October 22, 2014

expert reaction to new study on bisphenol-A and till receipts

A study published in the journal PLOS ONE has investigated the levels of exposure to bisphenol-A through the handling of till receipts, eating, and use of hand sanitiser. A before the headlines analysis accompanied this roundup.

Dr Oliver A.H. Jones, Lecturer in Analytical Chemistry at RMIT University Melbourne, said:

“This paper presents an interesting study on a potential, new exposure pathway for BPA; namely co-exposure with skin sanitisers. The authors seem to have carried out the experiments sensibly and taken care to minimise potential sources of error in their work. However, while I do not doubt the results of the study as it happened in the lab, this exposure pathway seems to be limited to occasions when one handles a freshly printed receipt immediately after having used an alcohol based hand sanitiser; something I have never personally seen or experienced.

“I also do not think that the authors have provided anywhere near enough evidence for their assertion that BPA, or similar chemicals, in thermal paper pose a threat to human health. The authors only list two papers to back up this claim; both of which are reviews and neither of which reached a firm conclusion on the issue. One author of the present study was also a co-author of one of the reviews and this same author has a reputation of being extremely anti BPA, which makes one wonder is the present work was conducted with a truly open mind.

“To the best of my knowledge, nobody has yet conclusively proved that BPA is toxic at any realistic dose, or that it has ever harmed anybody, despite it being in use since the 1950s. So, while I think that the present work is interesting, I do not think the results are a cause for concern for the general public”.

Prof Richard Sharpe, Group Leader of the Male Reproductive Health Research Team, University of Edinburgh, said:

“Till receipts frequently use bisphenol A in the ink. This study has investigated how much bisphenol A may be absorbed via the hands when handling such receipts, especially in a ‘fast food’ restaurant situation, by devising experiments involving humans handling till receipts with and without use of hand wipes (sanitizers) and eating chips. The authors’ conclusion is that handling of till receipts, especially after using hand wipes, can result in significant transfer of bisphenol A through the skin and into the bloodstream.

“Whilst the study appears in general to have been well conducted, some aspects appear improbable – handling a receipt for 4 minutes, for instance, seems unrealistically long.  These seem deliberately designed to maximize exposure, rather than to reflect the real world.

“My main concern, however, is that the measurements of active vs inactive bisphenol A in the blood of the people in the study who handled receipts appears dramatically different to those reported in most other scientific experiments, which indicate that over 95% of bisphenol A in blood is biologically inactive.  This is difficult to explain, but might indicate contamination of blood samples with environmental bisphenol A in this new study.”

‘Holding Thermal Receipt Paper and Eating Food after Using Hand Sanitizer Results in High Serum Bioactive and Urine Total Levels of Bisphenol A (BPA)’ by Annette M. Hormann et al. published in PLOS ONE on Wednesday 22 October. 

Declared interests

None declared