FDA continues to ignore BPA science, has another shot Friday

This has been a big week in the saga around bisphenol A (BPA) - a chemical in food packaging that poses a considerable health risk, especially to infants and children. Our health team has been working on this for years, and we are hopeful that we may finally see some real progress. Here's a "play-by-play" of this week's events, which may be a real turning point in protecting people from exposure to this toxic chemical.

Yesterday, an external group of scientists tasked with reviewing FDA's analysis of the safety of BPA in food packaging - including baby bottles - told the FDA that the conclusions they made to affirm the safety of BPA are inadequate. In the new report, the scientists - commissioned by the FDA itself - called on the Agency to update their BPA safety analysis by making significant changes including adding over a dozen independent studies finding evidence of harm at current levels of exposure. To date, FDA has only considered two studies when concluding that BPA is safe in food packaging, and both were sponsored by the chemical industry. FDA has ignored other independent studies that have associated BPA with reproductive harm, cancer, nervous system damage, diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.

Today, the FDA today issued a statement reaffirming the safety of BPA in our food supply and largely ignored the advice of their peer review panel. FDA does agree with the panel that more research is needed, but this is only one of six major recommendations outlined as ways of improving FDA's safety evaluation of BPA. FDA made no acknowledment of the other serious criticisms and has not indicated they will incorporate these strong recommendations to improve their analysis.

This Friday, the FDA's full Science Panel will review the new report and will advise the agency on how to proceed in re-evaluating its approval of BPA in food packaging. My colleague, NRDC senior attorney Aaron Colangelo, will testify at the Science Panel's meeting. Aaron will tell the Science Panel that the FDA has a mandate to prove BPA is safe, and because the majority of research shows it is not - including research identified in this latest report commissioned by the Agency itself - BPA should be banned from food packaging. NRDC also petitioned the FDA to ban BPA from food packaging last week - prior to the release of the new report.

FDA is mandated by law to prove the safety of a chemical before it is added to our food supply. But at this point, neither the agency's own science advisors, nor the general public are are happy with the way FDA is doing their job. To fulfill their mission of protecting public health, the FDA should pay heed to the recommendations of this report and issue an updated safety assessment soon.

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