What Is BPA? Is It Dangerous?
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Philip Landrigan, MD Dir, Children's Environmental Health Ctr.
BPA, Bisphenol A is another classic chemical that's very widely used in plastics, it's found in some brands of plastic drinking bottles. It's used to line tin cans for can food, it's in a wide variety of consumer products. The evidence about the toxicity of BPA is still coming out, it's still relatively early. But we know with absolute certainty that Bisphenol A is an estrogen. When it gets into the human body it behaves like an estrogen and it sends conflicting hormonal signals that mess up the normal signaling in the human body. So I think it makes sense for pregnant women—for young children to minimize their exposure to BPA. Better to be safe than sorry. Better to be a little, to air here on the side of prudence.