CU Advocates fighting for CA ban on BPA featured on Grist.org Posted
by Tim at 06/28/09 07:35 PM
Click here to help us pass a ban on BPA in California
From Grist.org
It’s the stuff of a good Hollywood movie-a potentially toxic chemical lurking in the bodies of most unwitting Americans; a decade of mounting but scuttled scientific evidence; government inaction; undue influence and public denials of harm by the powerful chemical industry; congressional inquiries; a crescendo of outcry by consumers demanding that something be done-and still, the battle to ban bisphenol A (also known as BPA) in food and drink containers rages on.
Now, California has become the prime battleground for this David v. Goliath contest.
BPA is a widely-used chemical found in food and beverage can linings and a building block of polycarbonate plastic used to make a range of products such as sports bottles, food-storage containers, baby bottles, and “sippy” cups. Numerous studies have shown that BPA can leach from containers into foods and beverages.
Never meant to be ingested, BPA has potential links to an array of human health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, cancers, infertility, obesity, and neurological disorders. A 2007 Centers for Disease Control study showed that 93 percent of Americans have BPA in their urine. And a recent study suggests that BPA stays in the body longer than previously believed. Babies and young children may be particularly vulnerable because they may metabolize BPA more slowly than adults.
Several government and non-governmental scientific bodies have assessed the safety of BPA, and indicated concerns, while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not yet. Since 2007, Congress has questioned whether the BPA industry has been unduly influential in FDA’s assessment of scientific studies of BPA. Congress recently introduced legislation to ban BPA in food contact substances and FDA has initiated yet another review of BPA safety-and the hope is that this time, more than a handful of selected studies will be considered.
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