U.S. President's Cancer Panel Highights Plastic as Problematic: Recommends Precautionary Approach

Wakefield, 14 May 2010 -- On May 6th, the President's Cancer Panel released a landmark report entitled REDUCING ENVIRONMENTAL CANCER RISK What We Can Do Now. The report raises clear flags about chemical regulation and the dangers of certain chemicals to health. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof read the landmark 200-page report and has written a succinct overview of the report in his opinion piece New Alarm Bells About Chemicals and Cancer. He describes the President's Cancer Panel - which is made up of three reknowned cancer experts who review the US cancer program and report directly to the President - as the "Mount Everest of the medical mainstream" and "the mission control of mainstream scientific and medical thinking". Most refreshingly, the report firmly advocates a shift in the regulatory system from a reactionary to a precautionary approach, including taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty regarding the effects of many chemicals on health.

There are detailed sections on various chemicals that leach from plastics - including endocrine disruptors like bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates - and the report even makes the following recommendation, and many others, to individuals for implementation in daily life:

"Storing and carrying water in stainless steel, glass, or BPA- and phthalate-free containers will reduce exposure to endocrine-disrupting and other chemicals that may leach into water from plastics. This action also will decrease the need for plastic bottles, the manufacture of which produces toxic by-products, and reduce the need to dispose of and recycle plastic bottles. Similarly, microwaving food and beverages in ceramic or glass instead of plastic containers will reduce exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals that may leach into food when containers are heated."

How encouraging that the medical and scientific mainstream are finally aware of and even recommending preventive precautionary action regarding the dangers associated with plastics.