Republic, Lost_ How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It - Lawrence Lessig [11]
Okay, so some say that BPA is dangerous. Some say it is not. You may be with me in the former camp, or you may be in the latter camp. Both views are fair enough.
But notice how your feelings change when you read the following:
Since vom Saal published his first study in 1997, there have been at least 176 studies of the low-dose effects of BPA. Thirteen of these studies have been sponsored by industry. The balance (163) have been funded by the government, and conducted at universities. The industry-funded studies have the advantage of being large scale. Most of the government-funded studies are smaller scale. Nonetheless, here are the results:
All of the large-scale studies found no evidence of harm. When added to the smaller-scale studies, this meant about 24 out of the 176 found no evidence of harm. But 152 of these studies did find evidence of harm. So from this perspective, we could say about 15 percent of the studies found the chemical harmless, while 85 percent found it potentially harmful.11
That doesn’t sound good for BPA. And it does not get any better.
If you divide the studies on the basis of their funding, the results are even starker.
HARM NO HARM
Industry Funded 0 13
(0%) (100%)
Independently Funded 152 11
(86%) (14%)
In a single line, none of the industry-funded studies found evidence of harm, while more than 85 percent of the independent studies did.
Researchers who conduct these industry-sponsored studies are of course “offended,” as one director commented, “when someone suggests that who pays for the study determines the outcome.”12 She explains the difference by pointing to the “nature of the study,” not “who pays for the studies.” Independent studies “typically focus on hazards, or the intrinsic capacity to do harm,” while industry-funded studies “are interested in determining the risks of exposure.”13
Maybe. And maybe that’s enough to explain the difference. But here is the point I want you to recognize: Some will read this analysis and conclude that BPA is unsafe. Some will read it and won’t change their view of BPA in the slightest. But the vast majority will read this analysis and become less certain about whether BPA is safe. The presence of money with the wrong relationship to the truth is enough to dislodge at least some of the confidence that these souls once had.
And among those not so sure, at least some will have the reaction that I did, and do, every time I hand my kid a piece of plastic: It is absurd that in America I don’t know if the thing I’m feeding my child with is safe—for her or for us.
2.
The next time you’re holding your cell phone against your ear and notice your ear getting a bit warm, ask yourself this question: Is your cell phone safe? Does the radiation coming from that handheld device—microwave radiation, emitted one inch from your brain—cause damage to your brain? Or head? Or hand?
The vast majority of Americans (70 percent) either believe the answer to the latter question is no or they don’t know.14 Part of that belief comes from the same sort of confidence I’ve just described—we’ve had cell phone technology for almost fifty years; certainly someone must have determined whether the radiation does any damage. Part of that belief could also come from reports of actual studies—hundreds of studies of cell phone radiation have concluded that cell phones cause no increased risk of biological harm.15 And, finally, part of that belief comes from a familiar psychological phenomenon: cognitive dissonance—it would be too hard to believe to the contrary. Like smokers who disbelieved reports about the link between smoking and lung cancer, we cell phone users would find it too hard to accept that this essential technology of modern life was in fact (yet) another ticking cancer time bomb.
Yet, once again, the research raises some questions.
Depending on how you count, there have been at least three hundred