It’s in manufactured products
everywhere, from the lining of metal food containers to dental composites, but
suspicion continues to grow about the safety of biphenyl a, better known as
BPA. Canada has already deemed it a toxic chemical, but the United States is
taking its sweet time to address the dangerous compound. Some researchers attribute
the dangerous characteristics of BPA to its chemical similarity to biological
hormones, especially estrogen, androgen, and thyroid hormones. Since studies on
rodents have already shown BPA to be linked to abnormalities like cancer and
immune, reproductive, and brain function problems, the United States has
extended the studies to include primates. In previous studies, BPA was shown to
alter fetal development when rodent mothers were exposed daily to very low
doses of BPA, which is cause for alarm and for further research.
Funded by the National Institutes
of Health, a recent study on rhesus monkeys was considered to be a very similar
model to what likely happens within the human system when a pregnant mother is
exposed to BPA. Though the rhesus monkeys in the study were exposed to a level
considered to be far less than the levels humans are daily exposed to, tissue
samples showed damage to the mammary glands, the ovaries, the brain, the
uterus, the lungs, and the heart in rhesus monkey fetuses whose mothers were
exposed to BPA. It is likely that, often, actual human exposure to BPA is
underestimated in both measured levels and in estimated danger. Not only does
the study provide evidence that BPA does pass from mother to fetus, but it also
provides evidence that BPA causes serious dangers for developing fetuses.
Hopefully the dramatic findings of
this study encourage stronger regulations against such a ubiquitous but harmful
chemical.
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