The Dangers of a Food Chemical: New Evidence Against BPA | The Cradle to Cradle Portal

The Dangers of a Food Chemical: New Evidence Against BPA | The Cradle to Cradle Portal

America's most demonized food-packaging chemical, nationally debated and being considered for a federal ban under an amendment of the food safety bill, S. 510, may be even worse than anyone imagined, a new peer-reviewed study finds. This chemical is bisphenol A (BPA), a compound found in plastic bottles, cans, containers, dental sealants, and even on receipts.

Research published on September 20 in Environmental Health Perspectives concludes that the potentially hazardous chemical can enter the human body via multiple routes and is far harder for our bodies to metabolize than previously believed. The new study examined both mice and rhesus monkeys, the latter selected because they are good predictors of how the human body absorbs this type of chemical. Eighteen hours after exposure, the monkeys' blood still contained active BPA—a finding that suggests we have "grossly underestimated current human exposure levels."