Plastic disaster breaks through to mainstream

Our country is at a pivotal point in public health policy as it relates to our petroleum lifestyle. The implications cover consumerism's dead(ly) end and the demise of cheap energy from fossil fuels.

Bisphenol-A is the basic component of hard plastics that include baby bottles, linings of food cans, sealants for jars and bottles, and other well-known products that modern people have become dependent on. After several years of news stories about scientific studies and a few legislative attempts to ban or regulate bisphenol-A and other poisonous plastics, a scandal has just emerged involving U.S. government favoritism for corporate perpetrators.

Plastics such as bisphenol-A cause breast cancer, testicular cancer, diabetes, obesity, and birth defects -- although the evidence is often argued to apply so far only to laboratory animals. Other common plastics posing great danger include phthalates (softeners) and PVC (for piping, flooring, containers, etc.).

Despite the obviously questionable use of synthetic materials pervasive in a society ruled by profit maximizers, and several warnings in the news, little has changed until perhaps now. Blind faith in scientific progress for daily convenience also delays full realization of the error of plastics-dependence. Overcoming this may be harder than punishing corporate wrongdoers and banning chemicals.

John Dingell, Democratic Congressman of Michigan, has successfully defended Detroit's automakers for decades. This has assured the optimum pollution and energy waste associated with millions of cars made each year. But when a powerful politician has seen fit to maintain a friendly relationship with a major industry, he or she can be free to compensate or seek redemption by pursuing justice and environmental protection in other areas. Now he finds himself in a major role as a Congressional committee chairman (Commerce and Energy) spearheading the investigation of the Food and Drug Administration's hiding the clear danger of bisphenol-A.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on March 21:

Ignoring hundreds of government and academic studies showing a chemical commonly found in plastic can be harmful to lab animals at low doses, the Food and Drug Administration determined the chemical was safe based on just two industry-funded studies that didn't find harm.

In response to a congressional inquiry, Stephen Mason, the FDA's acting assistant commissioner for legislation, wrote in a letter that his agency's claim relied on two pivotal studies sponsored by the Society of the Plastics Industry, a subsidiary of the American Chemistry Council.

~ read on... ~