A new off-off-off Broadway production is in the works. It has: Drama! Intrigue! Denialists Exposed!
It's Bisphenol-A: The One Act Play.
Read on to find out about Endocrine Disruptors! See how the tobacco interest is related to the recent Bisphenol controversies! Hear about Nalgene and the National Toxicology Program report and industry spokespeople! Revel in the claims of lobbyists! Look in on the outcomes of an entire regime of consumer products and late-modern chemical production!
All at the Science Creative Quarterly today and, soon, in limited production at community theaters near you.
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Let's have a taste below the fold, no?
Our evening began in Peter Seychelles comfortable study in his New York townhouse, where the candlelight was just right, the hi-fi was in the background, and the Bisphenol-A was causing a stir.- - -
Narrator: A worried friend rushes in worried about recent plastics news. She is worried. The scene is set.
Worried Friend, rushing into the study (appears worried, gnawing fingernails, shifty, unsteady eyes, a mauve t-shirt that says "concerned" right across the chest): What do I do? What do I do?
Other friend, not worried (puffing a pipe, which he is quick to note is not a pipe): What do you mean? Is this about all that Bisphenol-A?
Worried friend: Yes! Yes! We need to talk plastics....I'm scared to buy anything in plastic, use plastic, have plastic near....is everything that is being said true? What's it mean? Why haven't I heard of this? Is it new? It's all over the news! My kids, my God, my kids! I've been just sitting around and freaking out!
With thanks, the author notes, to key anonymous contributors who basically supplied half of the details in here.
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I don't know if the BPA risk concept is going to turn out to be a serious medical issue or not. However, I bought some stainless steel water bottles and will use them instead of plastic ones. I also have stopped microwaving food in plastic of any kind or with plastic wrap over it. Can't hurt, might help.
Just my 2 cents.
"Can't hurt, might help" is an attitude that often can hurt and impedes help. In the present case, BPA has not been shown to have any carcinogenic or estrogen-receptor effects in human studies (if you're a rat, you need to worry, since you metabolize BPA differently from human subjects). But the paper products you are probably using to plate and cover your microwaved food are likely to contain extremely toxic, carcinogenic dioxins and other paper processing chemicals. Your stainless-steel water bottles are probably OK, unless someone hits you over the head with one. :)
speedwell: can you provide me with an example of when "can't hurt, might help" did hurt and impede help?
Jody, are you seriously asking because you seriously lack the capacity to imagine any such cases yourself, or are you trying to imply that there are really no such cases?
In the case of Texas Reader, I actually pointed out a not unlikely way that avoiding plastic (in favor of paper products) in the microwave would put the user at risk of exposure to highly toxic chemicals from paper processing, even as they sought to protect themselves from a far unlikelier threat from plastic. I'm not sure how you managed to miss this.
For an overwhelming number of "can't hurt, might help" gaffes, I need only to refer you to practitioners of alternative medicine.
huh. There it is again. Can you give me some examples from "alternative medicine" that might fit your generalization? I'm sure we could play this game all day. You make assertion/I ask for clarification/You say I just don't get it, followed by new assertion/I ask for clarification/You say I just don't get it, followed by new assertion/I ask for clarification/...
While fun, perhaps, it also seems a waste of time. Surely for every "alternative medicine" example you provide I could come up with one "non-alternative" medicine example where the consequences of wound up being far worse. Like, e.g., the wide spread use of DDT for disease control (can't hurt, might help); the use of antibacterials in nearly every commercially available product for cleaning (can't hurt, might help); the wide-spread use of antibiotics in situations where it's not clear they are warranted or to keep our animal factories filthy but sanitary (can't hurt, might help); or the use of DES to control nausea during pregnancy (can't hurt, might help).
Perhaps the real problem is that there is *no* viable alternative that could actually considered to be safe.
More importantly: why is the Canadian on a pony in the one-act play? These Canadian stereotypes get really old fast...
(HgMan -- You didn't think the pony [standard theatrical trope, right?] was offset by the contention that the Canadians were far wiser about the issue?)
Oh I got the theatrical trope--Russian rifle on mantle, English ascot, Guatemalan sombrero, Canadian pony. I just expected something more nuanced. Not sure Canadians have been any wiser at all, mind you...