In this and subsequent blogs I will lay out some of the major classes of chemical compounds in involved in manufacture and production, distribution, utilization, disposal and recycling of plastics. It is by no means inclusive, just the primary players that we have data points on. More than 350,000 chemical compounds have been made in the past 70 years. Only about 20% were ever tested in any fashion. There are about 80,000 registered chemicals in the US of whom less than a dozen have been regulated.(source Linda Birnbaum,podcast with Nate Hagens Jan 21, 2025, The Great simplification.
Some of these chemicals used in plastics will be familiar to you and others probably not. The most widely used are bisphenols, and phthalates . Bisphenols and Phthalates are plasticizers which are added to plastics to increase flexibility, durability, transparency and longevity. They are similar in their effects on biologic systems. They are especially toxic to mollusks, invertebrates. and fish when they show up in bodies of water because they leach out so readily. They are similar in uses and effects so in a sense talking about them separately can be misleading. Lets start with BPA, Bisphenol A being the poster child.You will likely know it from the baby bottle and sippy cup controversy within the past 15 years. It has long been known as an EDC(endocrine disrupting chemical) and despite hundreds of studies over decades the FDA responding to the Chemical companies lobbying allowed it to be used in Baby bottles, water bottles and food packaging. But retailers in 2011 and many states did voluntarily remove it from shelves in 2011 responding to consumer pressure and not FDA regulation.. The FDA did nothing for years but finally did ban it from baby food/formula containers in 2013. At this point I feel the need to add a big culprit to my list: The FDA! It reads: FOOD and DRUGS which is ridiculous on the surface. . It is like having the FAA combined with EPA under one roof. The FDA IMO has failed dismally at regulation of both food and drugs. At the very least it should be broken into two agencies. Another important fact is the the FDA has concerned itself with ACUTE and not chronic toxicity of both food and drugs. This has been pointed out by many scientists. This applies to both acute and chronic disease and the FDA has ignored chronic disease caused by certain “ foods”. An example is that the FDA has stated there is no risk to high sugar consumption acutely when it has long been known to be one of the dominant causes of the Metabolic syndrome when consumed heavily chronically. I have addressed this in a previous blog and will do so in the future. It is also well known that chemicals and additives banned in Europe and Asia are not banned in the US by the FDA. Sorry about that rant. Let us return to our EDC’s………….
BPA was discovered by Alexandr Dianin in 1891. An interesting factoid about phthalates and Bisphenolwas was their discovery in the 1930’s that they had estrogenic effects like Bisphenol, when the search was on worldwide for a synthetic estrogen. We knew 90 years ago of their potential for endrocrine effects! But these two classes lost out to diethylstilbesterol(DES) being developed about the same time. More on that later. BPA really entered industrial production in the 1950’s with the development of epoxy adhesives and polycarbonate. BPA was mixed with phosgene(YES! one of poison gasses of the first World war!) and it made a hard plastic: polycarbonate. Polycarbonate was a durable plastic so hard that it was bulletproof. It was easily formed into cheap food and liquid containers when it was licensed in 1963 without any published safety information(!). Bisphenol found its way into other plastics such as polyacrylate,polyethylamide,polyester, polyester-styrene, polysulphone. Also polyethylene(as in water bottles), polyethylene terphthalate(a pthalate) and pvc as a hardening agent, antioxidant and stabilizer. It is still with us and is ubiquitous. It is found in free form on some thermal printing papers, cosmetics, medical equipment, sports equipment, many toys, clothing, food and drink containers and other goods.
