Here’s the opening of an email from one of our followers. Somehow, stuff like this always ends up in my inbox. Probably a coincidence.
The Scare. Such as it is.
Disclaimer: I’m sticking to male anatomy. I have woefully little experience with the female version, so I’m not about to improvise. Strictly testicular today. But first...
The best hate mail ever.
I was writing about the persistent nonsense scare relating to one of the components of polycarbonate plastics. It's called bisphenol-A (BPA)–also the topic here–and "Betsy" took exception to my article:
Obviously, I could not let this go unpunished:
I did not hear back from Betsy.
Chemicals in your panties.
As recently as last month, NBC published an article asking whether chemicals in your underwear might be harmful. The conclusion? You can’t be too careful: chemical-free, white, organic underwear starts to sound… responsible.
"If you’d like to minimize exposure to potential chemicals in your underwear[...]"
Bethany Heitman, NBC News, 11/7/25
Whoa! Let's pause for a moment. Americans are notoriously bad at gauging relative risk. We’re warned off colored underwear while people blithely sip a glass or two of Chardonnay every evening. Here's a little context:
Deaths from underwear chemicals: Approximately zero per year
Total deaths from alcohol: 178,000 per year
Alcohol deaths attributable to cancer: 20,000 per year
And I'm supposed to get my panties in a twist about wearing blue boxers? Please.
ACSH says...
One of the points we relentlessly hammer home is that the presence of a chemical tells us nothing about the risk posed by that chemical.
These days, modern analytical instruments can measure absurdly low concentrations of just about anything, creating an infinite list of things to worry about. If Paracelsus could figure out that the dose makes the poison in the 16th century, is it too much to expect an underwear-ambivalent individual to understand it too?
Researchers have shown that chemicals like BPA, PFAS, dyes, and flame retardants can transfer from fabric to skin. But the amounts are tiny, and it’s often unclear how much (if any) penetrates the skin, reaches the bloodstream, or approaches harmful levels.
And let's not forget that all of the chemicals in underwear are found in everyday life, so if you decide to go commando, you'll still be exposed to them from food, clothing, bottles, cans, spandex, and shower curtains, making organic underwear little more than a gimmick—a non-issue.
It’s impossible to single out one culprit—there are plenty—so let’s use BPA, perhaps the most villainized of all, as the example. The number of papers attempting to terrify people about this chemical is too big to count, so I’m not going to defend it here [1].
Keep those bad boys cool. And ventilated.
Another disingenuous argument for organic cotton is that genital temperatures, which might be higher in synthetic fabrics, inhibit sperm production, something Kramer was taking no chances with, as seen in one of the funniest scenes in the entire show.
There is some truth to the claim—but we’re talking extreme conditions: excessive sauna use (or maybe the deep fryer at KFC). Meanwhile, studies that treat underwear type as a proxy for temperature have been inconsistent, and at least one urology study found no difference in scrotal temperature between boxers and briefs.
Other claims include letting your privates "breathe." Do balls breathe? Sort of makes you wonder what CPR might look like.
Bottom line.
This fear is so stupid that I'm now going to wear TWO pairs of boxers every day, aka, "The Hot Zone."
NOTE
[1] The main “BPA safety” research FDA points to is the U.S. government’s CLARITY-BPA project: a large, carefully controlled long-term rat study run at FDA’s toxicology lab (with National Toxicology Program oversight), plus follow-up studies by academic labs using animals from the same exposure groups. Overall, this work did not find clear, consistent harm at the low BPA doses meant to mirror typical dietary exposure, and the FDA cites it as supporting its conclusion that BPA is safe at current exposure levels from approved food-contact uses.
Josh Bloom
Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science
Dr. Josh Bloom, the Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science, comes from the world of drug discovery, where he did research for more than 20 years. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry.
