ANNOUNCER: From ABC News in New York, Connie Chung and Charles Gibson.
CONNIE CHUNG, ABC News: Good evening, and welcome to 20/20 Monday. Charlie and I are so happy to have you with us.
Tonight, we begin with something all of us use every day, maybe even at every meal -- plastic . We wrap and store our food in it. We drink from it. But now, some scientists are raising new concerns about chemicals found in some plastics, whether those chemicals could pose a safety risk when they come into contact with what we eat and drink.
CHARLES GIBSON, ABC News: It has been shown that some plastics, under certain conditions, release small amounts of chemicals. Could these chemicals seep into the food we eat, and could small amounts be harmful to us or our children?
Well, the industry and the government say the plastics are perfectly safe. But just today, Consumer Reports magazine issued some startling advice for parents regarding baby bottles. Our chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross has been looking into the controversy.
ACTOR (Clip from "The Graduate"):Come with me for a minute, I want to talk to you.
BRIAN ROSS, ABC News: (voice-over) Even before this classic scene in the 1967 film "The Graduate"...
(Clip from "The Graduate")
ACTOR: I just want to say one word to you, just one word...
DUSTIN HOFFMAN: Yes, sir.
ACTOR: Are you listening?
DUSTIN HOFFMAN: Yes, I am.
ACTOR: Plastics.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) The promise of the revolutionary new material, plastics, had gripped the country.
ELVIS PRESLEY: (singing) I'm all shook up. Uh-huh-huh.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) A chemical and technological wonder and cultural icon.
SPOKESMAN (TV commercial): This is the dream of the future.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) And no more of a dream than in the kitchen.
1st ACTRESS (TV commercial): And please, how can I save this cheese?
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) Where new plastic products simplified the work of the homemaker and promised a new level of food safety.
2nd ACTRESS (TV commercial): Your wife will love it.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) But now, some plastics and, in particular, the chemicals used to make them are under attack. It turns out that the federal government has never required, until recently, extensive tests on emerging health concerns about a number of chemicals being used in plastics which regularly come in contact with food.
Dr. EDWARD GROTH, Scientist, Consumers Union: The basic state of our knowledge is ignorance. We cannot say they are safe. We cannot say they are not safe. We don't know.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) Dr. Edward Groth is a senior scientist at the Consumers Union, the nonprofit group that publishes Consumer Reports, the consumer's bible. Every day here, washing machines chug away, luggage is tumbled and garbage bags are stretched. And now, in a study being released tonight, plastic baby bottles, in what Consumer Reports terms "a baby alert."
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: Babies are the most sensitive group of people out there exposed to these chemicals. And it makes sense to try to protect them. You should do that.
BRIAN ROSS: (on camera) Throw these out?
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: Yeah. Our attitude is it's an avoidable risk. Avoid it.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) While advising parents not to panic because there's no proof of harm, Consumers Union is recommending parents actually dispose of all clear plastic baby bottles, because small amounts -- incredibly small amounts of a chemical in the plastic called bisphenol-A was found to seep out during lab tests in which bottles were heated for 30 minutes with simulated formula.
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: Some of the bisphenol-A goes into the formula, and that bisphenol-A would then be in the formula that an infant might drink.
BRIAN ROSS: (on camera) And how much?
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: Not very much. Around a part per billion, one part in a billion parts.
BRIAN ROSS: You have recommended to parents to throw out those clear plastic bottles, based on a finding of just one part per billion -- with a "B," billion?
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: Well, one part per billion is close, close enough to levels that have had effects in animals. It's not this close, but it's this close. The effect that is of concern is a disruption of the developmental process. This could affect intelligence. It could affect behavior. It could affect learning ability. It could affect reproductive ability, fertility many years after the exposure occurs.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) Sure to cause widespread concern among parents, it is one of the strongest steps any consumer group has ever taken, based on an infinitesimal amount of a chemical never proven, only suspected by some scientists of being a risk.
1st MOTHER: How can you not worry about chemicals in your plastics when you give them to your baby?
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) Most members of the new mother's group in New York were astonished to learn about the advice of Consumers Union to stop using baby bottles made of a kind of clear rigid plastic known as polycarbonate which could seep the chemical bisphenol-A.
2nd MOTHER: It's very scary to think that chemicals could be seeping into his food.
3rd MOTHER: Normally I am an alarmist, but this is not alarming me.
4th MOTHER: I never even really thought of what plastic was made of. You just kind of think of it as plastic .