Bisphenol production(2022) was said to be 10 billion kg/yr. It cannot be usefully and economically recycled (like almost all plastics!!!), and ends up in landfills leaching out into groundwater, dust, dirt and air. The USGS has seen concentrations as high as 6 mg/ltr and Japan has estimated that 84% of all EDC estrogenic activity in their country is due to just to Bisphenol. BPA can be measured in 93% of all US citizens and it is a cumulative poison. The good news is that its half life is only in days to hours unlike another class of chemicals we will visit, the “forever chemicals”, PFAS. You would think that Food and drink companies would have removed it decades ago but you would be wrong. Most of the International soft drink companies like Coca-Cola, Monster energy drinks and General mills still use it because Bisphenol products are part of the business and profit model of BIG Processed Food and Big Fast food companies. They continue to use it for food safety considerations and long shelf life which to an extent is true, But it poses other more hidden and delayed food safety risks which they are happy to ignore. These companies and the production companies like Dow, Dupont and their Trade group the American Chemical Council use the well thumbed playbook of the tobacco companies of denial, obfuscation and delay.. I would not accuse them of criminality or evil because it is useful and fair to look at both sides of an issue. If the FDA says they can use these poisons then they are off the hook when they do. There is a huge database of medical conditions related to just this chemical and its relatives and I will only hit upon some of the more proven established conditions but the potential list is very large. I will also explain the exact biophysiological mechanisms altered and how and why they work to do their nefarious effects. I realize I may lose a few of you. Sorry!
There has been a steady rise in population “excess deaths”beginning to rise above baseline in the past several decades and there is no doubt in my mind that this is largely due to chemical environmental and dietary substances. It is almost guaranteed to be multicausal with a HUGE amount of factors, most of which will be difficult to tease out individually. It will be difficult to remove chemicals like Bisphenol by legislative action but we as individuals can do a lot to reduce their impact on our lives. If we don’t use it, they wont(may not?) make it. I will humbly offer my suggestions in a future blog.
Let us look at the mechanism of EDC’s of which BPA is a big player. BPA looks to the human body like an estrogen or an androgen hormone. It mimics their action on both short and long term metabolism. BY binding to various receptors it can block the action of hormones even at very low concentrations. For example we know the BPA is an antagonist of the thyroid hormone precursor. It interferes with thyroid synthesis, secretion and signaling.
We also hear almost daily about the drop in sperm cell levels and production worldwide, worse in certain regions. BPA decreases sperm cell motility, and spermatogenesis. That hits both the quantity and quality of sperm. But wait! There’s more. Men exposed to daily elevated levels of BPA show reduced sexual desire and libido, reduced erectile function and orgasms. These effects have been found not only in humans but in mice,cattle, chickens and even fish!!! The signal paper was a meta study of over 7500 abstracts and papers in 2017 byLevine, Swan, at al., in “Human Reproductive update”.
They said that sperm concentration in the developed world from 1973 to 2011 had fallen from 99 units to just 47, a compound rate of almost 2%/yr. This has continued since then and even has accelerated in some regions. It is believed that the etiology is chemical toxicity which almost certainly starts early in fetal development and comprises epigenetic factors.(I will address the fascinating phenomenon of epigenetics in a future blog). This was not good news to the chemical companies and they of course are fighting back. The American Chemical council used the old legal argument:”Correlation is not causation.” This despite a large raft of studies showing exactly that using in vivo and in vitro studies of humans and mammals.
As a sidebar I would like to insert the work of Jeremy Grantham, who authored a paper https://www.gmo.com/americas/research-library/chemical-toxicity-and-the-baby-bust_viewpoints/which created quite a stir about this sperm depletion issue.
Jeremy Grantham is a British investor and philanthropist who considers this phenomenon of sperm and birth decline and deferred childbirth the” greatest threat to the human race”. He focused on this in an excellent paper in 2020 in the publication GMO.com. entitled “Chemical Toxicity and the Baby Bust.” He posts graphs from the WHO and the US National center for Health Statistics also showing large jumps in auto immune diseases such as Type 1 DM, MS, Asthma, Celiac disease and autism. I commend readers to read his excellent paper. Jeremy was influenced by a well known book”Empty Planet: The shock of global Population Decline” published in 2019. I am not persuaded that this is due solely to chemical toxicity . There are other drivers of acute and chronic disease. The list is not short.
Let me end this blog. There are more chemical culprits every bit as terrifying as Bisphenol and phthalates. We will visit them in the next blog.
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