environmental hype

The BPA Myth – continued

by Iain Murray on April 7, 2010

in Environment, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

I have an article today on both NRO and NPR about the environmental establishment’s continued war on science as it relates to the chemical BPA.  An excerpt:

California provides a good example of how the environmentalists have waged their war. On July 15, 2009, the state’s Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee voted not to list BPA as a reproductive toxicant under the terms of California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65). The very same day, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) submitted a 327-page petition to the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to begin a different process by which BPA could be listed as a reproductive toxicant.

The NRDC petition is pathetically weak. It includes as evidence a 2008 National Toxicology Program (NTP) report that showed no harm to humans from BPA, but called for further study. That study is now under way at the federal level, with the National Institutes of Health spending $30 million on research over the next two years. Neither the petition or the NTP report provides any reason for California to ban the substance before the results of the study come in.

Other evidence favors keeping BPA on the market. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report published in the scholarly journal Toxicological Sciences in October 2009 also showed no harm to humans from BPA.

The state — which is mired in budget crisis — is wasting public funds to indulge the whims of a single special-interest group. Yet it is not just taxpayer money that is at stake. NRDC is sending a message to businesses nationwide: If you use BPA — whether to make toys, eyeglasses, or medical equipment — don’t invest here. For no company will invest in a state — and thus create jobs and expand facilities in that state — if the state is threatening to stop manufacturing in the near future. NRDC’s whim is helping to prolong California’s recession.

I also point out the environmental groups’ double standards in attacking the substance that the EPA found safe while ignoring the one that the EPA found dangerous.  Nanny can be very selective at times.

Cross-posted from FightNanny.

Enviro-Scare Artists

by Angela Logomasini on April 21, 2009

in Environment

According to a new report released by enviro-scare artists at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, most food packaging still contains the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA). That is supposed to scare you, but I say, who cares? It’s there because it’s useful. BPA is one substance has proven very helpful in maintaining the integrity of the products it packages and there is scant evidence of anyone ever having a problem. The idea that food companies want to slowly poison their customers and that the Food and Drug Administration supports that strategy by issuing reports on BPA safety should be quickly dismissed as silly. But the green groups continue to make this case.

They note that the substance is found in human urine, which they say is evidence of exposure. Yes, indeed and it is also evidence to the fact that BPA quickly metabolizes and leaves the human body, like many harmless substances do. The simple fact is, the human body is exposed to trace-level chemicals on a daily bases, man-made and otherwise. This mere exposure to trace levels tells us nothing about risk. When the is risk is negligible, as FDA and others have found, there is no reason panic. Yet Greens focus on exposure and then target the chemicals they think make industry must vulnerable to attacks—because apparently for some reason, they don’t like business.

My colleague Jonathan Tolman and I have both written on the topic, highlighting the facts about the science and the risks. But these groups don’t seem to care much about the science. Apparently, the hype gets them more media attention and more power.