In between gasps about the hottest year ever, and palpitations over fracking, environmentalists have been worked up for a long time now about BPA—bisphenol-A, an ingredient in many plastic products. Environmentalists want it banned, because Rosie O’Donnell or something. Well, European environmental regulators, who typically ban things before breakfast, have given BPA a clean bill of health. They found . . . oh heck, why not let Ron Bailey, the best science writer ever, tell it:
The hyper-precautionary European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) just issued a comprehensive analysis of the safety of dietary exposures to bisphenol-A (BPA) that finds “no consumer health risk from bisphenol-A exposure.” BPA is a compound that is used to soften various plastics including those in water bottles and the linings of canned food containers. For years, environmental activists have been pushing the scientifically dubious low-dose endocrine disruptor hypothesis in which trace exposures to some synthetic chemicals deleteriously upsets the balance of sex hormones in the human body. Among other things, endocrine disruption due to exposure to synthetic chemicals supposedly causes lower sperm counts, deformed penises, and early breast development in girls.
Not so, says the EFSA. The agency’s press release states:
EFSA’s comprehensive re-evaluation of bisphenol A (BPA) exposure and toxicity concludes that BPA poses no health risk to consumers of any age group (including unborn children, infants and adolescents) at current exposure levels. Exposure from the diet or from a combination of sources (diet, dust, cosmetics and thermal paper) is considerably under the safe level (the “tolerable daily intake” or TDI).
There’s more, but this is enough. I’m sure environmentalists will move on to something else. Just like they have with nuclear power.
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