BPA and Government-Funded Alarmism

From Angela Logomasini of CEI.

"Steve Hentges has a great article on Science 2.0 clarifying some of the science related to the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA). Coincidentally, CEI has just released my paper on the funding and politics behind many of the BPA related studies that consumer hear about in the news. Both Steve’s article and my paper underscore why consumers need to be wary of all the crazy headlines related to this chemical, and why Congress should consider eliminating BPA research funding.

BPA is used to make hard clear plastics (polycarbonate plastics) and epoxy resins that are used in food packaging, such as for lining inside steel and aluminum cans, and other products. After more than five decades of use, there are no verified cases of anyone suffering ill effects from BPA exposure from consumer products. But activists focus on largely theoretical risks based on select research studies that find associations—which do not demonstrate cause and effect—between BPA and various health ailments and tests that show health effects in rodents dosed with massive amounts of BPA. However, scientific panels around the world have assessed the full body of research on BPA risks, and all find that human exposure is too low to pose a significant risk. See my paper for details.

The activist campaigns against BPA have been fueled by taxpayer-funded research of questionable value, much of it supported by grants from a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) called the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NEISH). According to a tally compiled by Citizens against Government Waste (CAGW), between 2000 and 2014, NIH doled out $172.7 million for BPA research grants. My study details more about these grants and why it makes little sense for government to support this work.

Today, Steve Hentges highlights two more useless studies on BPA, one of which was funded by NIESH. The two studies in question both find associations between BPA and a health effect. Yet ironically, they each show the opposite effect: One shows that pre-natal exposure to BPA translates into lower-birth rate babies and other shows that it translates into increased birth weight.

But the most important point here is that both studies are essentially useless for drawing any real conclusions. Hentges notes:

The problem is that one study reported that prenatal exposure to BPA was statistically associated with decreased birth weight while the other study reported an association with increased birth weight.  So which is it, does prenatal exposure to BPA increase or decrease birth weight?  Digging a little deeper into the study designs and some of the data reveals that neither study is capable of answering the question. 

A fundamental limitation of both studies is that these associations with birth weight were based on cross-sectional study designs in which health outcome and exposure data are collected at a single point in time.  With cross-sectional study designs, it is simply not possible to know if the exposure preceded the health effect, which is a necessary element to establish causation.  

The lack of a temporal sequence is a particular issue for BPA because it has a very short half-life in the body and it is well established that exposure measured at one point in time says very little about exposure at preceding times.  For this reason alone, neither study can speak to the effect of prenatal exposure on birth weight.

Hentges highlights a number of other issues with these studies, which you can read on Science 2.0. And to learn more about government funding of such unhelpful research, check out my paper."