Safety of BPA called into question

Disagreement surrounds chemical used in some plastics

Lisa Casinger -- Kids Today, 5/9/2008 8:44:00 AM

Google BPA aka bisphenol-A and you’ll have thousands of news stories talking about the dangers of plastic. Mommy bloggers are panicking and tossing out everything and anything with plastic in it. Wal-Mart said it will stop selling baby bottles containing BPA by early next year and Nalgene is phasing out production of its hard-plastic bottles containing BPA. Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us have said they will carry only BPA-free products by the end of the year. Playtex said it will stop using BPA in its line by the end of the year and it is giving away 1 million samples of it Drop-Ins Original nurser systems, which are BPA free.

“We know recent news coverage has created significant confusion about the use of BPA in plastic baby products,” said Gary Cohen, vice president and general manager Playtex. “While U.S. and worldwide regulatory bodies continue to deem the ingredient safe, as a leader in infant care products, we are listening to consumer concerns and we believe the right thing to do is eliminate any confusion or doubt that parents may have. For this reason, we will stop using BPA in our products this year and we are offering consumers a chance to immediately switch to BPA-free infant products.”

The Canadian government is calling BPA toxic and has started monitoring the exposure of 5,000 people to the chemical. It also announced plans to ban polycarbonate infant bottles that contain BPA. California legislators tried, and failed, to pass a bill in January banning BPA in feeding products and baby toys.

Currently the FDA says it has found no links between BPA and health issues, however, the National Toxicology Program in the U.S. National Institutes of Health say there is “some concern” that fetuses, infants and children may be harmed by BPA and further results from their study will be released in June.

An NTP memo from 2007 suggests correlation between the studies claiming BPA does not have adverse effects and their source of funding.

“A recently published study demonstrated that the source of funding had significant impact on whether or not adverse effects were found with low-dose BPA treatment. Out of a total 130 studies, 119 were done by government funded entities and 11 were done by chemical corporations. Ninety-two percent of the government funded studies found evidence of adverse effects after low dose BPA treatment while only 8% found no adverse outcome. In contrast, 100% of industry funded studies found no evidence of harm from low dose BPA treatment.

“The bias of industry-funded research has been well documented for many products such as tobacco, pharmaceuticals and pesticides. NTP should carefully consider the source of funding when evaluating the adequacy of studies. A bias towards no-effect has already been demonstrated for low dose effects of BPA and several of those studies reviewed by the NTP CERHR committee have been determined to be adequate for evaluation.”