FDA will re-evaluate safety of bisphenol A

An advisory science board for the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously Friday to endorse a report alerting the public that the FDA’s decision to declare bisphenol A (BPA) safe was seriously flawed.

The FDA is going back to the drawing board on BPA. In August the agency declared in a draft report that the chemical was safe, even for infants.

The report was supposed to be made official by Friday, but instead the FDA says it will start over by re-examining scientific studies it had earlier ignored. The process could take months or even years.

The science board found that the FDA relied heavily on studies funded by the chemical industry, which found BPA exposure was not a health threat. The agency ignored hundreds of independent studies which found BPA caused health problems in children at levels 10 times lower than what the FDA currently deems safe.

"The margins of safety defined by FDA as adequate are not adequate," said Martin Philbert, chairman of a seven-member subcommittee commissioned by the FDA's Science Board to review the agency's findings regarding bisphenol A.

BPA is a synthetic sex hormone which mimics estrogen in the body. It is commonly used in baby bottles, the lining of infant formula cans, canned food and soft drink cans.

Environmental and health advocates are lambasting the FDA for failing to act quickly to protect public health. The Canadian government recently declared BPA toxic and banned its use in baby bottles.

Larry Sassich, the consumer representative on the FDA's advisory board, said the FDA has lost the public's trust.

"We have a lot of good science and then we don't do anything with it," he said of the hundreds of studies of BPA that the FDA has ignored. "We have a chemical out there that is potentially harmful to infants and small children. It would be nice to sit there in isolation and look at the data. But we don't have that luxury. The public expects us to do something."

Despite the lack of action from the FDA, manufacturers said Friday that they are already pursuing alternatives to BPA. Mardi Mountford, a representative for the International Formula Council said that industry is already working on developing BPA-free packaging.

"Because questions about the use of BPA have been raised, we have continued to work with our suppliers to identify opportunities for packaging without BPA," Mountford said.

It's unclear when those changes might happen. William Pierce, a spokesman for baby formula manufacturers, said it takes time to develop packaging products that are safe.

"This is baby formula, not motor oil," he said.