Short Stuff: All about BPAs

Are BPAs safe? Of course not. Does the FDA care? Of course not. Learn all about what and why today. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:06Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry sitting in for Dave. So this is short stuff about the beware of the BPA's.

• 1:17Speaker 03

  That's right. We're talking about BPA's, specifically, well, BPA, which is, how do you pronounce that, Josh?

• 1:25Josh Clark?

  I'm going with bisphenol or bisphenol A.

• 1:28Speaker 03

  Bisphenol A. There are other bisphenols, apparently, which I didn't know. And apparently, you know, none of these are good for you, even though the FDA is like, it's fine in the amounts that you're getting it.

• 1:40Josh Clark?

  Stop being so uptight, everybody. Yeah, they're used in all sorts of plastics, polycarbonate in particular, but that stuff shows up everywhere. It can be in the stuff that lines tin cans. It can be in your dental work. It can be in contact lens, storage containers, baby bottles. Used to be. I don't think it is anymore, but it was everywhere. It's also now, still today, the greatest exposure that people get on average is from holding receipts, thermal paper receipts.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  Oh, interesting.

• 2:15Josh Clark?

  Those are coated with BPA. So just be aware of that. I saw a study that said just holding one for 10 seconds exposes you to unsafe levels of BPA.

• 2:26Speaker 03

  You know, many years ago, when we lived in Los Angeles, and it's a joke Emily still laughs at to this day, because it's just very me, very sardonically Chuck, was we left a Blockbuster video, and it was like, print, print, print, and they did that thing where there was a ticker tape of like, three feet of receipts, each, you know, connected by a little tiny piece of paper.

• 2:48Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  And he handed them to me, and I just went, "Thank you for the receipts." And Emily thought that was the funniest thing ever, and she still says it to this day.

• 2:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I could see being in the right place and the right frame of mind and just finding that awesome.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, really stoned at Blockbuster?

• 3:04Josh Clark?

  Sure. Do you remember what you rented?

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Oh, no, no, no, who knows? But now that I, I don't feel so bad now that I know that those things are loaded with BPAs, I don't want those in my pocket.

• 3:16Josh Clark?

  No, you don't. And the reason why we're even like, talking about BPA, is all thanks to a geneticist named Dr. Patricia Hunt, who was studying the ovaries of mice, back in the late 90s, 1998, that was her jam. She was not looking for BPA, she was not studying BPA at all, but BPA came and found her, essentially.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, she saw these chromosomal errors start popping up. They went from 2% to 40% in these mice that she was studying, in the control group, and that, you know, there was miscarriage, there were birth defects in these little baby mice, it's all very sad. And she ran some more tests, and she was like, "You know what? All of these cages in water bottles, that these mice are drinking out of, have BPA in them, and I think that's where it's coming from." So she swapped that stuff out with non-BPA stuff, everything returned to normal, and she was like, "I think I found something really bad here, everybody."

• 4:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, she did. She also really started to examine what BPA did, disrupted fetal development, the eggs of the fetus that had its development disrupted, that fetus's eventual babies, those were also disrupted as well. So, yeah, she was like, "I think something is really bad here." And what she turned up is that- BPA acts as an endocrine disruptor, meaning it mimics a hormone in our body, which does all sorts of stuff because our hormones are very, very well precisely timed. And you go over here and do this, you go over here and do that. And if something shows up en masse and is like, we're going to do all of this at once. There's all sorts of catastrophic things that can happen to the human body.

• 5:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. And in this case, in the case of BPA, what it really does is affect estrogen. And estrogen has a huge effect on a lot of stuff. I think it can affect the behavior of more than 200 genes. And almost every organ and tissue in the body can be affected by estrogen. So this was a big deal. At the time, there were a lot of initial reactions of like, you know, we're not sure how bad this stuff is for you. We're not going to do anything right now. Like, the evidence is like, not really conclusive because we're not mice. And so we're not necessarily going to experience the same health effects. And again, these limits are like,

• 5:42Speaker 03

  the amount that we're getting shouldn't harm like, you know, children and adults.

• 5:47Josh Clark?

  Right. That was wrong. It turns out that the limits that we were being exposed to were considered harm or are considered very harmful now. But what's something weird, just a little thing to kind of put aside. It actually turns out that low doses of BPA have worse effects than larger doses of BPA.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's weird.

• 6:07Josh Clark?

  I didn't see anywhere that that was explained. So I came up with my own explanation. It's Three Stooges syndrome, which is how, remember Mr. Burns had every disease, but none of them were affecting him because they were all trying to get through the same door at once. I think that's what happens. When you have a bunch of BPA, they all get stuck trying to get through the same door at the same time. And it doesn't affect you like a little bit does, which can make it right through the door.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  All right, Dr. Clark. We're going to take a break and ponder that. And we'll be right back with more on BPAs.

• 6:49Speaker 04

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• 7:13Speaker 05

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 7:15Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.

• 7:34Speaker 05

  It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 7:42Josh Clark?

  That includes Field Services Manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 7:48Speaker 06

  Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.

• 7:57Speaker 06

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.

• 8:02Speaker 05

  What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 8:05Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love. Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  I gotta say, I'm very impressed.

• 8:25Josh Clark?

  Thank you, but I feel like I should say I am not a doctor, and you really shouldn't listen to me with any medical stuff whatsoever.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  But I called you a doctor.

