Another foolish capitulation to a hysterical scare campaign. Really bad idea.
“The federal government announced Tuesday that baby bottles and sippy cups can no longer contain the controversial chemical bisphenol-A, or BPA.”
The U.S. chemical industry’s chief association, the American Chemistry Council, had asked the Food and Drug Administration to phase out rules allowing BPA in those products in October, after determining that all manufacturers of bottles and sippy cups had already abandoned the chemical due to safety concerns.
It is illegal for companies to use substances not covered by FDA rules.
The chemical industry’s request may help curb years of negative publicity from consumer groups and head off tougher laws that would ban BPA from other types of packaging because of health worries.
Legislation introduced by some members of Congress would ban BPA nationwide in all canned food, water bottles and food containers. Chemical makers maintain that the plastic-hardening chemical is safe for all food and drink uses.
The news media never mention the well substantiated rejection of NRDC petition and the FDA finding that BPA is safe at the levels used in all products including baby bottles. The media never emphasized that it was the manufactures who ask for the ban to placate nervous yuppies.
Whoa Nellie!!!
Banning BPA is not simple process. Many of the uses of BPA predate the 1958 Food Additive Amendments to the FFD&C Act. As such, they are considered “Prior Sanctioned” and not subject to preclearance as Food Additives.
Bottles (water and baby bottles included) were considered housewares and subject to the “Housewares Exemption” (see Congressional Record leading to passage of the Food Additives Amendment in 1958). These are considered exempt from any regulation and, barring extreme health hazard – nearly impossible to ban. Obviously, that finding exists only in the minds of extremists. FDA has sent many letters stating that these products were exempt, many of which bore my signature.
Regulated uses of BPA (which I believe shows up as 8 differing nomenclatures) are more easily dealt with through the cumbersome notice and comment rulemaking. FDA is not likely to undertake this without data that would withstand a court challenge. Not lilely to happen.
T. Brown, FDA-Retired
I agree, the negative hype over BPA is ridiculous, but no one is using it anymore anyway. Strikes me as crying over milk that’s already been spilt, sopped up, and then replaced. Kinda like lamenting the ban on CFC’s in spray cans, even though they’ve been (wrongfully) banned for almost a quarter-century now, and we’ve found a better, less toxic way to do the job in the meantime.
We lost both those rounds, but we didn’t lose spray cans, A/C, refrigeration, OR plastic drinking devices, and THAT’s where the enviro-weenies are winning: in the average person’s mind, we’ve lost nothing. Of course that’s not true, but we’ve got a long row to hoe to point that out, and it won’t get done by crying over a done-deal.
A better bet might be to point,out, e.g., how much more expensive it is for a poor mother of three to feed and cloth her children now, thanks to the transition away from BPA….