Highlight report: the bisphenol A controversy

Abstract

Over the last 10 years, the scientific and journalistic controversy over whether bisphenol A (BPA) causes adverse effects in humans has attracted a lot of attention. Despite more than 5,000 published articles on BPA, the neverending and sometimes emotional debate on possible human health hazards remains open. To give a well-founded and balanced resolution of the dead-locked situation, the Advisory Committee of the German Society of Toxicology has published a comprehensive review discussing key questions of the controversy on BPA (Hengstler et al. 2011). The Advisory Committee is elected by the members of the German Society of Toxicology; the largest toxicological Society in Europe with more than 1,000 members. Since BPA (Drozdz et al. 2010; Yang et al. 2009; Schmidt et al. 2006; Moors et al. 2006) and endocrine disruption (Romano et al. 2010; Umano et al. 2010, 2009; Wang et al. 2010; Asp et al. 2009) represent cutting-edge topics in our journal, we have summarized some key messages of the Advisory Committee (Table 1). The review is a must-read for everybody interested in the evaluation of the health hazards caused by exposure to BPA. The review article of the Advisory Committee demonstrates again that with more than 5,000 published studies on BPA, an excellent database is available, which is better than for many other potentially more critical chemicals. In this context, a ‘‘funding bias’’ has recently been addressed (Bolt 2011). BPA appears to represent a typical example of a compound with a huge discrepancy between perceived and real toxicological risk.