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) The clear plastic polycarbonate baby bottles account for 95 percent of the baby bottles sold in this country. And the manufacturers in the plastic industry today demanded the Consumers Union retract its story, saying it was irresponsible and ignores industry and federal tests which concluded the chemical does not come out under normal use.
Dr. JAMES LAMB, Toxicologist: My 2-year-old drinks out of bottles that are manufactured from BPA. And I'm very comfortable that it is safe for my child.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) Dr. James Lamb is a toxicologist and attorney who was paid by the industry to appear on 20/20 to talk about bisphenol-A, known as BPA -- a chemical Dr. Lamb says has been well tested and used safely for decades.
Dr. JAMES LAMB: I have no concern for safety from the use of BPA.
BRIAN ROSS: (on camera) No risk?
Dr. JAMES LAMB: I think it's perfectly safe.
BRIAN ROSS: But as a consumer, why take the risk if there's any risk at all?
Dr. JAMES LAMB: It's most important to manage any risk that we experience. There are many risks in life.
BRIAN ROSS: But why not knock it out?
Dr. JAMES LAMB: There's not zero risks. This particular risk I would not knock out, because we've got data to show that it's safe. And the exposures are low, and we shouldn't be knocking out safe products.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) But Dr. Groth says the baby bottle alert was the result of new and still evolving scientific research on low doses of certain chemicals, including bisphenol-A and their effect on the developmental process.
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: There are all sorts of complicated processes of development going on inside a rapidly growing human. And if you just change the direction of one of those just a tiny bit with the wrong chemical signal at a critical point during infancy, then the course of that development is skewed. And later on in life, something may turn out abnormal.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) It's a theory supported by the work of Dr. Frederick vom Saal, a professor of biology at the University of Missouri. His research, very much disputed by the industry, involves laboratory mice and extremely low doses of bisphenol-A.
Dr. FREDERICK VOM SAAL, University of Missouri: We've seen a wide variety of damage in the offspring when we feed this to pregnant female mice. So we have the threat of a chemical that in an adult is not necessarily harmful, but in a developing fetus or a newborn poses a very unique and very serious danger.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) Dr. vom Saal's research may threaten what has become a multi-billion dollar a year business for companies including General Electric, Shell, and Dow, which runs this bisphenol-A plant in Texas. The industry strongly disputes vom Saal's findings, based largely on the fact that four industry-funded studies could not duplicate his results.
Dr. JAMES LAMB: I think it's not only an unproven theory, an untested theory, it's actually being very substantially rebutted by work done by not just industry, but also by the federal government.
Dr. FREDERICK VOM SAAL: We're talking about damage in organs that sometimes is difficult to pinpoint but could have very serious health consequences, nonetheless. So it's very easy to do an experiment and never find anything. Anybody can do that.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) If Dr. Vom Saal is found to be right, it could have serious implications for other products made with bisphenol-A, including the protective lining in some food cans, many water cooler bottles and other products made with polycarbonate plastic . Which is one of the reasons Dr. Groth says more research is needed.
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: With most chemicals we just don't know enough about how they might affect our health.
BRIAN ROSS: (on camera) Are you on a war here against the chemical and plastics industries?
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: We are not engaged in any kind of war. We have a job to do. And that is to give consumers good advice.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) And the controversy over bisphenol-A in baby bottles is only the latest triggered by Consumers Union and its decision to test for the presence of plastic chemicals in food.
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: That's about two ounces.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) Another contentious battle has been under way for months involving how a chemical called DEHA , used to make certain plastic wraps soft and clingy, seeps out of the wrap in small amounts into fatty products like cheese.
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: When it's in contact with the cheese surface, which it is, as you can see, on six sides of this block of cheese, there's an opportunity for the chemical to move out of the plastic and into the cheese, and it does.
BRIAN ROSS: (on camera) The chemicals come out of the plastic ?
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: They do.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) The concern, according to Consumers Union, is specifically with the kind of plastic wrap used in many grocery deli sections and food stores. As with bisphenol-A in baby bottles, the federal government and industry say extensive scientific evidence demonstrates that DEHA in food wrap is safe and does not pose any human health hazards.
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: PVC cling wrap on the back.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) But that didn't stop Consumers Union from calling for DEHA to be greatly reduced or phased out of plastic wrap, based on stricter standards for daily intake set in Europe.
