Bisphenol A again identified as threat to human health.

Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine in the United States have shown that exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) during pregnancy can cause gene reprogramming in the foetus that permanently impairs the child's future fertility.

The paper, "Bisphenol-A exposure in utero leads to epigenetic alterations in the developmental programming of uterine estrogen response", by Jason G. Bromer, Yuping Zhou, Melissa B. Taylor, Leo Doherty, and Hugh S. Taylor, was published in the March 2010 Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

Bisphenol A is a component of the food-grade plastic linings used in cans, crown and screw cap closures and other food packaging, as well as in polycarbonate beverage containers.

The research identified "exaggerated response to oestrogen as adults, long after exposure to BPA" during its experiments with mice. Offspring exposed to BPA before birth displayed permanent sensitivity to oestrogen with consequent disruption of their reproductive systems.

The results join a mounting volume of evidence against the suitability of BPA-containing materials as food packaging, which may influence regulators currently considering the states of these plastics in Canada, the United States and Europe.

"What our mothers were exposed to in pregnancy may influence the rest of our lives," said Hugh Taylor, who headed the research project at Yale. "We need to better identify the effect of environmental contaminants on not just crude measures such as birth defects, but also their effect in causing more subtle developmental errors."