & Drug Administration scientists published a study, which claimed that low-level exposure to the common plastic additive bisphenol A (BPA) is safe. They are going against the grain, by claiming that long-standing concerns about the health effects of BPA are unfounded.
In contrast to the FDA's study, roughly 1,000 published studies have found that low-level exposure to BPA, a synthetic estrogen that is also used in plastic water bottles, cash register receipts and the lining of tin cans, can lead to serious health problems. The health problems can range from cancer and insulin-resistant diabetes to obesity and attention-deficit disorder. In some cases, the effects appear to be handed down to future generations.
Academic scientists who had been working with the FDA on a related project, were fuming over the study's release. They were upset partly because they believed the agency had bungled the experiment. Officials from the FDA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had informed the researchers that the lab where the study was housed was contaminated. As a result, all of the animals, including the supposedly unexposed control group, had been exposed to BPA. The FDA made the case that this didn't affect the outcome, but their academic counterparts believed it cast serious doubt on the study's findings. "It's basic science," says Gail S. Prins, a professor of physiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "If your controls are contaminated, you've got a failed experiment and the data should be discarded. I'm baffled that any journal would even publish this."
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