May 20, 2026 • 12 mins
Are BPAs safe? Of course not. Does the FDA care? Of course not. Learn all about what and why today.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck and Jerry sitting in for a day. So
this is short stuff about the beware of the pas.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
We're talking about BPAs specifically, well BPA, which is how
do you pronounce that.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Josh, I'm going with this phenol or bisphenol.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hey, bisphenol A.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
There are other bisphenols apparently which I didn't know, and
apparently you know.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
None of these are good.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
For you, even though the FDA is like, it's fine
in the amounts that you're getting it.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
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
(01:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Oh interesting, those.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Are coded with BPA, so just be aware of that.
I saw a study that said just holding one for
ten seconds exposed you to unsafe levels of BPA.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
You know, many years ago when we lived in Los Angeles,
And it's the jokes 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 Princh, Princh,
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, and he
(01:45):
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.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
It to this day.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah, I could see being in the right place, in
the right frame of mind and just finding that awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yeah, really stoned at Blockbuster.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Sure do you remember when you rented?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh no, no, no, who knows.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
But now that I don't feel so bad now that
I know that those things are loaded with BPAs.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I don't want those in my pocket.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
No, you don't. And the reason why we're even like
talking about BPA is all thanks to a geneticist named
doctor Patricia Hunt, who was studying the ovaries of mice
back in the late nineties, nineteen ninety eight. That was
her jam. She was not looking for BPA, she was
not studying BPA at all, but BPA came and found her.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Essentially, Yeah, she saw these chromosotal errors start popping up.
They went from two percent to forty percent in these
mice that she was studying in the control group, and
that you know, there was miscarriage, there were birth effects
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 and water bottles that
(02:58):
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.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Everybody, Yeah, she did.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
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
(03:33):
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
on mass and is like we're gonna do all of
this at once, there's all sorts of catastrophic things that
(03:55):
can happen to the human body.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
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 two hundred 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
(04:21):
of like, you know, we're not sure how bad this stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Is for you.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
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 the amount
that we're getting shouldn't harm it, Like, you know, children
and adults.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
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.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, that's weird.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
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 mister Burns had every disease, but
none of them were affecting them 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
(05:25):
door at the same time, and it doesn't affect you
like a little bit does, which can make it right
through the door.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
All right, doctor Clark, We're going to take a break
and ponder that, and we'll be right back with more
on BPAs.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I gotta say I'm very impressed.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
But I called you a doctor.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Oh well, then I'm a doctor.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
All right.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
So, in the United States, the FDAs, who was in
charge of regulating the BPA use, and in twenty ten
they did a four year review of BPA studies which
resulted in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Basically saying, you know what.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
We're upholding our previous no observed adverse effects level label.
As long as you don't get more than five milligrams
of body weight per kilogram of body weight per day,
you'll be fine.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, And I think that that is a level that
most people are never exposed to, right.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Well, that's what they say.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I mean, we should talk about some of the things though,
I know you mentioned a few things.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
But let me see here.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Type two diabetes potentially in adults, insulin resistance in children
and adults, polycystic ovary syndrome, obesity and high pretension in
children and adults.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, a lot of terrible stuff. And again this is
not to mention like the pre term 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
(07:25):
just shamelessly, like if you look at meta analyzes of
studies about BPA and its effect on the human body,
like you said, that's what comes up. It's obviously you
can never prove anything like without a shadow of a doubt.
That's just how science works. But it's essentially to the
point where you, the individual person can feel pretty good
(07:47):
about not wanting BPA anywhere near you.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah. For sure.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Europe, of course is leading the way in front of us.
In April, just a few years ago, in twenty twenty three,
they're at DA 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 point two what is that to point two nanograms,
(08:14):
which is two billions of a gram or point two
billions of a gram per day for like, you know,
a human body. So that's that's way lower than ours, is.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
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 five milligrams per kilogram. I think it's
the same still, their old one was four micrograms per
kilogram of body weight, so now it's their Their new
revised safe level is twenty thousand times lower than their
(08:49):
own previous safe level, ten billion trillion ish times lower
than are 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
(09:10):
industry was pushing back on it. The only paper I
found that was critical of it an academic journal paper
that was critical of their their methods of data collection.
I was like, funded this. It was funded by the
American Chemistry Council. So they're like, it seems pretty like
(09:30):
the EFSA has over the years or since April twenty
twenty three, 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 we have been taking it,
(09:53):
and especially in the United States.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Yeah, well if you go to the FDA website today
date April thirtieth, twenty twenty six. 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
(10:16):
currently approved uses in food containers and packaging. But if
you don't buy that, and I don't, I don't think
doctor Josh, does you need to look for a label
that says BPA free that will indicate that the plastic
does not have buy cheese.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Bis spinal Is that what you said? He did bis
spent all A.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
But like I said, it could have bispon al F
or bispon all S or something else, and that may
be just as risky.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Here's how you remember that. It's like a bisk made
of polyphen hal Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Oh, I love bisc That's a shame.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
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, yeap
just as bad as BPA does all the same things.
