Wow, today's really the day for covering the press coverage: Fast Company published an excellent article on - guess what - "The Real Story behind Bisphenol A".


Photograph by Nigel Cox.

The article nicely unscrambles the influence of the chemical industry and their lobbyists on the regulation of chemicals, and once more demonstrates that BPA is a text book example, not only in toxicology but also in political sciences!

By pure coincidence, I received the letter of the Weinberg Group, Fast Company is refering to. You may download it here: Weinberg-Group (pdf, 352 KB)

What really scares me is the modality in which industry tries to discredit scientists. May that also happen to me and my work on plastic bottles? We'll see! Meanwhile: read Fast Company!

After beeing a major issue in the North American media, the Endocrine Disruptor Bisphenol A (BPA) finally gathers attention in Germany. In September 2008 Report München, a major investigative TV-magazine, covers the story of the plastic component BPA.

In January there was a similar report on hr-Fernsehen, a regional TV station in the state of Hesse. The story was also covered by Die ZEIT, the major weekly newspaper in Germany. Christian Heinrich asks "Gefahr aus der Babyflasche?" (Danger from baby bottles?).

I guess, these reports are motivated by the BPA ban proposed by Health Canada and the subsequent public debate in Canada and the USA.

In a quite nice way they disclose the strange German dichotomy in the official opinion on BPA: The responsible agency, the Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung (BfR, Federal Institute for Riskassessment), calls Bisphenol A safe and even supported the elevation the tolerable daily intake from 0.01 to 0.05 mg/kg bodyweight by the EFSA.

Although not directly involved in consumer health matters the Umweltbundesamt (UBA, federal Environmental Protection Agency) strongly opposes the BfR policy by advising parents not to use plastic bottles containing BPA.