Plastics are harmful, but who will admit it?

In July the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a letter that would stop any parent in their tracks: Chemicals in food colorings, preservatives and packaging can be dangerous to children – and the government is not suitably regulating the substances.

A review of almost 4,000 additives found that 64 percent of them lacked research proving they are safe for people to eat or drink; these chemicals can be especially harmful to small children because they are still growing, making them more vulnerable to any ill effects. The AAP called for reforms to the Food and Drug Administration’s food-additive regulatory process and offered guidelines that could be more panic-inducing than reassuring:

Don’t microwave foods or liquids in plastic.

Buy fewer processed foods. Whenever possible, switch from plastic to glass or metal.

Avoid putting plastics in the dishwasher.

It’s the sort of medical advice that sends people pillaging through their memories – adding up every time they heated a bottle of breast milk in the microwave, tossed Tupperware in the dishwasher or sent their toddler to day care with sliced fruit in a plastic tub. And it’s the sort of information that makes them wonder: If these materials pose such a danger, why are they everywhere? And where is our government?

Those are good questions, with complex and terrible answers. Scientists have known for some time that many of these chemicals are harmful. But as more evidence accumulates, the industry that produces them has mounted an increasingly aggressive and widespread campaign: publishing counter-studies in corporate-friendly science journals, attacking scientists and journalists who report on the dangers of these chemicals, and doing as much as possible to create doubt about harm – all tactics borrowed from the tobacco industry.

The FDA enjoys much higher levels of public trust than the federal government in general, but maybe it shouldn’t: Much of what we consume is simply not regulated. “To be blunt, it’s an honor system,” says Erik Olson, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former Environmental Protection Agency employee. Olson says that although the EPA does a terrible job of protecting people from dangerous chemicals, the FDA is worse: “They are completely in bed with industry.” With corporate interests creating an alternate scientific reality and little federal pushback, ordinary Americans are left to sort through the noise – and try to assess what is safe for themselves and their children.

Olson’s characterizations are echoed in a recent book by Rutgers University professor Norah MacKendrick, “Better Safe Than Sorry: How Consumers Navigate Exposure to Everyday Toxics.” MacKendrick writes that the current era of deregulation places an undue burden on parents – mostly on mothers – to make complicated choices to ensure that the products and foods they buy are safe for children, a process she calls “precautionary consumption.” Since the 1950s, food packaging has become increasingly cluttered with often incomprehensible information, and the FDA has provided little help for people who simply want food that is safe.

Before concluding that the FDA is not protecting children, says Leonardo Trasande, director of the division of environmental pediatrics at the NYU School of Medicine and a member of the AAP, the academy spent two years discussing food-additive safety. He adds that the statement is a conservative consensus of the AAP’s 67,000 members, who delved into the research on the dangers of chemicals to small children. “This is not a bunch of green, tree-hugging pediatricians,” says Trasande.

A physician by training, Trasande spends most of his time researching and publishing studies to understand how children are affected by BPA, one of many chemicals the AAP highlighted. BPA, which can act like the female hormone estrogen, is particularly threatening to kids. A growing body of research finds that tiny doses of BPA may cause a host of diseases; it can “potentially change the timing of puberty, decrease fertility, increase body fat, and affect the nervous and immune systems,” the APP says. Yet, Trasande says, the government ignores much of this academic research.