Science: BPA Concerns May Have Been Overstated

One of the things about belonging to a professional society is that one can receive occasional news round-ups of items that might be of interest.

As someone who likes hiking, I heard about BPA in the context of Nalgene deciding to shift the making of their water bottles to plastics that do not contain BPA.

In their BPA FAQ Nalgene said this:
We are confident that the bottles which contain BPA are safe for their intended use. However, because of consumer requests for alternative materials, we have decided to transition our polycarbonate product line to Eastman Tritan™ copolyester. This product joins our family of bottles and containers made of various non-BPA materials such as HDPE, PP, LDPE and PET.
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Based on the findings of the Food and Drug Administration, The Environmental Protection Agency, The European Food Safety Authority, The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, The Japan Ministry of Health, Labor & Welfare, The American Plastics Council and other reliable sources from around the world, we continue to firmly believe in the safety of our products containing BPA. However, we intend to carefully monitor the results of the National Toxicology Report and the Canadian government’s inquiry into this issue and any other relevant scientific information.

In a recent email news update from one of the scientific professional societies, there was a link to this item about BPA.

Excerpt:
“In a nutshell, says Teeguarden, “we can now say for the adult human population exposed to even very high dietary levels, blood concentrations of the bioactive form of BPA throughout the day are below our ability to detect them, and orders of magnitude lower than those causing effects in rodents exposed to BPA.”

The study was entirely funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), while the analytical work was duplicated by two other government laboratories to ensure extra rigor. The researchers used the latest and most sensitive techniques to find BPA as determined by the CDC (LC/MS/MS using on-line 2-dimensional liquid chromatography if you are curious). Moreover, the new study corroborates earlier independent studies which showed that BPA was rapidly absorbed, detoxified, and eliminated from humans.

I don't know how widely reported this study will be. But I pass it along via this blog to those who might have concerns about BPA. From a business perspective, does this mean BPA will once again be used?

As it is now, my current hiking water bottles are of the newer Nalgene BPA-free variety. Hopefully, there isn't some other chemical in those plastics that might be the subject of investigation in the future?!