Published 20 December 2022 at 09.10
EU. The EU's food authority EFSA has “re-evaluated” its view on the risks of bisphenol A, admitting this week that the previous limit value was 100,000 times too high. But it is not the complications for men that have caused the authority to change its mind. Therefore, the limit values for the dangerous substitute bisphenol F, which disrupts the development of boys in the fetal stage, do not change.
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The limit values are called TDI and are an estimate of the amount of a substance (expressed in kilograms of body weight) that can be ingested daily over a lifetime without causing any noticeable risks.
In the most recent assessment of limit values that EFSA made in 2015, a temporary TDI of 4,000 nanograms per kilogram of body weight per day was set.
In its new assessment, which was published last week, EFSA's expert panel on food contact materials, enzymes and processing aids (CEP) set a TDI of 0.04 nanograms per kilogram of body weight per day.
The decision means that the authority's previous assessment meant that we may have ingested 100,000 times too much. This despite the fact that many researchers have warned of the dangers for decades, which this newspaper has reported on since 2012.
The radical lowering of the TDI is now – according to the official explanation – not due to the men's hormonal problems but to studies that have appeared in the literature between 2013 and 2018, especially those showing “damaging effects of [bisphenol A] on the immune system”.
In fact, scientists have long warned that bisphenol harms the hormonal system of unborn boys, and in 2017 it was found that the sperm count of Western men has dropped by 59 percent between 1973 and 2011.
According to the epidemiologist Shanna Swan, among others, there will be general sterility in the Western world as early as 2045. In that case, it would threaten the survival of humanity, reported the British Guardian last year, among others.
According to Shanna Swan, hormonal disorders lead to increasing infertility in men but also to things like obesity, laziness, reduced sex drive and impotence. All indicators are increasingly common among men everywhere in the Western world.
A common substitute for bisphenol A is called bisphenol F and it also causes disorders in men.
Gives boys worse school results
Swedish researchers discovered last year that bisphenol F can induce changes in a gene important for neurological development.
Exposure to bisphenol F during the fetal stage can be linked to lower IQ at age seven – but only in boys. This was shown by the Swedish study that Fria Tider was almost alone in drawing attention to last year.
When EFSA now sharply lowers the limit values for one of the bisphenols, just bisphenol A, it is because animal experiments have shown that the substance interferes with a type of white blood cells that play an important role in cellular immune mechanisms and that the substance thus breaks down the immune system.
< p>By comparing the new TDI with estimates of consumer exposure to bisphenol A in the diet, EFSA finds that both average and high exposure in all age groups exceed the new limit values, which means that health problems can be expected.
< p>EFSA's assessment is now out for referral to all member states and is open for public consultation. However, the decision not to include other bisphenols, such as bisphenol A, in the new assessment is not something the EU authority intends to discuss and that issue is not open to public consultation.
Facts about bisphenol that the EU ignores
In addition to bisphenol A – where the EU is now lowering its limit values after 20 years of debate – there are also bisphenol AF and bisphenol F, which are almost unregulated. Both are synthetic chemicals used in a variety of products, including plastic bottles, food packaging and dental fillings. An increasing amount of research points to them being able to have negative effects on hormone balance and reproductive development for boys, just like bisphenol A.- A Swedish study from 2021 shows that bisphenol F gives boys lower cognitive ability and greater learning difficulties in school. The researchers measured the levels of bisphenol F in the wombs of 773 pregnant women and then examined the boys' cognitive ability at age seven using various tests. The study also showed that high levels of bisphenol F in the womb gave the boys lower scores in tests of verbal memory and executive functions such as planning and problem solving. The study found no effect on girls.
- A Chinese study showed that bisphenol AF may be more dangerous to testosterone levels in mammals than bisphenol A. The researchers exposed male rats to various levels of bisphenol AF over a period of 28 days and then measured the levels of testosterone in the blood of the rats. They found that exposure to high levels of bisphenol AF led to a decrease in testosterone levels in the blood of the rats. In addition, they found that exposure to bisphenol AF affected the structure and function of the testes in the rats, which may have affected testosterone production.
- A 2020 Swedish study examined the effects of exposure to bisphenol AF and bisphenol F on testicular development in chickens. The researchers exposed fetal chicks to different levels of the two bisphenols as well as to bisphenol A and then examined the effects on the development of the chicks' testicles. They found that all three substances led to a feminization of the chickens' testicles, meaning they developed structures similar to ovaries. The study showed that bisphenol AF and F can affect the development of testicles in chickens in a similar way to bisphenol A, and that all three substances can lead to feminization of the testicles.