• 8:33Josh Clark?

  Oh, well, then I'm a doctor.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  All right, so in the United States, the FDA is who is in charge of regulating the BPA use. And in 2010, they did a four-year review of BPA studies, which resulted in 2014, basically saying, you know what? We're upholding our previous no-observe adverse effects level, label, as long as you don't get more than five milligrams. A body weight, per kilogram of body weight per day, you'll be fine.

• 9:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I think that that is a level that most people are never exposed to, right?

• 9:11Speaker 03

  Well, that's what they say. I mean, we should talk about some of the things, though. I know you mentioned a few things, but let me see here. Type 2 diabetes potentially in adults, insulin resistance in children and adults, polycystic ovary syndrome, obesity and hypertension in children and adults.

• 9:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, a lot of terrible stuff. And again, this is not to mention like the preterm births, developmental abnormalities, like all sorts of different stuff that has to do with reproduction, breast cancer, tumors. Like all of these things, like it used to be like, like you said, we're not mice and, you know, that whole settled science BS that like the merchants of doubt used to put out like just shamelessly. Like if you look at meta analyses of studies about BPA and its effect on the human body, like you said, that's what comes up. It's, it's obviously you can never prove anything like without a shadow of a doubt. That's just how science works.

• 10:09Josh Clark?

  But it's essentially to the point where you, the individual person can feel pretty good about not wanting BPA in anywhere near you.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. Europe, of course, is, is leading the way in front of us in April, just a few years ago in 2023. Their FDA, which is the European Food Safety Authority, said, all right, we've seen the research. And I think they, they lowered their safe level a lot, I think, to, to point to, what is that, 2.2 nanograms, which is 2 billionths of a gram or 0.2 billionths of a gram

• 10:45Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 10:46Speaker 03

  per day for like, you know, a human body. So that's, that's way lower than ours is.

• 10:53Josh Clark?

  Well, yeah, and it's even lower than what their previous one was. Their previous one was still way lower than ours. So ours was 5mg per kilogram. I think it's the same still. Their old one was 4mg per kilogram of body weight. So now it's their, their new Advised safe level is 20,000 times lower than their own previous safe level. 10 billion trillion ish times lower than our our safe level in the United States. And when they, when the European Food Safety Authority basically decided this, there were all sorts of like, like, you know, is this true? Is this right? You know, and of course, industry was pushing back on it.

• 11:38Josh Clark?

  The only paper I found that was critical of it, an academic journal paper that was critical of their, their, their methods of, of data collection. I was like funded this. It was funded by the American Chemistry Council. So they're like, it seems pretty like the, the EFSA has over the years or since April 2023, continued to issue defenses of its decision. And not like, we decided, so shut up. They're like, we decided, and here's why. We decided. Here's all the data we did this on. So it seems pretty legitimate that they're like, this is way worse than, than we have been taking it, and especially in the United States.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, if you go to the FDA website today, what's the date? April 30th, 2026. It says FDA's current perspective based on its most recent safety assessment is that BPA is safe at the current levels occurring in foods. Based on FDA's ongoing safety review of scientific evidence, the available information continues to support the safety of BPA for the currently approved uses in food containers and packaging. But if you don't buy that, and I don't, I don't think Dr. Josh does. You need to look for a label that says BPA free. That will indicate that the plastic does not have bisphenol. Bisphenol, is that what you said?

• 13:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you did it.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  Bisphenol A. But like I said, it could have bisphenol F or bisphenol S or something else, and that may be just as risky. I don't, I don't know.

• 13:12Josh Clark?

  Here's how you remember that. It's like a bisque made of polyphenol.

• 13:18Josh Clark?

  There you go.

• 13:19Speaker 03

  Oh, I love bisque. That's a shame.

• 13:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So if you're like, okay, BPA free. Great. Give it to me. It turns out, like you said, there's other bisphenols, bisphenol F and S are now used as substitutes. They're not nearly as studied as BPA has been, but essentially the studies that are coming back are like, yep, just as bad as BPA does all the same things. So essentially the focus on BPA itself should have been expanded from the outset to bisphenols, not just BPA. And so, yeah, now there's BPF and BPS all over the place. And if you think that you, what you have is BPA free, it probably still has bisphenols in it.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  I don't think you just find something else.

• 14:02Josh Clark?

  Well, they did. It's called glass. But the problem is glass, stainless steel containers, they often come with plastic tops and lids. And you have to be careful with that, too, because even if the lid's metal, it may still have a plastic liner on the top of it. And that probably has at least some sort of plastic associated with it that could be getting in whatever you're drinking out of the.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, but do you have to have a bisphenol to have plastic at all?

• 14:29Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I guarantee if you really looked into it, it's like half a cent less than something safe.

• 14:36Speaker 03

  That's your answer.

• 14:37Josh Clark?

  You know?

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:39Josh Clark?

  One day we're going to get there, Chuck. I hope we're still alive to see it. But one day we're going to get there where people actually take care of other people. And we all care about one another. We all act like it. We're going to get there.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  That's right. And in the meantime, you and I and every other member of the Stuff You Should Know Army is going to try and be squeezing through that same door together.

• 14:58Josh Clark?

  That's right. Also, in the meantime, short stuff is out.

• 15:05Speaker 07

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.