Pedagogy

Bisphenol A (BPA) is among the most expansively tested materials today in regard to toxicology. Toxicology is defined as the study of destructive actions of agents on all organic or biological mechanisms. BPA has been in use as a safe industrial chemical in excess for forty years. The industrial, academic and government groups have engaged themselves in extensive study as far as BPA is concerned. This has been done through animal tests, both short and long term. The studies which have been undertaken are in the field of open scientific literature and they include cancer bioassay and several studies on reproduction. (Bisphenol, 2010) This paper aims to critic the article on Bisphenol General Toxicity on its views and results regarding bisphenol as a less harmful chemical compound

BPA uses and toxicology 
BPA is defined as chemical building blocks whose purpose is to create both polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins. Polycarbonate plastic has characteristics of being light in weight, having a high quality, a unique toughness, an optical clarity and excellent heat and electricity resistance. A wide variety of products are packed or made using polycarbonates .These include reusable drink and food containers, sports and electronic equipment (Bisphenol, 2007).

Epoxy resins are used in various engineering applications like coatings, composites, adhesives and paints. Canned foods and beverages are preserved by using epoxy resins as protective liners in containers made of metal. Epoxy resins have been widely used because of adhesion, formability and chemical resistance (Bisphenol, 2007).

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set standards of exposure to BPA. The agency states that BPA poses no risk to human beings as the human level of exposure to them is four hundred times less than the levels which are considered as dangerous (Bispenol, 2007).However, this is not the case as it poses great danger to human life. Arlington (2010) states that The Health and Human Services (HHS) confirms that exposure to BPA in food contact products has not been proven harmful to children or adults. However, the agency suggests that more research needs to be done and guidance provided on how parents can limit infant exposures (Arlington, 2010).

Safety of BPA
There lies a great controversy as to whether BPA is harmful to human health. As the controversy heightens, the scientific community is also going through manipulation by the economic bodies. The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) has gone ahead and collaborated with the corporate world by taking bribes, so as to allow the chemical and food companies to continue poisoning the American citizens. .The National Toxicology Program states that We have some concern about the potential effects of bisphenol A on the brain, behavior, and prostate gland in fetuses, infants, and young children. They however do not reveal the fact that BPA disrupts the endocrine, and that it is a synthetic estrogen (Scott, 2010).

Discussion on BPA and its effects
In peculiar experimental systems, it was found out that BPA had external estrogenic activity. These studies however revealed that there was no evidence and clarity that the human health was affected (Bisphenol, 2010. The studies were inappropriate as BPA falls under the category of endocrine disrupters. It affects the reproduction functions of living organisms because it mimics all chemical activities of estrogen, the female sex hormone. Research has shown that BPA causes adverse effects as a result of consuming products by consumers or ordinary production in industries (Eubanks, 2005).
 
A new light has been shed on the effects of environmental estrogens. When a sample of wildlife was exposed to concentrations of environmental estrogens, they had harmful effects on the wildlife. According to the research undertaken, there was focus on the ability of BPA to function as estrogen. These studies revealed that xenoestrogens had an effect to the human health. Therefore, there had to be an adequate and current environmental protection policy (Eubanks, 2005).

According to the Bisphenol General Toxicity (Bisphenol, 2010) article, the BPA chemical has been used in industries in a very safe manner. The article states that research has been done by industry, government, and academic groups. The research has also studied on multi-generation exposure studies and a bioassay related to cancer. None of all these researches showed that BPA had adverse effects through consumer products or industrial use. According to the research, the exposure levels are below any anticipated level of effect (Bisphenol, 2010). This is not the case however. A recent study by the American Medical Association has revealed that consumer products packed in containers have BPA. The BPA in food containers was dangerous to human health (Aubrey, 2008). A person whose urine has BPA has higher chances of being diagnosed with diabetes and heart related diseases. The United States National Toxicology panel is against microwaving food put in plastic containers. This is because plastic has BPA which leaches when exposed to high temperatures. When the BPA leaches, it is consumed together with the food, posing a great danger to the human health. It also recommended that harsh detergents should not be used in washing dishes because repeated exposure of the dishes to the dishwashers high temperatures deteriorates the plastic (Aubrey, 2008).

The article has also refuted the fact that BPA would cause any effects to the human and animal environment as a result of use and production in industries (Bisphenol, 2010). Research has shown that when there is a BPA spill, it causes soil, surface and ground water contamination .BPA affects the fish and all the living organisms that are in contact with the contaminated water and soil .BPA is also harmful to the respiratory system as it forms an explosive when it mixes with dust and air. When exposed to fire conditions, the smoke from BPA containers may contain harmful products like phenolic compounds, which pose a risk to the human and animal respiratory system (Aubrey, 2008).

Analysis of the data and information collected Rats were exposed to 150mgm3 of BPA aerosol for a total of six days. This happened continually for nine exposures. The results showed that there was a very slight decrease in gaining of weight by the male rats. Also, the nasal cavity of the rays exposed had only a slight irritation. Consequently, there followed the same inhalation study which took thirteen weeks. In this exposure, there were slight alterations to the rats respiratory tracts. An exercise of allowing rats to recover was undertaken after being exposed to the BPA aerosols for twelve weeks which showed that the changes were fully reversible. According to the research results, there was no difference in the body weight of the experimental values and the control values of the study of B.P.A, exposure (Bisphenol, 2010)

On the other hand, an accident in the laboratory has led to the researchers concluding that there exists a high relationship between BPA exposure and several reproductive disorders in mice .Traces of the BPA in the mice drinking water affected the rats in that eight percent of the mouse eggs were altered. Under normal conditions, only one percent of the eggs were defective. The mice reacted even to brief exposure because it was seen to affect the development of mouse embryos, result to a genetically abnormal offspring or even killed the mice. A harsh detergent was used to clean the cages of the mouse and the plastic water bottles. This action was to test on the causes of anauploidy. This is a situation where there was abnormal cell division associated with cancer. There was an alarming increase in the rates of aneuploidy after the plastic bottles and the mouse cages washed with the harsh detergent were exposed to the mice (OLeary, 2003).

In conclusion, BPAs has been discovered to be very harmful to the health of not only the small animals exposed to experiments but also to the human beings. As a result of this, Food and Drugs Administration is undertaking chief studies to ensure that safety is addressed. Putting boiling liquids in plastic containers with BPA content should be avoided. All the bottles with scratches may be a good site to bacteria, and therefore would lead to a large release of BPA. Concern for the exposure to BPA and its harm is large in relation to young children. This is because their bodies have not yet developed the mechanisms of detoxifying chemicals .Therefore parents should make sure that they use baby bottles which do not contain BPA contents. (Dow chemical company, 2009).All in all, the use of BPA should be banned as it poses very dangerous risks to the human life as it has been discussed.