BPA in recent years has grabbed the public’s attention with reports that baby and water bottles were leaching the ubiquitous plastics additive, which mimics estrogen and is known as a hormone disruptor. The chemical, which softens and strengthens plastics, has potentially been linked to breast and prostate cancer, early onset of puberty in girls, infertility, obesity and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

It has become such a concern that several states, the European Union and Canada have banned BPA, or bisphenol A, in the production of baby bottles. Of course, parents were shaken by news that children’s products might be harming their kids. But BPA is also in food packaging, CDs, DVDs, store receipts, dental sealants and the liners of beverage cans, among many other items.

Because of this, Loyola has joined other institutions, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in launching studies to evaluate the effect of BPA on health. Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine paired up with scientists at our sister campus of Loyola University Chicago to research BPA levels in three different communities: a rural, agrarian village (Nkwantakese, Ghana), an urban, middle-income society (Kingston, Jamaica) and a low-income community in an affluent nation (Maywood, Illinois).

First-year student Vytas Karalius said when he learned that Master’s in Public Health students were needed to conduct field research for the BPA study in Ghana and Jamaica, “I hopped on it. Getting firsthand experience is the best way to learn and this was an opportunity to further my interests in public health and research at the same time.”

Nallely Mora, MD, signed up with Mr. Karalius and other graduate Public Health students to gain hands-on research experience. In Ghana, for example, Dr. Mora and Mr. Karalius surveyed villagers on their dietary habits, gathered samples of drinking water and food, assessed how close villagers’ homes were to landfills and collected water samples from local streams. They experienced different lifestyles and cultures while learning how to design experiments, evaluate data and interpret their findings - and to come up with workarounds when necessary.

They packed and shipped the samples to Loyola’s Lake Shore Campus, where they will be tested along with the Maywood specimens. Researchers will analyze the data during the next eight months.

Although low-dose exposure has been deemed safe by several scientific bodies, BPA has also fallen under the scrutiny of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It calculates that the amount of BPA leached into the environment each year currently stands at more than 1 million pounds, but that number continues to grow.

“A U.S. Geological Society survey conducted in 2000 detected BPA among the contaminants discovered in more than 100 streams” downstream from wastewater facilities, said Lane Vail, a research associate for Loyola’s Center for Urban Environmental Research and Policy who has been studying the effects of pharmaceuticals and personal-care products on stream water quality.

“And while BPA metastasized 50 percent to 60 percent of the time, it has been found to affect bacteria and algae that serve as food sources for these streams,” Vail said, adding that the chemical alters the sex ratios of aquatic life.

The EPA has characterized BPA as a “reproductive, developmental and systematic toxicant” and has drawn up an action plan to assess its environmental impact. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has voiced similar concerns and has invested in new BPA studies through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the FDA.

The Loyola study is led by Amy Luke, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine & Epidemiology and Family Medicine at Loyola’s Stritch School of Medicine, and Nancy Tuchman, PhD, vice provost and professor of the Department of Biology at Loyola University Chicago. According to Dr. Luke, researchers expect to find that the Ghanaians are exposed to less BPA than the residents of Maywood, who are more likely to consume packaged foods and canned drinks.

“If we can demonstrate any kind of impact that increased levels of BPA have on human and aquatic life, we can pursue larger-scale studies funded by the NIH and National Science Foundation,” Dr. Tuchman said.

Graduate students of Public Health like Mr. Karalius and Dr. Mora play a major role in achieving that objective while pursing their own career goals. Mr. Karalius’ dream is to attend medical school and become a physician involved in public health. Dr. Mora chose the Master’s in Public Health program at Stritch after serving as a physician at a community clinic in Cahuacan, Mexico, because it allows her to combine public health work and research.

“With the right knowledge, you can have an impact on an entire population,” she said.

And while the study potentially may help affect environmental policies, this project also has another aim.

“With our Jesuit mission of social justice, we at Loyola have a responsibility to pursue projects such as these,” Dr. Tuchman said. For more information about the Master’s of Public Health program, please call (708) 327-9011.