By Alan
Caruba
According to Cheryl Rosenfeld, an
associate professor of biomedical sciences in the University of Missouri’s Bond
Life Science Center, loading up a bunch of California mice with a mega-dose of
bisphenol A (BPA) showed researchers that “What we have observed in those models
is that BPA affects male rodents differently from females.”
The
February 11 UM news release that announced this was titled “Bisphenol
A affects sex-specific reproductive behaviors in a monogamous animal
species” with a sub-headline that said “Animal findings suggest that gender
may also influence chemical risks for humans.”
So,
humans are expected to demand that BPA be banned based on the behavior of
BPA-besotted California mice, but not the deer mice on which previous similar
research was conducted. As noted in the release, “The two rodent species have
contrasting mating behaviors.” That’s right, it depends on the sexual
proclivities of the species of the mice involved and one has to make a mighty
leap of faith that Ms. Rosenfeld’s research applies to
humans.
Rosenfeld’s earlier work received
notice in a January 2, 2013 Science
Daily article which pointed out that, “Following a three-year study
using more than 2,800 mice, a University of Missouri researcher was not able to
replicate a series of previous studies by another research group investigating
the controversial chemical BPA.”
A
synopsis of the earlier study noted that “Rosenfeld’s group extended the studies
to include animal numbers that surpassed the prior studies to verify their
findings were not a fluke and to provide sufficient numbers of animals to ensure
that significant differences would be detected if they existed. However, even
these additional numbers of animals and extended experiments failed to reproduce
the earlier findings.”
It’s
worth noting that Ms. Rosenfeld’s later research involving monogamous California
mice represented a dose that is a 1,000 times greater than a human would ingest.
This research suggests that the anticipated outcome would demonstrate that BPA
is harmful.
It
reflects a global propaganda campaign to ban a chemical that has been safely in
use for fifty years. This campaign is the subject of my six-part series on BPA
that can be found at http://thebpafile.blogspot.com/, a blog I maintain that includes
other articles on the subject.
As
noted on The BPA File, “In 2011, ‘the German Society of Toxicology released a
review of more than five thousand previous studies of PBA exposure that
concluded that BPA exposure represents no noteworthy risk to the health of the
human population, including newborns and babies. Researchers concluded that BPA
is neither mutagenic nor likely to be a carcinogen.”
Five
thousand studies! At what point does 50 years of safe use to coat the insides of
aluminum food cans, protecting the contents against food pathogens such as
botulism, put this campaign by environmental groups and others to rest? How many
more studies do we need to demonstrate the safety of BPA in making shatterproof
safety goggles, DVDs, and scores of other products we use every
day?
In
March 2012 an Associated Press health reporter, Matthew Perrone, reported that
“The Food and Drug Administration has rejected a petition from environmentalists
(the Natural Resources Defense Council) that would have banned the
plastic-hardening chemical bisphenal-A from all food and drink packaging,
including plastic bottles and canned food.” The petition was rejected because
the “petitioners did not present compelling scientific evidence to justify new
restrictions…”
How
compelling is yet another study that involved feeding California mice 1,000
times more BPA than humans would ever ingest? And how would any rational person
conclude that alleged changes in monogamous California mice—but not the
polygamous deer mice—could be extrapolated to suggest that humans would be
affected?
An
August 8, 2011 editorial in The Wall Street Journal, “Postscript to a Panic”,
noted a study, “financed by the EPA…involved feeding (human) subjects a BPA-rich
diet for 24 hours. Researchers then monitored their blood and urine for traces
of the chemical” only to find that “the result was BPA levels too low to
detect.”
The
sheer absurdity of the campaign to get BPA banned reflects a deeper, more
sinister agenda by environmental organizations like the Natural Resources
Defense Council. It is the belief that the Earth’s human population must be
reduced to protect it. Banning BPA would put millions at risk of death from
food-borne diseases like botulism.
Given
the tenacity with which such groups prosecute their agendas, we can be assured
that these obsessed anti-BPA “researchers” aren’t going to go
away.
© Alan
Caruba, 2013
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