Don't freak out about Nalgene

Oh boy. People found out that Nalgene was coating their polycarbonate bottles with bisphenol A, and they all freaked out!

I love how the media accuses politicians and coporations and some such as being fearmongers. Sure, some of these people really are fearmongers, but if the media did a good job, with, oh I dunno, a little research, maybe we could all destress just a little. I read a blog article posted by a girl who was getting rid of/finding new uses for her Nalgene bottles because (oh no!) she read here that they are coated with bisphenol A, which studies have shown can increase the risk of cancer in rats. Well, that does sound kinda scary . . . until you realize that everything increases the risk of cancer in rats. It's too bad that people are more likely to watch and read controversial, scary stuff, than they are to watch/read well researched and unopinionated news! And don't even get me started about how skewed and stupid the science reporting is. Seriously, get a science editor or corespondent or something! Someone who can tell you that what you are saying doesn't make any sense to anyone who knows a lick about science or engineering.

Nowadays I read science blogs written by people who don't make something sound scary just because it sells more news. This guy takes a very level-headed approach to the issue. If you read both posts, you come to the conclusion that, we still don't know whether Bisphenol-A can cause cancer. The problem we have here is that the Reuters article has you disdaining the FDA for not outlawing this substance! When the FDA is completely in the right. If they haphazardly outlaw Bisphenol-A, that's millions and millions of dollars lost in a US economy which I hear isn't spiraling downward anymore, but probably is still a bit sensitive.

The other problem is that science has no way of proving that something doesn't happen. We can't prove that BPA doesn't cause cancer. That's why the list of things that causes cancer includes thousands and thousands of materials and substances while the list of things that don't cause cancer is only, well, once someone told me broccoli was just about the only thing on that list . . .

But all the same, it is possible that bisphenol A may increase the risk of cancer at least a little more than broccoli, but the FDA won't get rid of it until they know that it does. Just like everything else that's not on the cancer list and isn't broccoli . . . Though reassuringly, scientists do know that the dose that seems to be harmful to lab rats is negligible in humans . . . hooray!

The fun part is that BPA is a form of synthetic estrogen . . . sorry, guys!! Just look what it does to roosters!
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