BPA health threat extends to canned goods

The health threat bisphenol A poses extends far beyond baby bottles and affects many more Americans than just small children. That’s because BPA is present in so many common food containers, like the food and soda cans stocking many Americans’ pantry and cupboard shelves.

This larger threat is highlighted in a recent Newsday article, Concerns grow about safety of BPA use in canned goods. As the story points out, even the origins of BPA are cause for real concern.

This chemical, which can wreak havoc on human health because it can alter and disturb our hormones, was actually developed with the intention of doing just that.

When Oxford University scientists in the mid-1930s first screened bisphenol-A for widespread consumer use, they hoped the chemical compound would be useful in relieving hot flashes and the other symptoms of menopause.

But what became known as BPA flunked as a pharmaceutical - it was too impotent to be used as hormone replacement therapy - and instead flourished as an additive in plastics. It's in dental resins, medical equipment, beverage bottles and in a coating widely used in canned foods, including the epoxy liners of canned infant formula.

Studies have now found that BPA can lead to everything from diabetes to heart disease to cancer. These health effects can come from exposure levels lower than what the Food and Drug Administration currently says are safe.

Plastic coatings are used in most canned goods to prevent foods and beverages from coming in contact with metal. Major manufacturers of liquid infant formula say they are developing alternative liners. But a spokeswoman for Mead-Johnson, the Indiana maker of Enfamil, said that will take years.

Some manufacturers have made no commitment to get BPA out of their products, and the FDA is not requiring them to. In fact, the FDA maintains that BPA exposure is safe. But some government agencies that evaluate the science and advise the FDA disagree.

Reports from the FDA's Science Board Subcommittee and the Department of Health and Human Services' National Toxicology Program, which evaluates chemicals used in foods, prescription drugs and personal care products, suggested that BPA's safety has not been established. In one review, experts with the toxicology program wrote that "the possibility that bisphenol-A may alter human development cannot be dismissed."