Interview: A Blunt Warning On the Risks of BPA in Our Lives

The synthetic chemical Bisphenol A, or BPA, is found in everything from plastic bottles, to the linings of aluminum cans, to cash register receipts. But in addition to being a mainstay of the plastics industry, BPA is a potent, estrogen-mimicking compound. One of the world’s leading researchers into the adverse health effects of BPA is Frederick vom Saal, a biologist at the University of Missouri’s Endocrine Disruptors Group, and he warns that the ill effects of our frequent exposure to the chemical — which include an increased risk of prostate cancer, heart disease, and damage to the reproductive system — are far higher than either industry or U.S. regulators concede. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, vom Saal excoriates the U.S. chemical industry for covering up the dangers of BPA and U.S. officials for relying on shoddy studies to avoid regulating the chemical. The regulatory system, says vom Saal, “has fossilized to the point that it is absolutely perverting the sense that they are engaging in any kind of rational process of evaluating the health effects of chemicals.”

Read the interview