Feds To Decide On Banning BPA From Food And Other Products

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Feds To Decide On Banning BPA From Food And Other Products
March 30, 2012
by Jon Hamilton - NPR Morning Edition

Environmental groups say a ban would protect consumers from the health effects of BPA that leaches from products including some soup cans.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has until today to decide whether to ban the plastic additive BPA from food packaging.

The deadline is part of a legal settlement with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which had petitioned the FDA to ban BPA, also known as bisphenol A, from any use where it comes in contact with food.

Environmental groups say a ban would protect consumers from the health effects of BPA that leaches from products including some soup cans and water bottles. The chemical can act like estrogen in the body, and studies of animals show that large doses can affect the brain and sexual development.

But recent studies done by government researchers at the request of regulatory agencies suggest it's very unlikely that BPA poses a health risk to people. And in the past, the FDA has relied heavily on this sort of in-house research for its decisions.

In its effort to review the safety of BPA, the FDA called on a high-powered team of government scientists to help answer several key questions.

One is: How much of the BPA a person ingests actually makes it into his or her bloodstream in a dangerous form?

That's an important question because the human body often inactivates potentially dangerous chemicals like BPA as they pass through the intestine and liver.

Once that happens, the chemical is no longer a health risk because it's no longer "bioactive," says Justin Teeguarden, a toxicologist and senior research scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Lab in Richland, Wash.

So with BPA, he says, "you may be exposed to relatively large amounts in the diet. But what matters most is how much of the bioactive form actually reaches your blood and your tissues."

Teeguarden studied 20 men and women who spent a day on a diet loaded with BPA from canned foods and juice in plastic containers. He wanted to know how much bioactive BPA would end up in their blood.

The answer: not enough to measure. "If it is present it is below our limit of detection," Teeguarden says.

Some studies that have found quite high levels of BPA in the blood, Teeguarden says. But he questions whether those results are reliable.

The reason is that to get blood levels that high,a person would have to ingest hundreds or thousands of times more BPA than people typically get in their diet.

"The question is, where did that bioactive BPA come from?" Teeguarden says. And he says one likely answer is that the chemical got into blood samples accidentally sometime after they were drawn from a person's body.

"Contamination is a common problem," Teeguarden says. "We observed it in our own study, but because we were monitoring for it we were able to overcome that particular problem."

The studies that found high levels of bioactive BPA in blood used samples collected in hospitals or doctors' offices, not research settings, Teeguarden says. And those studies did not include a common test to detect contamination.

Another big BPA question for the FDA is whether the chemical poses a special risk to newborn children.

So the agency asked Dan Doerge, a research chemist, to investigate. Doerge works at the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research in Arkansas.

He studied newborn mice, rats and monkeys because it would have been unethical to use human babies.

In one study, Doerge looked to see whether a lot of BPA was getting into breast milk. His conclusion: "The transfer from mother into milk is extremely low."

In another study, he asked whether it's likely that human newborns are less able than adults to make BPA harmless by inactivating it.

He knew that was the case for newborn rats and mice. More toxic BPA does reach their bloodstream.

But monkeys are a much better indicator of what's happening with human babies.

And Doerge found that newborn monkeys had no trouble inactivating BPA. Levels in their bodies were about a 10th as high as in mice and rats because "they have a greater metabolic capacity to detoxify BPA than do either of the rodent species."

The studies by Doerge, Teeguarden and other government scientists weren't intended to prove that BPA is safe.

But the results do add some important context to the debate about BPA, Doerge says.

"It makes you think that this would have to be an extraordinarily potent compound to be causing effects at the really low levels that humans are exposed to," he says.

Of course it's still possible the FDA will ban bisphenol A.

But many companies worried about BPA's bad image have already started using alternative chemicals in a wide range of products, especially those intended for kids.

These chemicals may be safe — but they haven't been scrutinized the way BPA has.

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@BumbleBeeBoogie,

Mar. 31, 2012
EPA denies petition to ban use of chemical BPA from food, drink containers
By MEG KISSINGER | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Food and Drug Administration announced Friday that it was denying a petition to ban BPA from all food and drink containers, saying the science does not show an immediate cause for such action.

However, the federal agency cautioned that this ruling does not declare bisphenol A, or BPA, as safe. The agency says it is continuing its assessment of the chemical, which is used in the lining of most canned food and drinks.

Friday's action comes as a response to a petition filed in 2008 by the Natural Resources Defense Council claiming that the chemical poses a serious threat to human health.

"The FDA denied the NRDC petition today because it did not provide the scientific evidence needed to change current regulations, but this announcement is not a final safety determination and the FDA continues to support research examining the safety of BPA," said FDA spokesman Douglas Karas .

