Most of us have heard of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) because of a small sticker that is usually on most plastic water bottles and containers saying that they are BPA free.  I’m sure that most of us have also heard that many manufacturers have stopped putting this chemical in their plastic because it is know to cause cancer and other harmful defects.  Who would have known that something as harmless as a sales receipt could also contain this harmful chemical?  I know that I come in contact with some type of sales receipt almost everyday, so this worried me to find out this news.

from: info.milestoneadvisors.net

A study was done at the University of Missouri to prove that sales receipts which are made from thermal paper could be the cause of high levels of BPA in humans (Thermal Paper).  Most people, including myself, would not think that a small piece of paper could be the cause of such high BPA levels in our systems.  BPA is known to “alter signaling mechanisms involving estrogen and other hormones” and could show underdevelopment in fetuses (Thermal Paper).  This could be especially bad for women and their reproductive systems.  This chemical is being used as a print developer in many paper products such as sales receipts, plane tickets, ATM receipts, etc.  The worse part is that if we are touching any of these thermal paper products, the hand creams, soaps, hand sanitizers, or sunscreen that are present on our skin could affect the amount of BPA that is absorbed into our skin (Thermal Paper).  This is not good news for us because these products are in most people’s everyday routine and they are used to combat other things such as germs, dry skin, or sunburn.

The study involved the human subjects to first wash their hands, then touch a thermal paper product, and finally eat french fries with their contaminated hands.  After this occurred, their results came back to show that the BPA was absorbed very quickly into the human system (Thermal Paper).  So not only can the BPA be absorbed into directly into our skin, but it can contaminate our food as well.  This shows that there is even more of a reason to wash our hands before eating our food.  Another study from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center did a study involving looking at the levels of BPA present in human urine.  They looked at 24 volunteer’s urine before the study and detected that 83% of the samples included BPA.  After two hours of holding sales receipts without gloves, 100% of the post urine samples contained BPA (Urine BPA Levels).  Both of these studies seem to have been pretty well done but, both were small so there could have been room for some chance.  Also from these studies, we do not know who is more at risk of higher BPA levels in their systems because the volunteers were not specific.  Another thing that we would not be able to tell is how much BPA will cause cancer and over how much time could it happen.  There needs to be a bigger and more controlled study to possibly give us those answers.

Works Cited

The JAMA Network Journals. “Continuous handling of receipts linked to higher urine BPA levels.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 February 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140225162706.htm>.

University of Missouri-Columbia. “Thermal paper cash register receipts account for high bisphenol A (BPA) levels in humans.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 22 October 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141022143628.htm>.