So essentially the focus on BPA itself should have been
(11:19):
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, is probably still has bisphenols in it.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Why don't they just find something else?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
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 lids 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.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
But do you have to have abys final to have
plastic at all?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I don't know. I guarantee if you really looked into it,
it's like half a cent less, right, something safe?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
And that's your answer, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
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.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
We're going to get there, that's right.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
And in the meantime, you and I and every other
member of the Stuff you should normally is going to
try and be squeezing through that same door together.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Also in the meantime, Short Stuff is out. Stuff You
Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck and Jerry sitting in for a day. So
this is short stuff about the beware of the pas.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
We're talking about BPAs specifically, well BPA, which is how
do you pronounce that.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Josh, I'm going with this phenol or bisphenol.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hey, bisphenol A.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
There are other bisphenols apparently which I didn't know, and
apparently you know.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
None of these are good.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
For you, even though the FDA is like, it's fine
in the amounts that you're getting it.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
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
(01:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Oh interesting, those.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Are coded with BPA, so just be aware of that.
I saw a study that said just holding one for
ten seconds exposed you to unsafe levels of BPA.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
You know, many years ago when we lived in Los Angeles,
And it's the jokes 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 Princh, Princh,
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, and he
(01:45):
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.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
It to this day.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah, I could see being in the right place, in
the right frame of mind and just finding that awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yeah, really stoned at Blockbuster.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Sure do you remember when you rented?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh no, no, no, who knows.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
But now that I don't feel so bad now that
I know that those things are loaded with BPAs.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I don't want those in my pocket.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
No, you don't. And the reason why we're even like
talking about BPA is all thanks to a geneticist named
doctor Patricia Hunt, who was studying the ovaries of mice
back in the late nineties, nineteen ninety eight. That was
her jam. She was not looking for BPA, she was
not studying BPA at all, but BPA came and found her.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Essentially, Yeah, she saw these chromosotal errors start popping up.
They went from two percent to forty percent in these
mice that she was studying in the control group, and
that you know, there was miscarriage, there were birth effects
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 and water bottles that
(02:58):
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.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Everybody, Yeah, she did.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
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
(03:33):
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
on mass and is like we're gonna do all of
this at once, there's all sorts of catastrophic things that
(03:55):
can happen to the human body.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
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 two hundred 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
(04:21):
of like, you know, we're not sure how bad this stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Is for you.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
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 the amount
that we're getting shouldn't harm it, Like, you know, children
and adults.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
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.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, that's weird.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
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 mister Burns had every disease, but
none of them were affecting them 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
(05:25):
door at the same time, and it doesn't affect you
like a little bit does, which can make it right
through the door.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
All right, doctor Clark, We're going to take a break
and ponder that, and we'll be right back with more
on BPAs.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I gotta say I'm very impressed.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
But I called you a doctor.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Oh well, then I'm a doctor.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
All right.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
So, in the United States, the FDAs, who was in
charge of regulating the BPA use, and in twenty ten
they did a four year review of BPA studies which
resulted in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Basically saying, you know what.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
We're upholding our previous no observed adverse effects level label.
As long as you don't get more than five milligrams
of body weight per kilogram of body weight per day,
you'll be fine.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, And I think that that is a level that
most people are never exposed to, right.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Well, that's what they say.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I mean, we should talk about some of the things though,
I know you mentioned a few things.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
But let me see here.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Type two diabetes potentially in adults, insulin resistance in children
and adults, polycystic ovary syndrome, obesity and high pretension in
children and adults.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, a lot of terrible stuff. And again this is
not to mention like the pre term 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
(07:25):
just shamelessly, like if you look at meta analyzes of
studies about BPA and its effect on the human body,
like you said, that's what comes up. It's obviously you
can never prove anything like without a shadow of a doubt.
That's just how science works. But it's essentially to the
point where you, the individual person can feel pretty good
(07:47):
about not wanting BPA anywhere near you.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah. For sure.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Europe, of course is leading the way in front of us.
In April, just a few years ago, in twenty twenty three,
they're at DA 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 point two what is that to point two nanograms,
(08:14):
which is two billions of a gram or point two
billions of a gram per day for like, you know,
a human body. So that's that's way lower than ours, is.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
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 five milligrams per kilogram. I think it's
the same still, their old one was four micrograms per
kilogram of body weight, so now it's their Their new
revised safe level is twenty thousand times lower than their
(08:49):
own previous safe level, ten billion trillion ish times lower
than are 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
(09:10):
industry was pushing back on it. The only paper I
found that was critical of it an academic journal paper
that was critical of their their methods of data collection.
I was like, funded this. It was funded by the
American Chemistry Council. So they're like, it seems pretty like
(09:30):
the EFSA has over the years or since April twenty
twenty three, 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 we have been taking it,
(09:53):
and especially in the United States.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Yeah, well if you go to the FDA website today
date April thirtieth, twenty twenty six. 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
(10:16):
currently approved uses in food containers and packaging. But if
you don't buy that, and I don't, I don't think
doctor Josh, does you need to look for a label
that says BPA free that will indicate that the plastic
does not have buy cheese.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Bis spinal Is that what you said? He did bis
spent all A.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
But like I said, it could have bispon al F
or bispon all S or something else, and that may
be just as risky.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Here's how you remember that. It's like a bisk made
of polyphen hal Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Oh, I love bisc That's a shame.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
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, yeap
just as bad as BPA does all the same things.
So essentially the focus on BPA itself should have been
(11:19):
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, is probably still has bisphenols in it.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Why don't they just find something else?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
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 lids 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.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
But do you have to have abys final to have
plastic at all?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I don't know. I guarantee if you really looked into it,
it's like half a cent less, right, something safe?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
And that's your answer, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
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.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
We're going to get there, that's right.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
And in the meantime, you and I and every other
member of the Stuff you should normally is going to
try and be squeezing through that same door together.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Also in the meantime, Short Stuff is out. Stuff You
Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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