More Fake News on BPA – Should You Care?

Steven Hentges, Ph.DThursday, September 13, 2018 BPA
The title of a recent press release on a new study sounds ominously important: “BPAreplacements in plastics cause reproductive problems in lab mice.” Reading further, thepress release refers to “the array of alternative bisphenols now used to replace BPA,” andthe new study states that “[r]eplacement bisphenols have rapidly emerged in consumer
products.”

But is it true that BPA has been replaced in consumer products by alternative bisphenols,or is this just more fake news? Although the study was published in a scientific journal, little
hard evidence is provided to substantiate the claim.

The lack of supporting evidence isn’t surprising since there is no basis in fact to say that
BPA has been replaced by other bisphenols. More importantly, there is little reason toconsider replacing BPA at all, whether by other bisphenols or anything else.

Many factors are considered by manufacturers in selecting materials to make theirproducts. For BPA, the two factors that rise to the top are safety and performance, and itwould be an almost insurmountable challenge to find anything that beats BPA on thesecounts.

Most BPA is used to make polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins. Both are highperforming materials that have been widely used for decades in a wide array of consumer
and industrial products.

Polycarbonate plastic is clear like glass, yet lightweight and highly shatter-resistant. Its
virtually unique set of attributes accounts for its use in products ranging from automobiles
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to cell phones, sports safety equipment, medical devices, and much more. Whether you
know it or not, you use it every day.

Epoxy resins have an outstanding combination of toughness, chemical resistance and highadhesion, which makes them well suited to a wide range of protective coating applications.
More recently, they are increasingly used in high-strength/light weight composites thatyou’ll find in wind turbine rotor blades and in the fuselage and wing structures of modern
aircraft.

Safety is as important as performance, and here BPA also excels with a 50+ year safety
track record. The safety of BPA has been repeatedly confirmed by government
agencies worldwide, even for sensitive applications involving contact with food. As
succinctly summarized by FDA on its website: “Is BPA safe? – Yes.”

But there’s more, and it’s the real news that’s happening now – the CLARITY Core Study.
Designed with unprecedented scope and magnitude, the CLARITY study was conducted by
FDA senior scientists to resolve remaining uncertainties about the safety of BPA.

The results of the CLARITY study were released earlier this year in the form of a draft
report. In a statement released at that time, Dr. Stephen Ostroff, Deputy Commissioner forFoods and Veterinary Medicine at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) noted: “ourinitial review supports our determination that currently authorized uses of BPA continue tobe safe for consumers.” Since then, the CLARITY study has been peer reviewed by a panelof independent scientists and the final report is expected to be released in the very nearfuture.

Although the newly published study and press release on alternatives to BPA missed themark, it did get one thing right. The authors point out that “BPA-free is a valuable marketing
tool, and most consumers interpret this label as an indication of a safer product.”

Indeed it is a marketing tool, and the label itself may be “fake news” for consumers as it has
nothing to do with safety. BPA-free products may not contain BPA, but that doesn’t makethem safe.

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