Massachusetts officials consider BPA ban

Advocates from the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow delivered nearly 8,500 petitions to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, asking him and the state Department of Public Health to act to ban the use of bisphenol A (BPA) in children's products or to issue a health advisory.

"As a parent, it is a high priority for me to see BPA banned," said Cheryl Durr Patry, a mother from Medfield.

According to a story in the Boston Globe, the health warning would warn pregnant women and young children to avoid food, drinks and other products containing BPA, a synthetic sex hormone found in common household items, including food cans and reusable food containers. 

Numerous studies have found BPA to be linked to heart disease, cancer, neurological impairments and reproductive failure.  Testing shows that children have the highest levels of BPA in their bodies.

Safety concerns about BPA have motivated retailers to pull thousands of baby bottles made from BPA off their shelves and compelled water bottle makers, like Nalgene, to eliminate BPA from its product.  Sunoco, a BPA manufacturer, now requires its customers to guarantee that BPA will not be used in food or water containers for children under age 3.

Lauren Vandenberg and Maricel Maffini, research scientists at Tufts University, asked the question "why hasn't BPA been banned?" in a March 23 oped in the Boston Globe. 

Why hasn't BPA been banned? Mostly because BPA exposure cannot be associated with a single disease; the effects can be subtle and complications may appear years later. Animal studies revealed that BPA exposure during gestation contributed to behavioral disorders, obesity, diabetes, early puberty, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and infertility. In 2007, 38 international specialists on BPA signed the Chapel Hill Consensus Statement at a meeting organized by the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences: Such a wide range of harmful effects, though found in laboratory animals, provided "great cause for concern" for "the potential for similar adverse effects in humans." Experts at the National Toxicology Program agreed.

The scientists conclude by calling on state and federal agencies to create policies that protect the most vulnerable populations: fetuses, infants, and children.