Yesterday, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to ban from the city the manufacture, sale, or distribution of products containing the chemical BPA (bisphenol-A) if the products are to be used by children younger than three.
That will sound compassionate to most people -- in fact, it will sound compassionate to most people before they even stop to ask whether BPA causes any particular health problems -- but it's not.
BPA is used to make shatter-resistant polycarbonate plastic used in the manufacture of baby bottles, reusable food containers, helmets and sports safety equipment, all usable precisely because they are so durable. All of these things will now become slightly more difficult to acquire and at best slightly more expensive for customers as replacement production methods are sought.
BPA has been falsely accused of being a cancer risk in humans primarily because of a study in which large doses fed to female rats caused slight irregularities in their egg cells. There is no reason to believe that use of plastics made with the chemical will lead to ingestion of the vast quantities that might even be suspected to cause any similar effects in humans. And the instinctive fear that "the children" are orders of magnitude more vulnerable is largely fiction and supposition.
Literally about half the chemicals in the world, whether natural or manmade, would have to be banned under the ludicrous standards employed in the hasty ruling by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The difference between BPA and all those other chemicals is not so much scientific as political: BPA has had the misfortune to draw the attention of groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, who have campaigned for its abolition.
Enjoy the durability of products made with BPA while they last, San Francisco. Under the new rule, the rigid anti-chemical crackdown arrives on December 31.
Todd Seavey is Director of Publications at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).
