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FDA "decisions" on BPA are only latest chapter in ongoing saga

What could have made a splash was more like a plop. Although it was anxiously awaited by some in industry and consumer groups, FDA’s January announcement of its latest thinking about Bisphenol A in packaging was less of an announcement of decisions than a progress report on a still-ongoing adventure.

What’s more, it shows FDA struggling with the limits of its own regulatory powers over food-contact materials. The overall scent is of a political compromise in the face of pressure to act, though science doesn’t really justify action against BPA.

Since the 1960s, BPA has been used in hard plastic bottles and in the coatings that line metal food and beverage cans. It’s been the subject of suspected safety concerns, especially since a 2008 announcement by the National Toxicology Program, which evaluates chemical safety. NTP categorizes its concerns in one of five ways—negligible, minimal, some concern, concern, or serious concern. FDA notes that NTP had “some concern” that current levels of exposure to BPA might have effects on the brain, on behavior, and on the prostate gland in fetuses, infants, and children; NTP had “minimal concern” for mammary gland effects or earlier-age puberty in female fetuses, infants, and children; and NTP had “negligible concern” for other BPA issues.

Quite separate from NPT’s concerns, FDA says it has its own questions about BPA safety. So does the National Institutes of Health. But such concerns always should be evaluated in detail in terms of specific levels of exposure, and specific populations of exposed people. Like virtually all substances approved for food contact, safety is dependent on the levels at which people are exposed to the substance, and the battles over BPA are over the safety of specific amounts of exposure. See www.packworld.com/article-2666 for a summary of past chapters in this saga.

So FDA now says it’s not banning the uses of BPA but isn’t done looking them over, either. It is supporting industry efforts to develop alternatives to BPA for can liners, and it supports actions to stop producing baby bottles with BPA. FDA also points consumers to some advice about minimizing exposure to infants, though it specifically says it is “not recommending that families change the use of infant formula or foods, as the benefit of a stable source of good nutrition outweighs the potential risk from BPA exposure.”

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