FDA revisiting controversial issue of BPA

Today the FDA will provide an update to its advisory science board about the revision of its assessment of bisphenol A (BPA), the ubiquitous synthetic sex hormone found in plastic baby bottles, can linings and other food and beverage containers, which are regulated by the agency. Last fall, the science board found the FDA’s assessment that BPA was safe to be seriously flawed.

FDA-watchers are expecting the agency to announce that it will take more time to review the scientific studies it ignored while putting together its first assessment of BPA. But delaying action is not justified, given how much we know about the harm to health from BPA in food and beverage products used by the general population.

Enough is known now to take action to eliminate BPA from food and beverage containers. 

Just last month, an additional four studies published in Environmental Health Perspectives challenge the FDA’s conclusion that BPA exposure does not pose a threat to adults or children. A study from the University of Alabama suggested that there may be a link to breast cancer later in life when baby mice were exposed to BPA through breastmilk. A University of Rochester Medical Center study found that BPA is more prevalent in our bodies and harder to get rid of than previously understood. Dr. Retha Newbold, a biologist for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences published research that indicates early exposure to BPA may be linked to cancer later in life. And a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found high levels of BPA in hospitalized, premature infants, likely due to exposure to PVC medical devices in the hospital.

Nor should the FDA keep its focus solely on exposure to BPA through infant and children’s products when research shows effects on larger populations. Hundreds of studies show prenatal exposure to BPA – even at low doses – may be linked to an increasing number of diseases from infertility to breast cancer to diabetes to learning disabilities.

While environmental and women’s health advocates have pushed the FDA to widen its inquiry to include pregnant women’s exposure to BPA, the FDA has kept a narrow focus on infants and children.

One more bit of proof that BPA has serious impacts on adults as well as children comes from a University of Cincinnati study that showed BPA possibly interferes with the effectiveness of chemotherapy.

Every day the FDA delays acting on BPA is a gift to the chemical industry, which keeps churning out billions of pounds of the toxic chemical every year, at costs yet unknown to our health and the environment.