Everyone makes choices every day to use plastic, glass, or stainless steel in products in their homes, at work, or in the classroom. You choose which material and products suit your needs and preferences. But when you choose a product made with Eastman Tritan, you can know that Eastman has gone above and beyond government and industry testing requirements to support its claims. With conflicting information circulating in the media, it’s hard to know what or who to believe.
Safety of Tritan:
Tritan has been reviewed independently and approved for use in food contact applications by numerous regulatory agencies around the world. In fact, Eastman has gone above and beyond government and industry testing requirements to prove Tritan is free of
Estrogenic Activity (EA). To ensure the safety of Tritan, Eastman has conducted extensive testing over multiple years using well-recognized scientific methods; including more definitive
in vivo studies, which is the recommended approach by the Endocrine Disruption Screening Program, Office of Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD), and other international organizations. Accredited universities and independent-third-party labs tested Tritan and have proven that it is free of EA.
Eastman continues to stand by this testing and the safety of Tritan.
Scientific validity of the MCF-7 and BG1Luc assays:
PlastiPure and its sister company CertiChem base a majority of their conclusions on a single, nondefinitive screening,
in vitro (test tube) test called the MCF-7 assay. It is widely accepted and acknowledged—even by CertiChem in their test submission to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)— that the MCF-7 assay is considered an initial screening test, not a definitive test. The MCF-7 assay has
not been validated by the National Toxicology Program's Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods or the EPA for use in its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program for the purpose of identifying substances with estrogenic activity. A paper published in May 2014 in
Environmental Health includes information regarding the BG1Luc assay. The study simply repurposes testing previously conducted and published in
Environmental Health Perspectives years ago. The conclusions of the study are unchanged because the BG1Luc test has the same limitations as any
in vitro test and utilized the same prior flawed sample preparation and stressors.
Conflict of interest:
Eastman believes there is a conflict of interest between CertiChem and its sister company, PlastiPure, which claim to be creating the only certified plastic products free of EA on the market. In light of their overlapping interests, CertiChem presumably has strong financial interests in promoting the MCF-7 cell proliferation test despite its shortcomings as a definitive test for EA. CertiChem conducts the testing to substantiate claims that PlastiPure’s plastics are safe and other plastics are unsafe. Both companies share common ownership by husband and wife — Dr. George Bittner and Dr. Cathy (Chun) Yang.
Federal jury ruled in favor of scientific evidence:
In 2013, Eastman prevailed in a lawsuit against PlastiPure and CertiChem based on scientific evidence and expert testimony. The purpose of the lawsuit was to prevent PlastiPure and CertiChem from making false and misleading statements about Tritan in commercial materials attempting to benefit their businesses. During this jury trial, neither the principals or scientists within PlastiPure and CertiChem nor their testifying experts would say under oath that they believed Tritan was harmful to humans. Furthermore, PlastiPure’s chief scientist for the testing admitted during the trial that EA was only detected after using stress methods that did not replicate so called “common use stressors.” He also testified the stress methods were not scientifically reliable. The jury found that statements by PlastiPure and CertiChem that Tritan had EA or that Tritan was dangerous because it exhibited EA were false and misleading, resulting in the Court issuing an injunction prohibiting CertiChem and PlastiPure from making such statements in any commercial manner. |