Plastic Perils: A Clash of Views Between Scientists and Policymakers

A Conflict between Scientists and Policymakers

The article entitled 'Scientists know plastics are dangerous. Why won’t government say so?” written by a freelance writer and former staffer with the Senate Finance committee Paul Thacker, was published in The Washington Post on September 14, 2018. Through this article he tried to illustrate the different views of scientists and the government agencies regarding the effect of plastics on human health. He especially mentioned about the conflicts of the harmful effects of plastics among the scientific community, industries, funding agencies and the policymakers.

Thacker uses different evidences from the various points of view such as researchers and scientists, professors, journalists, industries using ethos and pathos. The actual message in this article is to provide information on conflicts among scientist and policymaker about danger of plastics to human health in USA.

This article contains both prospective of pathos and logos according to different points of view. Firstly, Thacker provided the information from the letter of American Academy of Pediatrics, which was issued in July 2018 and related the harmful effect of chemicals in food coloring, preservatives and packaging to children which aren’t being regulated by the government.

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Furthermore, Thacker uses ways of handling plastics containing foods such as microwave liquids and foods, plastic glass, metals etc. which arise problems for children health. That creates questions about the responsibility of the government by public. Similarly scientists aggressively highlighted the harmful effect of those chemicals; however the industries create counter studies by attacking those scientists and journalists who reports on the negative impact of those chemicals, which augments doubt about the harm.

In this article, Thacker included ethical views about FDA to protect from the dangerous chemicals to people, however it is not well regulated what public consume because “They completely bed with industry” said Erik Olson, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Former Environmental Protection Employee. Olson’s views are reflected in another book by Professor of Rutgers University Norah Mackendrick “Better Safe Than Sorry: How Consumers Navigate Exposure to Everyday Toxins.” Norah Mackendrick emphasizes that the present era of deregulation is from parents, they makes complicated choices that foods or products they buy are safe for children. After 1950s, food packaging system increases rapidly and FDA has given some help to people who want safe food. Thacker also put another strong evidence by Leonardo Trasande from NYU school of Medicine and member of AAP, who spent on discussing food additive safety for 2 years. Before finalizing that the FDA is not keeping safe to children and said “This is not a bunch of green, tree-hugging pediatricians”.

Similarly, articles showed pathos from the prospective from researchers and scientists who are working in the field of health and environmental sector. Trasade, a physician by training studied about how children are exaggerated by BPA, one of the chemicals emphasized by AAP. BPA, which act as female hormone estrogen, is predominantly frightening to kids. A little doses of BPA may bring host of disease. AAP said “potentially change the timing of puberty, diseases fertility, disease fertility, and affects the nervous and immune system”. However, many of these educational research is overlooked by government.

Throughout the article, Thacker put the role of the funding agencies and industries in this debate. Therefore, many of these chemicals are being unregulated. Moreover, in 2008, The Washington Post reported another huge problem regarding influence of industry at FDA, where companies hired the private group of researchers which create favorable finding to chemical industry, that challenge the studies finding evidence of harm and create more confusion to regulators. In addition, in 2009, an award-winning Milwaukee Journal related to the potential dangers of BPA reported that industry’s untruth campaign included changing Wikipedia pages. Apart from this, journals and the publishing agents of scientific community also are not safe from those antics. Furthermore, Thacker also put some safety regulations by FDA because of the growing awareness from the post and Journal Sentinel. Eleven states banned bottles and the sippy cups in 2012.

Thacker adds more evidences of science journals which are also harmed from these antics. Different investigative actions from the center for public integrity and more outlets have noticed that the cooperate-funded scientist favored particularly two journals for publishing studies which promote the safety of pesticides and chemicals namely: Critical reviews of Toxicology, and Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. 43 scientists signed a letter in in the year 2003, about repeated unidentified conflicts of interest and regulatory toxicology. The editor of this journal, Gio Gori, worked previously as a tobacco consultant skeptically wrote about the dangers of secondhand smoke and published by this society journal. However, the public health experts terminate those publications as untrustworthy self-importance journals. David Michaels, a professor of Public Health at George Washington University said “These two journals exist to manufacture and disseminate scientific doubt”, they give positive feedback to companies and Michaels said “Look, the studies have conflicting conclusions, so there is too much scientific uncertainty to issue regulations to protect the public or to compensate victims.” Therefore, by funding groups downplay danger of chemicals; criticize the scientists who study related to them and journalist who report. It is most prominent in American Council on Science and Health, received funding from those different chemical companies and exists to protect validating, pesticides and BPA, and that group exposed new website to attack scientists and journalists who noticed that type of company funding can affect results.

Thacker concludes by saying that still there is huge confusion between independent scientists related to these chemicals and their effects on human health. He focused the view of Trasande that he does not expect federal agencies or congress to address that chemical safety. Moreover, AAP statement conducted to alert public peoples and which will start national discussion of this issue. Therefore, the pressure from consumers about those chemicals in food will obviously force companies to make certain changes to save their brands. Finally, Thacker expects from government action and public pressure that may act to protect food safety from chemicals to consumers.

Works Cited

Thacker, P. D. (2018) “Scientists know plastics are dangerous. Why won’t the government say so?” The Washington Post, Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/scientists-know-plastics-are-dangerous-why-wont-the-government-say-so/2018/09. Accessed 14 Oct. 2018