MARIAH BLAKE: Well, essentially, there is relatively new research showing that the vast majority of plastics, at least commercially available plastics that are used for food packaging, contain BPA-like chemicals, so chemicals that are what they call estrogenic. So BPA is a chemical that mimics the hormone estrogen. And estrogen plays—we all have estrogen in our bodies. It plays an essential role in various bodily functions and is also very important in human development, so the development of our brain, the development of our organs. However, too much or too little of this hormone, basically, especially during early childhood or prenatally, can set you up for disease later on in life. So, exposure—what the research shows is that exposure in the womb can then lead to breast cancer, diabetes, increased aggression, really sort of a staggering list of health problems later on in life. George Bittner is a neuroscientist at the University of Texas, and he has launched an independent lab called CertiChem—it also has a sister company called PlastiPure—and it tests products for estrogenic activity. And he—working with a prominent Georgetown professor, he and his staff tested, I think it was, 455 commercially available plastics that are on the market and published a paper in Environmental Health Perspectives, which is the premier NIH journal, which found that virtually all commercially available plastics have estrogenic activity. And among the plastics he tested were Tritan products, several Tritan products. And this publication, this finding, prompted a pretty big backlash from the industry. So he ended up being targeted by the industry as a result and, in fact, was sued by Eastman, which is—many of the documents that formed the basis of my story were released as a result of that lawsuit.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 06:58:58 +0000
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