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BPA-free plastics may not be safer than regular plastics after all, a new study finds
Consumers turning to plastics made with alternatives to BPA in the hope that they're safer won't like what they're about to hear.
A new study [open, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.070] [DX], published in the journal Current Biology, concluded that common alternatives to BPA caused harmful effects in mice, notably in their reproductive cells. The findings add to the mounting body of evidence that these alternatives carry their own health risks. As Science noted, if further research on animals and humans continues to support these findings, it could derail efforts to reassure the many consumers already nervous about the plastics in their food and drink containers that there are safe options to choose from.
The issue has been one of major concern in recent years, in part because of the work of Patricia Hunt, the Washington State University geneticist who led the team behind the new research. She first helped draw attention to the possible perils of BPA—bisphenol A in its long form—after stumbling on them by accident.
From the paper:
DuPont's 20th century slogan "better living through chemistry" has been borne out. Remarkable technical advances allow us to synthesize molecules and create subtle variations in them. Innovation, however, has outpaced our ability to understand the implications of the release of rapidly generated families of structurally similar chemicals into our environment. Our data add to and extend the growing concern about the harmful reproductive effects of one such family, the bisphenols. Although most data derive from rodent studies, given the developmental and reproductive similarities, concerns almost certainly extend to humans. Importantly, bisphenols are not the only chemical family with an ever-increasing array of diverse members; other prominent environmental contaminant families include the parabens, perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), phthalates, flame retardants, and quaternary ammonium compounds.
The ability to rapidly enhance the properties of a chemical has tremendous potential for treating cancer, enhancing medical and structural materials, and controlling dangerous infectious agents. Importantly, this technology has paved the way for "green chemistry," a healthier future achieved by engineering chemicals to ensure against hazardous effects. Currently, however, regulatory agencies charged with assessing chemical safety cannot keep pace with the introduction of new chemicals. Further, as replacement bisphenols illustrate, it is easier and more cost effective under current chemical regulations to replace a chemical of concern with structural analogs rather than determine the attributes that make it hazardous.
Also at Fortune.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday September 17 2018, @03:25PM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 17 2018, @04:39PM
Polypropylene is best. If it can survive a pressure cooker, it ain't gonna leach on you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday September 17 2018, @04:53PM (1 child)
There is a hypothesis that the ever-earlier onset of female puberty is due to estrogenic plastics.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Monday September 17 2018, @09:30PM
Ugh
per
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/ [nih.gov]
Unsurprisingly 100% of the PC family plastics leached out estrogenic chemicals because thats what PC plastics are made of, BUT pure PE should be clean although no one uses pure PE in consumer junk so even "should be clean" plastics found out in the wild are none the less contaminated.
Its more a theoretical distinction at this time; its impossible chemically to manufacture PC family plastics without estrogenic chemical leaching, and theoretically possible to make "clean" PE family plastics, although in practice when buying cheap shit from China at Walmart essentially everything is contaminated to some level or another.
The study didn't go into the "why". Probably some contributors would be the usual "health sells regardless if its healthy or not" see low fat dieting and stuff like that. Probably some impact of recycling, make a nice batch of HDPE then some idiot recycles a water bottle into the mix and its contaminated as heck.
I guess a good analogy of the article without all the ... obfuscation... is something like everybody knows white paint contain(ed) lead. But its easy to make titanium dioxide based white paint. None the less the dudes went to their local home center and bought a shitload of consumer white paint ranging from "fuck you it is made with lead because we like the taste" brand paint to "we sell lead free paint to hippies using unicorn tears as our solvent" and despite the wide variation in marketing the paint percentage actually containing lead was like 60% to 100% with no real relationship between lead level and marketing other than explicitly lead-containing paint 100% contained lead.