Trevor Butterworth at Stats.org has been covering the BPA uproar for quite a while. His April 10th post:

War has broken out on the pages of the world’s top scientific journal in toxicology – Toxicological Sciences – and for those watching it unfold, the intense combat, drawing in world leaders in their fields, has produced a clear and remarkable outcome: The panic over the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) is not only unjustified, it has reached a point where the failure to accept basic, rational principles in scientific research is damaging toxicology itself, wasting taxpayers money and undermining scientific progress.

I’m always interested in articles about BPA, because it was right when I was first buying baby gear that the whole story broke.  I remember going to Babies R Us about six times to try to find the Dr. Brown’s BPA free baby bottles, but they were always sold out.  People were panicked about BPA, and the non BPA bottles would fly off the shelves.  I couldn’t even buy them online.  When you’re expecting your first baby, you just want to get all the stuff in the house before the big day, and these BPA free bottles were a huge pain in the butt.

Two years of motherhood have calmed me down.  I will now microwave broccoli in just about any plastic container.  And according to this article, that’s probably okay.

Trevor Butterworth writes quite a bit about BPA.  His lengthy (seriously lengthy, but organized so you can jump around) article entitled “Science Suppressed:  How America Became Obsessed with BPA” can be found here.

Nancy McDermott wrote an interesting and enlightening piece about the BPA scare.

Some highlights:

…the story’s grip on the public imagination suggests that there’s more going on here. It is not that the facts are unavailable or that parents and journalists are incapable of grasping them. It’s more that it never occurs to them to be critical. They are blinkered by a mistrust of the fruits of modernity and by deep pessimism about the future.

Well said.

The willingness to assume the worst has a debilitating effect on public discussion. When scientists find nothing in claims about BPA, for instance, it is dismissed as the product of chemical industry manipulation rather than genuine and profound weaknesses with the entire thesis. Large, well-designed studies conducted by independently audited contract labs are suspect because they are ‘industry funded’. Apparently even Harvard University’s Center for Risk Assessment is merely a shill for the chemical industry because their 2000 report on BPA was commissioned by the American Plastics Council. In fact, anyone who dares to be critical of the BPA scare is accused of using the tobacco industry’s ‘delaying tactics’.

I’m sure that many who have found this blog are frustrated, as I am, by the persistence of beliefs in spite of evidence. The dismissal of evidence as corrupt is especially frustrating. » Continue reading “More on Bottles and the Culture of Fear”

I’ve always been a skeptical person, even as a child. When my Dad explained the idea of Santa Claus to me, I pointed out that we didn’t have a fireplace for Santa to enter. Then I did some research and compared my Dad’s handwriting to the sample Santa left next to the cookies, and that was the end of that. As I became an adult, my skepticism continued. When they said eggs were bad for us, I read the fine print. Yes, eggs have 71% of your daily cholesterol intake, but if you eat them in moderation, they provide exceptional nutrition.

All this changed when I had a baby.

» Continue reading “Post from Jennie M.: The Great Baby Bottle Scare of 2008″