"Which BPA-free plastics have effects similar to BPA?"
Answer: nearly all of them
That is, if legally forced to stop using a poisonous chemical, the company is regrettably forced to substitute its most chemically similar (but still legal) cousin compound.
The differences are usually so slight as to make no difference in its harms. It's the designer drugs of manufacturing.
It applies to molecules (e.g. BPA), where a single atom substitution gives you a new molecule. So it's like saying you can't make a navy shirt with exactly 44 stripes on it - you just make one with 45. Or change the hue slightly. It makes no real difference.
Sulfur is an element, so it's a whole different category of discussion. It's like saying "you have to use less cotton." You might replace it with silk or rayon or just make fewer shirts, but it's a much more impactful restriction.
CFCs aren't a specific molecule, but a class of molecules: they're organic compounds of usually 1-4 carbons that have (some number) of chlorine and some number of fluorine atoms on them. Here you can't just swap one fluorine for one hydrogen and squeak past the regs, because you're still in the same class. It's like a regulation barring button-down shirts: one button more or less isn't going to let you avoid the rules, though you can still make shirts of some variety.
This is why regs targeting classes are far more effective than those targeting single molecules.
Sulfur in fuel is a contaminant. It isn't added, it was there when the crude was pumped out of the ground. Once you remove it you don't need to replace it with anything. The oil industry has claimed the sulfur was useful as a lubricant, but that was largely a red herring because they didn't want to pay to remove it.
And CFCs were used for their physical properties rather than their chemical properties, so it's possible to substitute compounds that are chemically different as long as they still have the right physical properties.
A good example on the other side is fire retardant chemicals used in furniture. They're pretty much all toxic, so every few years the most recently popular one gets banned and the manufacturers switch to something else which is just as bad but isn't prohibited yet.
• Many libraries have free online access to very large journal collections and are open to the public.
• Deepdyve.com. It's kind of like Spotify for journals. Unlimited online access to a very large collection for a fixed monthly or annual fee.
Most US public libraries don’t have access to ‘scientific’ journals. Only educational and research institutions libraries subscribe and provide access to their faculty students and staff. Most univ libraries are not ‘officially’ open to general public.
Public universities generally, and some private universities as well, have (ususlly non-free, but also usually inexpensive; e.g., UC Davis is $60/yr) provision for public privileges.
But I would agree that this is not really a good solution for most people as it requires a lot of conditions which aren't always possible:
-- close proximity to a University which has a library with such policies
-- knowledge of the search systems to be able to find the document in the alloted public access time
-- available time during library public hours to do said research
More or less most people are blocked from such research without any means aside from very expensive fees to access such data.
Which libraries? I spent a little time looking for that service, and none provided it. IME: Public libraries don't have access to JSTOR or any decent substitute (if there is one). Academic libraries charge several hundred dollars per year for guest membership and provide guests with limited services; none provide offsite access to JSTOR or other journal collections - due to the consistency of this policy, I guessed that it was a contractual restriction imposed by JSTOR.
Source: I work there.
I'm not sure that's a good example.
Is that information actually in the peer-reviewed literature? I tried looking for those numbers for Tallahassee, FL but failed miserably.
I did find https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2854760/ which says "Predicted concentrations in drinking water were used instead of measured concentrations because few studies have measured estrogen concentrations in U.S. drinking water, and those that are available report primarily nondetected concentrations [see Supplemental Material, available online (doi:10.1289/ehp.0900654.S1 via http://dx.doi.org/); see also Hannah et al. 2009]."
The supplemental information says "The consistently large MOEs and MOSs strongly suggest that prescribed and total estrogens that may potentially be present in drinking water in the United States are not causing adverse effects in U.S. residents, including sensitive subpopulations."
So that's one answer. Why go further (assuming you trust it)?
Of course, that's for estrogens, not the wider category of "chemicals that act like estrogens", but 1) what do you mean by that phrase?, and 2) is anyone measuring these values for every water system?
Public water systems do measure some values. I believe they are required to publish a report every year. Here's the recent one for Tallahassee https://www.talgov.com/Uploads/Public/Documents/you/learn/li... . You'll note they don't measure the potentially large number of chemicals you mention. There are people that measure concentration levels of possible hormone disruptors, but as far as I can tell these are spot checks, and not done at a system-wide level that someone could simply look up in a published paper.
In any case, that sort of reporting information doesn't go into the scientific literature, but rather into a scientific database. Here's one, for example: https://www.waterqualitydata.us .
I can be wrong. Which $45 paper will tell me the answer to your question, for the public water system in Tallahassee?
I found a water treatment company trying to sell RO and other point-of-use systems which had pointers to reports about hormones, pharmaceuticals, and other contaminants in the water, but they don't offer estrogen testing.
FWIW, $45 at http://www.ackuritlabs.com/residential-testing/residential-a... gives me either an E. coli survey or a filter survey for iron, pH, tannins, hardness, and turbidity.
Perhaps you can do better than I did?
[1] https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/industrial/mass-spec...
[2] https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_there_a_solid_laborator...
Regarding the testing, I was only looking at local Tallahassee water testing companies. This was an overly strict restriction of mine.
The OP has not yet clarified what "chemicals that act like estrogens" means, so it's possible that [1] of yours may be too limited in what it tests for.
FWIW, your [1] does not include the "Thermo Scientific Ultimate™ 3000/TSQ Vantage™ LC-MS/MS", with which it's designed to work. I am unable to find a price for that, but it looks expensive.
As I've no problem with the statement "The consistently large MOEs and MOSs strongly suggest that prescribed and total estrogens that may potentially be present in drinking water in the United States are not causing adverse effects in U.S. residents, including sensitive subpopulations.", I will not be starting a testing business, as the temptation to market to fear is too high.
But that's just technical details. The point is, without access to these articles a consumer cannot even make informed decisions on the most basic health choices.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/public-records-a...
(And that's not even counting the amount of law in the US that is from case law instead of statutes; most case law is behind some sort of paywall. Hence RECAP, which is sort of like Sci-Hub for law.)
Sounds evil and twisted to me.
Some of the arguments passed here is that these researches are funded by tax-payers money. I can stand behind that. But if it is a private research, then shouldn't the entity be entitled for compensation?
You don't work for free, do you?