{"id":224,"date":"2009-12-01T17:34:53","date_gmt":"2009-12-01T21:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/nanotechnology\/?p=224"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:00:48","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:00:48","slug":"bottom-lines-stating-the-business-case-for-chemicals-policy-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2009\/12\/01\/bottom-lines-stating-the-business-case-for-chemicals-policy-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Bottom lines: Stating the business case for chemicals policy reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.<\/em><\/p>\n

This week\u2019s issue of Business Week<\/a><\/em><\/strong> has an intriguing cover story titled \u201cLook Who\u2019s Stalking Wal-Mart,\u201d with a cute cover graphic<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about the latest retail trend in downmarketing.\u00a0 But in the same issue is another piece that might well be titled \u201cLook Who Retailers are Stalking\u201d \u2013 with the \u201cwho\u201d being the chemical industry and the why being the need for meaningful chemical policy reform.<\/p>\n

The BizWeek piece (\u201cGetting to the Bottom of Plastic Bottle Risks<\/a>\u201d) does a great job of laying out the business case<\/em><\/strong> for major reform of our chemicals safety policies.\u00a0 It opens by recounting the now-all-too-common plight of a small retailer of kids\u2019 products trying to achieve what should be a simple task, but isn\u2019t:\u00a0 being able to ensure its customers that the products it sells are safe.<\/p>\n

Citing bisphenol A (BPA) as the \u201cposter child\u201d for what\u2019s wrong with our current policies, the article highlights the rapidly expanding battlefield emerging between chemicals and plastics makers and companies down the supply chain from them \u2013 product manufacturers and retailers \u2013 who are often dependent on their suppliers\u2019 chemicals, but also increasingly critical of the lack of information disclosure and lack of evidence of safety\u00a0for those chemicals.<\/p>\n

A prominent voice for reform from the retail community, Roger McFadden of Staples, sums it up nicely in a quote from the article:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis [industry\u2019s failure to be able to answer basic safety questions] is what happens when effective policies are not implemented.\u00a0 I hope this is a wake-up call.\u201d<\/p>\n

The article goes on to point out that \u201cThe current federal regulatory system probably served those [chemical] manufacturers\u2019 short-term interests by requiring them to do very little to assess safety,\u201d and then quotes yours truly as saying: \u00a0\u201cBut that has come back to bite them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The article\u2019s focus on BPA is well-deserved:\u00a0 First synthesized in 1891, knowledge of BPA\u2019s estrogenic properties dates all the way back to the 1930s \u2013 but appears to have been ignored or forgotten as its uses in epoxy resins and shatter-proof plastics were discovered and commercialized on a truly massive scale.\u00a0 (For a great article summarizing the history and politics surrounding BPA, see Sarah Vogel\u2019s paper in the American Journal of Public Health \u201cThe Politics of Plastic:\u00a0 The Making and Unmaking of Bisphenol A \u2018Safety\u2019<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Six billion pounds of BPA are now produced annually, and the chemical has found its way into everything from food can linings to cash register receipts<\/a>, not to mention baby bottles.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the chemical has also found its way from those products into the bodies of 93% of all Americans.<\/p>\n

As Gary Ginsberg, a toxicologist in the Connecticut Department of Public Health is quoted saying:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve known since the 1930s it is hormonally active, yet it shows up in everyone\u2019s canned food.\u00a0 Why hasn\u2019t the light bulb gone off before, just to make sure it\u2019s safe?\u201d<\/p>\n

Good question, one that I hope a real and comprehensive reform of our chemicals policies can start to bring about.\u00a0 Now that would serve up a bottom line we could all embrace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. This week\u2019s issue of Business Week has an intriguing cover story titled \u201cLook Who\u2019s Stalking Wal-Mart,\u201d with a cute cover graphic.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about the latest retail trend in downmarketing.\u00a0 But in the same issue is another piece that might well be titled \u201cLook Who Retailers are Stalking\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,114108],"tags":[39187,5019],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","category-tsca","tag-bisphenol-a","tag-consumer-products"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12547,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions\/12547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}