By Janet Raloff
It’s hard to avoid bisphenol A. One of the highest-volume chemicals in commercial production, it’s the starting material used to make polycarbonate plastics. Those are the hard, clear plastics used in baby bottles, flatware, watercooler bottles, and the work bowls of food processors. Bisphenol A (BPA) also serves as an essential ingredient of epoxy resins used to line food and beverage cans and even to seal cavity-prone teeth.
But BPA doesn’t stay put. It inevitably leaches into foods and people’s mouths, such that traces of the chemical now show up in everyone’s body.