Plastics Industry Disputes NBC’s Critical Report on Plastic Bottles
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 14, 2008 (VNS) – A highly critical report about the safety of plastics and plastic bottles, particularly those made of Bisphenol A (BPA), which aired on the April 9 edition of NBC News’ Today Show, has mobilized a full court press by the plastics industry to fight the misleading and inaccurate allegations made in the report.
The report mentioned PVC’s recycling symbol and recommended consumers avoid products that carry it.
The “Consumer Alert,” on the morning news program included a live interview with Dr. Leo Trasande, a professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, who claimed that “there is no safe level of BPA,” that “plastics in general are unsafe to use in the microwave,” that “leaching of harmful chemicals occur when plastics are washed because plastics degenerate in dishwashers,” and that recycling emblems are a designation of what plastic is safe or not.
Rob Krebs, director of public affairs for the American Chemistry Council’s plastics division, wrote to a Today Show producer to assail the report’s lack of balance and scientific substance, pointing out that the safety of BPA has been extensively tested and confirmed by government and scientific assessments worldwide, that the plastics industry has publicized best methods to use for microwaving plastics, that recycling symbols on plastic bottles are meant to tell the consumer the product is recyclable and that substantial information is available about chemical “leaching.”
Krebs added, “It is also not at all clear to us that Dr. Trasande has the expertise to make the assertions that he has made, because they are simply untrue.”
The NBC Nightly News that evening aired a more balanced feature about plastics that concluded with correspondent Bob Bazell saying, “The science just isn’t there to prove a human danger.”
The next day, however, the Today Show followed up the previous day’s report, featuring Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC News’ chief medical editor, answering consumer and industry questions. She mistakenly urged consumers to use caution with recycling symbols 3, 6 and 7 because of alleged concern with BPA.
A letter from Lisa Harrison, ACC’s vice president of communications to NBC News executives after the April 10 follow-up segment, said “the plastics market with recycling symbols 3 and 6 are not based on monomers that would contain BPA.” She also noted that Snyderman’s recommendation of www.iatp.org as an unbiased source was off base. The web site, she said “is operated by a nonprofit organization whose staff regularly testify in state legislatures in support of efforts to ban Bisphenol A in products.
“We expect that NBC will address this completely irresponsible presentation of facts which has unnecessarily confused and frightened the public, and unfairly damaged the integrity of our products,” Harrison stated. “It is incumbent upon NBC to allow equal time in an equal audience time slot to present well-documented science, rather than airing one-sided information incorrectly relabeled as objective.”
ACC has set up a web site -- www.factsonplastics.com – for anyone who wants to respond to NBC about its coverage of plastics and BPA and to receive updates on the issues.
For more information about vinyl, please visit www.vinylinfo.org.