FDA Rejects NRDC Petition to Ban BPA in Food Packaging
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said the Food and Drug Administration was “out-of-step with scientific and medical research,” when it rejected NRDC’s petition March 30 to ban bisphenol A (BPA) in food packaging. “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," said Sarah Johnson, senior scientist in the public health program at NRDC.
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In rejecting NRDC’s petition, the agency stressed that it was not making a final determination of BPA’s safety and instead will continue to examine the ongoing research of BPA’s effects on health, the group said.
NRDC contends that BPA can be found in the linings of beer or soda cans, vegetable or soup cans and liquid infant formula containers as well as consumer products made from polycarbonate plastics, including reusable water bottles. According to NRDC, consumer demand has already driven baby bottles and sippy cups containing the hormone-disrupting chemical from store shelves, but the exposure from food packaging remains.
In 2008, NRDC petitioned the FDA to eliminate BPA from all food packaging. When the agency failed to respond, NRDC sued in 2011, asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to compel the agency to respond. Later that year, the court issued a consent decree requiring FDA to make a final decision on NRDC’s petition by March 31, 2012.
FDA acknowledged in 2010 that it had “some concerns” about the chemical’s effects on the brain, behavior and prostate glands in fetuses, infants and young children, NRDC said. But the agency has only encouraged voluntary actions to reduce BPA exposure.
Since that time numerous studies have raised additional concerns about links between BPA and breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity, NRDC said.
(See ITT’s Online Archive 11120911 for a summary of NRDC’s statement that FDA will rule on its petition by March 31).