• Endocrinology
• risk prediction
• toxicology
• endocrinology

As the argument about the risk of the ubiquitous plastic chemical bisphenol A (BPA) continues,1 we should recall that every toxic chemical is regulated the same way: with its key safety data supplied by the manufacturer with typically millions to billions of revenue a year riding on that safety question.

In fact, for many years no chemical risk assessment (RA) performed for premarketing safety testing has used any but the data supplied by the chemical's manufacturer, for the key toxicity studies which determine a chemical's alleged low or no observable adverse effect level (L/NOAEL) (nor have many RAs on chemicals already on the market). Hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed, published findings—of much higher quality than the industry's financially conflicted data—have been ignored.

I have observed this data exclusion in hundreds of RAs. For dozens of existing chemicals, I have compared these alleged L/NOAELs of industry with the toxicity studies of independent investigators. In every case, industry's claims of a safe dose are falsified by independent academia. Indeed, reviews always find a strong correlation of chemical industry funding with published findings of safety,2–5 while …