Last night on Bill Moyers’ Journal, a report about Bisphenol A (BPA) by the PBS investigative journalism outfit Exposé was aired, complete with a kickin’ eighties guitar intro that makes you feel like you’re right there chasing down the bad guys with Crockett and Tubbs. The bad guys in question aren’t peddlers of narcotics but of every day household goods made of plastic containing BPA and their products are all perfectly legal in spite of a growing number of studies suggesting links between the chemical in question and a number of endocrinological maladies.

The story on Moyer’s show recapitulated the efforts of science journalists at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2007 to sift through the research on BPA and determine where the evidence actually pointed. What they found is disturbingly familiar:

Of the 258 studies reviewed by the Journal Sentinel, 168 studies looked at low-dose effects of bisphenol A.

The vast majority – 132 studies- found health problems at low doses, including hyperactivity, diabetes and genital deformities. All but one of those studies were conducted by non-industry scientists. Nearly three-fourthsof the studies that found the chemical had no harmful effects were funded by industry.

Shockingly, the lion’s share of “scientific” inquiry concluding that bisphenol A is perfectly safe has been funded by the very industries that depend on the chemical for their products. Now, the question remains, given the significant quantity of data in hundreds of studies about it, how did the National Toxicology Program panel on BPA assess the risks of the chemical in its report that year?

The panel said it considered more than 700 studies by university scientists, government researchers and industry-funded chemists. It picked the work it felt was best and threw out the rest.

The Journal Sentinel found that panel members gave more weight to industry-funded studies and more leeway to industry-funded researchers.

• The panel rejected academic studies that found harm – citing inadequate methods. But the panel accepted industry-funded studies using the same methods that concluded the chemical does not pose risks.

• The panel missed dozens of studies publicly available that the Journal Sentinel found online using a medical research Internet search engine. The studies the panel considered were chosen, in part, by a consultant with links to firms that made bisphenol A.

• More and more university researchers and foreign governments are finding that bisphenol A can do serious damage in small doses. But the panel rejected studies mostly submitted by university and international government scientists that looked at the impact at these levels.

• The panel accepted a Korean study translated by the chemical industry’s trade group that found bisphenol A to be safe. It also accepted two studies that were not subjected to any peer review – the gold standard of scientific credibility. Both studies were funded by General Electric Co., which made bisphenol A until it sold its plastics division earlier this year.

[...]

Panel chairman Robert Chapin, a toxicologist who works for Pfizer Inc., the pharmaceutical giant, defended his group’s work.

“We didn’t flippin’ care who does the study,” said Chapin, who worked as a government scientist for 18 years before joining Pfizer.

If the studies followed good laboratory practices and were backed with strong data, they were accepted, Chapin said.

Of course, pressure has mounted since then and NTP has revised its conclusions in a report published last month, as Americanus has previously reported. Still, the industrial-regulatory nexus of faux enforcement and revolving doors is growing quite tiresome, especially in a case where people’s health and perhaps even lives are at stake.

This morning’s New York Times cites a Canadian government source stating that a “toxic” label will be appended (bureaucratically speaking) to bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical widely used in plastics and a suspected hormonal disruptor.  As we mentioned yesterday, America’s National Toxicology Program recently issued a report raising concerns about the chemical compound’s health impacts.   But, unlike our northern neighbors, the U.S. doesn’t consider “likely endocrine disruptor” sufficient grounds to regulate a substance contained in plastic baby bottles.  Once a cohort of babies has been tracked over the course of their lives and the suspected developmental pathologies associated are with BPA demonstrated with a high degree of statistical confidence, then we can do something.  (Be on the look out for a ban between 2040 and 2050.)

What I found most interesting about the Times piece was a statement from a researcher who remains skeptical of the findings:

But [Michael D. Shelby] said that research strongly suggested that polycarbonate food and beverage containers and food cans were the main source of human exposure to B.P.A. When asked if people should stop using them, Dr. Shelby replied: “That becomes kind of a personal choice. These are certainly two things people can get around.”

Ah, yes, here we come to the “rational choice” fallacy that underlies so much of modern economic theory.  Why regulate a potentially hazardous substance in consumer products when the consumer his or herself, properly informed of the issue, can make a choice not to buy the product?  Aside from the fact that this assumes that every consumer who purchases plastic products is well versed enough in the science of hormonal development to judge the risks of using said items, when was the last time you bought something with a label reading: “Contains bisphenol A?”  Perhaps I missed that on my Nalgene bottle.

I’m not saying that the average consumer is an incompetent fool who must be guided at every turn by a nurturing “nanny state.”  However, given the complexity of these issues and the amount of time it would take to keep oneself abreast of all the hazards and problems of all the products on the market today, it is entirely unrealistic to believe that consumer choice is the answer problems of product safety.  Certainly it would be ideal if people could know all the facts and choose for themselves in every case, but it’s not going to happen.  That being said, I would venture to assert that in some cases, government regulation, rather than markets, may be the efficient solution where consumer safety is concerned.

Florida’s state Board of Education came through on new curriculum guidelines for biology classes by adding the word “evolution” to the text, thus bringing the Sunshine State up to the standards of 1859. The 4-3 vote was based on a compromise; namely that evolution would be taught only as a “scientific theory.” This phraseology was pushed by members of the anti-evolution religious right, in and out of the legislature, as a means of stripping the legitimacy of the term evolution. Personally, I have no problem with the inclusion of the word “theory” since, if it is understood correctly, it really just betrays the ignorance of most creationists as to what a scientific theory actually is. Sorry guys, but at least you still have some vague, misshapen indentations in some mud, or whatever the hell that is.

If all goes well today, Florida’s state Board of Education will strike a blow for, well, education by inserting the “biological process which shall not be named” into the state’s science curriculum guidelines. Of course, I refer to evolution, the educational lightning rod that has the power to rally fundamentalists everywhere in the cause of turning the clock back to the 18th century. As it stands, the science curriculum standards (which haven’t been updated since 1996) require students to understand only the concept of “biological changes over time,” while the new guidelines would include the “e-word” by name.

Though it looks like evolution is likely to make into the new standards, the religious opposition has changed tack to pushing either the “theoretical” nature of evolution or mandating equal time for “alternatives” like creationism or that wonder of twenty-first century branding, intelligent design (read: creationism, with big words and fancy PowerPoint presentations). In fact, the Miami Herald notes that Fred Cutting, who helped put the new standards together, made a failed attempt to get intelligent design into the standards as well; even going so far as to contact noted ID advocacy group, the Discovery Institute for help. (For some insight into the what the group really wants, you might want to check out their leaked paper on the “Wedge Project.”)

I have to say, as an alumnus of Florida’s public school system as well as (briefly) a faculty member, I’ve seen first hand the damage done by the benighted, test-focused educational policy sold to the public by Jeb Bush & Co. in recent years. While I was lucky enough to attend a school with talented, free-thinking faculty who ventured to speak the name of the devil in class, not everyone is so fortunate as I. As such, I hold a lot of hope that this first, small step toward a rational education policy will be taken today and will herald further changes to come. And maybe, just maybe, if young Floridians do start to learn more about evolution in class and don’t then become atheistic monsters parroting the ideas of Stalin and Mao, people will begin to realize that there is some room for science and faith to coexist…but maybe that’s hoping for a little too much.