Should Canadians Worry About Exposure to BPA?

Steven Hentges, Ph.D
Wednesday, August 30, 2017 SAFETY
Last week Health Canada released an anticipated report with important new data on
exposure of Canadians to a variety of chemicals. It’s important because without knowing how
much of which chemicals we’re exposed to, it’s difficult to know whether those chemical
exposures are safe or not.
After all, dose does matter. If you’re not sure about that, imagine taking a bottle of aspirin
next time you have a headache. You will get rid of your headache, and a lot more. In particular
you might get rid of your life since two aspirin are safe and effective for the headache but awhole bottle of aspirin could kill you.
The Fourth Report on Human Biomonitoring of Environmental Chemicals in Canada provides
exposure data on 54 environmental chemicals for more than 2,500 participants throughout
Canada. The report is part of an ongoing program that produces biennial reports, this one
covering the 2014-2015 time period.
The report includes data on exposure to bisphenol A (BPA), which is primarily used to makepolycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins. Those materials are widely used in products thatmake our lives better and safer every day, and our use of those products raises the potential
for exposure to trace levels of BPA. The Health Canada report is so important because it tells
us just how much BPA Canadians are exposed to. As noted above, the dose does matter.
Most likely you didn’t see any of the limited media coverage on the report, and that’s a goodthing since it appears the media didn’t actually read the report. Perhaps the most glaringomission from the few media stories is a point so important that Health Canada included it in
its short “Backgrounder” on the report.
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“It is important to note that the presence of a chemical in a person’s body does not necessarilymean that it will affect their health.”
Of course what we want to know is whether the presence of a chemical in our body will affectour health. The report documents that BPA, in the form of its inactive metabolite, is present
in urine, which means exposure did occur. But what does that data mean for our health?
Fortunately for consumers, it’s relatively easy to interpret the data with respect to health.
Along with other government bodies, Health Canada has already determined a safe intake
level for BPA. And, in a previous study, Health Canada researchers further determined theamount of BPA that would be measured in urine if exposure occurred at the safe intake level.
That value is known as the Biomonitoring Equivalent (BE) for BPA.
Comparison of the new data with the BE reveals that typical exposure to BPA in Canada isfully 1,000 times below the safe intake level set by Health Canada. The data strongly supportsHealth Canada’s earlier conclusion that “Bisphenol A does not pose a risk to the general
population, including adults, teenagers and children.”It’s not just Canadians who can be confident in the safety of BPA. A recent analysis from agroup of researchers in China revealed that exposure to BPA is very low in every one of the30 countries where it’s been measured. Perhaps the US Food and Drug Administration says
it best in a Q&A on its website: Is BPA safe? Yes.

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