Toxic Chemicals Deemed Safe Due to ‘Chemical Safety’ Loopholes
June 01, 2016
Story at-a-glance
By Dr. Mercola The term “chemical safety” is an oxymoron of epic proportions, especially when it comes to the use in consumer products. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a classic example. Exposure to this chemical — used widely in plastic products, canned goods and more — in utero has been linked to altered brain function and organ development. In adults, exposure may lead to cancer, high blood pressure, obesity and sperm damage. Only after many years, and a plethora of published research showing its toxic effects, did some manufacturers begin to remove BPA from their products. Some governments also took action, such as that of France, which banned its use in food packaging, and the European Union, which banned it from baby bottles. You can now find many plastic products available in BPA-free form, which seems like a victory for safety. That is, until you understand that this is nothing more than a bait-and-switch. Most BPA-free plastics contain another chemical, bisphenol S (BPS), in BPA’s place. As its name implies, it’s very similar to BPA and, by some measures, may be even more toxic. There’s not enough research on BPS to know the extent of its risks, and companies are banking on it taking years before people get wind of BPS’ toxicity. In the meantime, they’re laughing all the way to the bank with their profits from premium-priced BPA-free goods. Why Chemical Bans Are IneffectiveJonathan Latham, Ph.D., co-founder and executive director of the Bioscience Resource Project, revealed many of the chemical-safety failures plaguing the U.S.1 Among them are the often-misunderstood realities surrounding chemical bans. From 1945 to 2007, U.S. chemical production increased 15-fold. Over the years, once “standard” chemicals have been pulled from the market after health concerns were revealed. Some of the chemicals were even banned from the market. Why does this ultimately do no good? Because the banned chemicals were, of course, quickly replaced with other chemicals that were supposedly safer, but which too often turn out to be toxic. Latham reported:
Rarely Discussed Limits to Chemical-Safety TestingVery few chemicals on the market are tested for safety, but even those that are, are not necessarily safe. Standard toxicology tests involve administering chemicals for up to 90 days (typically to rats or mice fed a standardized diet). The results are then used to form “estimates of harm” for other doses, age groups, species and environments. The problem is that many times there are gross errors in estimating what really happens when the chemicals are applied in the real world. For starters, commercial chemicals are often impure and may be contaminated with heavy metals and other toxins. Further, real-world exposures are complex and vary depending on too many factors to control. Then there is the issue of chemical cocktails — the simultaneous exposure to numerous environmental chemicals to which most people and animals are currently exposed. Many commercial products, such as pesticides, also contain ingredients intended to amplify the products’ potency, or other so-called “inert” ingredients that cause their own toxic effects. Studies, however, only evaluate one active ingredient in isolation. As a result, most research simply cannot predict the outcome of these real-world scenarios (or, should we say, ongoing experiments?). Latham explained:
Sometimes Smaller Doses Are More ToxicAnother issue is that many studies assume a linear dose-response relationship for the chemical and any given effect. That is, they assume that if a chemical causes organ damage at 200 parts per million (ppm), it will cause greater damage at higher exposures and less damage at lower levels. This is a dangerous assumption, because for many toxins, including some endocrine-disrupting chemicals, harm is exerted even at very small doses. Patricia Hunt, Ph.D., a geneticist at Washington State University, explained that endocrine disrupters like BPA, which act like hormones, “don’t play by the rules.” Even low-level exposure — levels to which people are currently being exposed — may be enough to damage developing eggs and sperm, for instance. In one of Hunt’s studies, researchers found disruptions to egg development after rhesus monkeys, which have human-like reproductive systems, were exposed to either single, daily doses of BPA or low-level continuous doses.2 Chemical Companies Are Running the Safety ShowTo say the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not an effective regulator is putting it mildly. The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which took effect in 1976, allows high-production volume chemicals to be launched without their chemical identity or toxicity information being disclosed. It also makes it very difficult for the EPA to take regulatory action against dangerous chemicals. Also incredulous, the EPA allows chemical companies to conduct their own experiments and provide the data for chemical risk assessments. Even after companies were found to be deliberately misleading the FDA about their study results, the EPA chose to turn a blind eye to the systemic corruption. Latham reported:
Are the Problems Unfixable?It’s clear that chemical-risk assessments do little to protect public health from dangerous chemicals, but can the problems be fixed? Latham believes the issues are “not just broken but unfixable.” Consider the complexities of testing multiple chemical cocktails. Experts agree that in order to gauge the true risk of a chemical, it should be tested in combination with others to more closely replicate real-world exposures. Yet, U.S. National Toxicology Program data suggests testing the interactions between 25 chemicals for 13 weeks would require 33 million experiments and cost $3 trillion.3 Even if it were possible to accurately test chemicals by competent, unbiased institutions using experiments that mimic real-world exposures (which it isn’t), Latham raises a good point — would any chemical be deemed “safe”? He noted, “What is so unbelievable, after all, about proposing that all man-made chemicals cause dysfunction at low doses in a significant subset of all the biological organisms on earth?” Congress Caves in to Chemical Companies in Toxic Substances Control Act OverhaulAn overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act is desperately needed, but an agreement recently reached doesn’t go far enough to protect Americans. On the bright side, the new agreement would give the EPA authority to require companies to provide safety data for untested chemicals and also prevent chemicals from coming to market if they haven’t been tested for safety. As the Act currently stands, the EPA can only demand safety data if they can prove the chemical poses a risk. In the last 40 years, the EPA has required testing for just 200 (out of thousands) chemicals and taken steps to regulate just five. One glaring problem is that the testing will still come from the industry itself. Another issue is that Congress caved in to industry and allowed a single regulatory system to oversee the industry, and also allowed companies the right to seek a federal waiver from the rules for certain chemicals. Under the new agreement, states may lose their power to regulate chemicals they deem toxic. In return, language was inserted to allow states to restrict a chemical’s use only if the federal risk review takes more than 3.5 years. As The Washington Post reported:4
Your Body Is Not a Toxin Dumping GroundIt’s virtually impossible to avoid all of the toxic chemicals in your environment, but that doesn’t mean you have to sit silently by while corporations use your home, your water, your air and your body as a convenient toxin dumping ground. Until change occurs on a global scale, you can significantly limit your exposure by keeping a number of key principles in mind.
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