American money appears to be dirty as traces of the chemical known as BPA has been found on bills.
BPA has been linked to an array of dangerous health side effects, especially in babies and is thus being phased out of many products that it is used in.
The chemical has been linked to cancer, obesity and early puberty onset, thus is very dangerous to come into contact with.
The study, performed by researchers from the Safer Chemicals, Safer Families and the Washington Toxics Coalition tested various receipts made from thermal paper.
Many of these receipts were found to contain large amounts of BPA, and holding the receipts for less than 10 seconds showed that up to 2.5 micrograms of BPA to leach onto a person’s fingers.
On 21 of 22 bills that were tested by the researchers, BPA was discovered.
“Since BPA in thermal paper is present in a powdery film, we suspected it could easily travel from those receipts to other objects,” says the study, led by Washington Toxics Coalition scientist Erika Schreder.
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