Karas said the FDA's recent research thus far indicates:

-Exposure to BPA of human infants is from 84 percent to 92 percent less than previously estimated.

-The level of BPA from food that could be passed from pregnant rodents to its unborn offspring is so low that it could not be measured. Researchers fed pregnant rodents 100 to 1,000 times more BPA than people are exposed to through food, and could not detect the active form of BPA in the fetus eight hours after the mother's exposure.

-People of all ages process and rid their bodies of BPA faster than the rodents used as test animals do.

The FDA continues to study the effects of BPA and will make any necessary changes to BPA's status based on the science, Karas said.

Sarah Janssen, senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, criticized the federal agency for failing to ban BPA.

"BPA is a toxic chemical that has no place in our food supply," she said.

"The agency has failed to protect our health and safety - in the face of scientific studies that continue to raise disturbing questions about the long-term effects of BPA exposures, especially in fetuses, babies and young children."

Chemical industry lobbyists praised the government decision.

"FDA's decision today, which has taken into consideration the best available science, again confirms that BPA is safe for use in food-contact materials, as it has been approved and used safely for four decades," said Steve Hentges, senior scientist with the American Chemistry Council.

While the chemistry council is characterizing Friday's move as the government "closing the books" on the petition, it does not mean that the FDA has decided once and for all that BPA is safe.

BPA, a synthetic estrogen developed more than 70 years ago, came into wide use in the 1960s and 1970s to make polycarbonate plastic for such things as baby bottles. It is also used as an epoxy resin to line metal cans. BPA can be found in cell phones, dental sealants, eyeglasses, as a coating for cash register receipts and hundreds of other household items.

It has been detected in the urine of more than 93 percent of Americans tested.

Karas said FDA regulators had "serious questions" about studies that found harm to human health.

The FDA is working toward completion of another updated safety review on BPA this year to include all relevant studies and publications.

The agency's move Friday was criticized by Environmental Working Group, which has lobbied to remove BPA from food and food containers, particularly baby bottles and infant formula.

"The next decision the FDA should make is to remove 'responsible for protecting the public health' from its mission statement,"said Jane Houlihan, senior vice president for research at the Environmental Working Group."It's false advertising. Allowing a chemical as toxic as BPA, and linked to so many serious health problems, to remain in food means the agency has veered dangerously off course."

Scientists first became concerned about BPA in the 1990s when rats stored in polycarbonate cages began miscarrying and showing other signs of reproductive failure. Since then, thousands of studies have linked BPA to health problems.

BPA is regarded by scientists as particularly concerning for fetuses and infants. The effects have been found at low doses, hundreds of times smaller than governmental regulatory agencies have determined to be safe.

Industry revenue from BPA is estimated at more than $6 billion a year.

Chemical makers maintain the chemical is safe for all uses.

A three-year investigation by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that government regulators gave preferential treatment to scientists paid by the chemical industry. Emails obtained by the newspaper showed that FDA scientists relied on chemical industry lobbyists to examine BPA's risks, track legislation to ban it and even monitor news coverage.

Tests conducted by the newspaper found that BPA leached from all containers when heated, including those marked "BPA-Free."

Ten states have various bans on the use of BPA in baby bottles, sippy cups and other tableware intended for use by young children.

In 2008, Canadian health officials declared that BPA was toxic and banned its use in baby bottles.

In recent years, consumer demand led to baby bottle manufacturers discontinuing use of the chemical. Earlier this year, Campbell's Soup joined companies such as General Foods and Trader Joe's in promising to switch to an alternative to BPA.

Several regulatory agencies - including the National Toxicology Program and the FDA's own advisory panel - have concluded that there is cause for concern about BPA's health effects. Human studies have linked BPA to behavioral problems, diabetes and heart disease. Other studies have linked BPA, a synthetic estrogen, to cancers of the breast and prostate.

The FDA agreed to rule by the end of March in exchange for the lawsuit from the Natural Resources Defense Council being dropped.

The defense council petition argued that the FDA should ban the chemical based on scientific concerns.

The American Chemistry Council filed a petition last September, asking the FDA to ban BPA in baby bottles, a move that confused and surprised many. The chemical industry lobbyists steadfastly maintain that BPA is safe for all use but say the chemical is no longer used by most baby bottle makers anyway, so it might as well be taken off the marketplace.

Environmental groups, such as Environmental Working Group and the Natural Resources Defense Council, called the move a "publicity stunt."

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Feds To Decide On Banning BPA From Food And Other Products

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