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: Our calculations show that less than two ounces, about an ounce and a half actually, would be enough to put a 5-year-old child over the limit that the Europeans consider safe.
BRIAN ROSS: (on camera) Just this amount?
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: Just that amount of cheese. And the smaller the kid, the smaller the amount of cheese it would take to put them over the top.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) The Consumers Union study found that the cheese prewrapped by manufacturers, like the single slice cheese, did not contain DEHA . Saran Wrap, Handi-Wrap and Glad Cling Wrap also are not made with DEHA . But Consumers Union found that Reynolds Plastic Wrap had high amounts, which Reynolds says is approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration and entirely safe.
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: They perceive that as long as a chemical has not been shown to cause any harm, it ought to be allowed in commerce.
BRIAN ROSS: (on camera) What's wrong with that?
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: Well, it leads us into the situation we've got, where children are being exposed to a chemical day in and day out, and we don't know if it's harmful and we don't know if it's not harmful.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) When it comes to the microwave, even most manufacturers advise that plastic wrap should not come in direct contact with the food. Not because of any health risk, they say, but apparently because the chemicals might taste bad.
Dr. SCOTT PHILLIPS, Toxicologist: I can say with medical certainty as a physician that I have no concern about this.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) The Plastics Council hired a doctor and toxicologist, Dr. Scott Phillips, instead of providing an industry scientist to talk to us about the Consumers Union warning.
Dr. SCOTT PHILLIPS: The overwhelming weight of the scientific evidence supports that this substance is safe.
BRIAN ROSS: (on camera) Do you challenge their findings that that chemical comes out of the plastic wrap and goes into the cheese?
Dr. SCOTT PHILLIPS: No, I don't challenge those findings.
BRIAN ROSS: And you're saying that's not a risk at all?
Dr. SCOTT PHILLIPS: It's not a risk at the concentrations that it comes out.
BRIAN ROSS: That's an industrial chemical going into cheese that we all eat. And that's not a risk?
Dr. SCOTT PHILLIPS: Well, even water can be an industrial chemical, Brian. It depends on the concentration of it.
BRIAN ROSS: But this is not water.
Dr. SCOTT PHILLIPS: And this is at minute concentrations that has never demonstrated adverse effect at these concentration levels.
Big Ben tolls)
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) But other governments have been much more cautious about DEHA than the United States. Particularly in Great Britain where, almost a decade ago, officials took steps to lower the amounts of DEHA in plastic wrap, even though they said the risk of harm was remote.
Dr. LAURENCE CASTLE, Britain's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: The opinion of the expert committees was that the leaching of DEHA plasticizer was at too high a level, and as a matter of prudence, it should be reduced.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) Dr. Laurence Castle runs the food safety lab for Britain's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
Dr. LAURENCE CASTLE: Consumers were recommended not to use these wrapping materials for fatty foods, not to use them at high temperatures, and manufacturers were asked to reformulate the films to give lower leaching levels.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) So now, consumers here, including those at the food halls of Harrods...
HARRODS CLERK: That's 40 change and your receipt.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) ...get their cheese and meat wrapped in a plastic wrap with drastically lowered levels of DEHA , something the American government and the American plastics industry continue to insist is unnecessary.
Dr. SCOTT PHILLIPS: I don't think it's supported by the weight of the scientific evidence.
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: The manufacturers will argue that it's a safe chemical, but that's basically arguing that chemicals are innocent until they're proven guilty.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) Yet, as a new industry campaign points out, plastic wrap helps keep food from spoiling.
INDUSTRY SPOKESMAN (TV commercial): Keeping us safe and the food we eat fresh.
BRIAN ROSS: (voice-over) Plastic baby bottles don't break, and they're easy to keep clean. And both the industry and the federal government say they are completely safe. (on camera) Are you really giving good advice to advise parents to steer away from those products that have been in homes for years now?
Dr. EDWARD GROTH: A lot of these things do make our lives better. But that uncertainty is the problem. We think it's sensible advice based on not just what's known, but what's not known.
CHARLES GIBSON: If you want to avoid possibly exposing your child to bisphenol-A in baby bottles, Consumer Reports advises you get bottles like these -- made of either glass or made of a less shiny, opaque plastic -- plastic that often comes in colors. But it may be difficult because the vast majority of all baby bottles are now made of clear plastic .
As for deli-wrapped cheese, Consumer Reports recommends if you want to be cautious, slice off the cheese that's been in contact with the wrap.
We'll be right back.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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