The FDA announced:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will publish a final rule amending the food additive regulations to no longer provide for the use of bisphenol A (BPA)-based epoxy resins as coatings in infant formula packaging because this use has been abandoned. FDA’s action is based solely on a determination of abandonment and is not related to the safety of BPA. The agency’s current safety review supports the safety of BPA for use in the manufacture of food contact articles as authorized in the food additive regulations.
FDA’s action was the result of a food additive petition submitted by Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, which asserted that industry has abandoned the use of BPA in the manufacture of infant formula packaging and requested that FDA amend the existing food additive regulations to no longer provide for this use of BPA to reflect the change in industry practice.
The final rule amends 21 CFR 175.300 to no longer provide for the use of BPA-based epoxy resins as coatings in infant formula packaging. This rule is effective July 12, 2013. Interested parties may submit objections and requests for a hearing within 30 days of the rule’s effective date.
Another triumph for idiocy!
BPA isn’t a critical component of coatings -add PBA and you get a slightly better coating. As such, it wasn’t hard to discontinue its use in infant formula. BPA was not used in any of the infant formulae coating formulations that I reviewed at FDA back in the 1990s, although it may have been present in later submissions to FDA. There were some genuine problems with early proposed coatings that would have scavenged vitamins from the infant formula over time, causing products to have dangerously low levels of certain vitamins.
FDA will from time-to-time clean up its regulation to eliminate obsolete uses, but in this case the infant formula product uses were not specific in the regulations. As the new regulation changes no current commercial uses or safety or effectiveness concerns, is just be a political statement – more waste of taxpayer money on useless details.
T. Brown (FDA, Retired)
I’m sure this will result in products that are either more expensive or less useful, likely both. My infants are 20 and 22, so it’s moot for me, but in a few years they may have fewer choices for their own children.