American Chemistry Counsil Says BPA is Safe
January 19, 2010
NaturalNews
by Mike Adams
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has never met a chemical it didn’t like. The organization is a chemical advocacy group whose members include all the largest chemical producers such as Monsanto, Bayer, Merck, Chevron, DuPont and many more. It’s like a Who’s Who of companies whose products pollute the world, in my opinion.
Much like Big Tobacco did with nicotine — “It’s not addictive, we swear!” — the ACC says bisphenol A (BPA) is perfectly safe for you. Drink all you want!
As the ACC’s Lisa Harrison told CBS News, “What’s important to remember is the FDA indicated that the BPA has not been proven harmful to children or adults.”
This is the default position of all the chemical companies who poison our bodies and our planet: All synthetic chemicals are “safe” until you prove them dangerous.
It’s a hazardous assumption to make, of course. The more reasonable assumption would be that all synthetic chemicals are dangerous until proven safe, but that position wouldn’t allow these companies to sell very many chemicals, would it?
The FDA’s conspiracy to promote dangerous chemicals
The FDA, for its part, has been engaged in a conspiracy of silence to avoid admitting that BPA is dangerous for human health. This conspiracy was recently shattered when the FDA’s own science advisors blasted the agency for ignoring over 100 published studies showing BPA was dangerous. The FDA, you see, had discarded those 100+ studies and, instead, based its conclusions on just two studies that happened to be funded by the chemical industry.
That’s how the FDA operates across the board: Ignore all the science you don’t like, and cherry-pick the science you want to believe, even if it’s all been funded by the chemical companies. By relying on that gimmick, the FDA was able to maintain its intellectually dishonest position that BPA posed no risk to human health.
There’s also evidence of corruption and fraud in the FDA’s position on BPA. Did you know, for example, that the chairman of the FDA panel making a key decision on BPA “safety” — Martin Philbert — also sits at the top of a company that received a secret $5 million payment (http://www.naturalnews.com/026400_B…).
But the scientific evidence against BPA is now so large than even the FDA can’t continue to stonewall the public on this issue. BPA is dangerous to human health, and it should be banned from all items that come into contact with foods (which includes soup can linings, food packaging, water bottles and much more…).
BPA Found in Name-Brand Canned Foods
November 4, 2009
Los Angels Times
By Andrew Zajac
A consumer advocacy group’s analysis of canned goods has found measurable levels of the chemical additive bisphenol A, or BPA, across a range of foods, including some that were labeled “BPA free.”
Children eating multiple servings of some of the tested food could get doses of BPA “near levels that have caused adverse effects in several animal studies,” according to the survey released Monday by Consumers Union, a nonprofit organization that publishes Consumer Reports.
The findings bolster the case for banning BPA from use in materials that come in contact with food and beverages — such as can linings, baby bottles and sippy cups — the group said in a letter to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.
An FDA spokesman had no immediate comment but noted that a review of existing evidence about BPA’s health effects was nearly completed and that Hamburg would “make a decision how to proceed” by the end of the month.
BPA is a plastic hardener and a component of epoxy resin. Some studies have linked the chemical to reproductive abnormalities and increased risk of cancer and diabetes. Several governments have prohibited the sale of baby bottles made with BPA.
The FDA in 2008 released a draft report that found BPA was safe in food contact materials. But critics charged that the agency had based its report on out-of-date studies sponsored by the chemical industry, prompting the review.
A spokesman for the American Chemistry Council said the Consumers Union findings were “inconsistent with the conclusions of expert regulators worldwide, all of which have confirmed that BPA exposure levels are low, and well within safety standards.”
Consumers Union tested 19 name-brand foods in metal, paper and plastic packages. The tests were “a snapshot of the marketplace” and not intended as conclusive evidence of BPA levels in any given brand or type of product.
No BPA was detected in paper canisters of Similac powdered Advance Infant Formula and Nestle Juicy Juice packed in juice boxes, the group said. But multiple servings of food with BPA levels comparable to those found in a can of Del Monte Fresh Cut Blue Lake Green Beans, for example, would give a small child an amount approaching the level where adverse effects — such as abnormal reproductive development — have been seen in animal studies.
A Del Monte spokeswoman said that BPA “is the best method available on the market today for food preservation” and that the company was closely following the FDA’s review.
Consumers Union also found BPA in “BPA-free” cans of tuna sold by Vital Choice, a Washington-based seafood firm. Dr. Urvashi Rangan, director of technical policy at Consumers Union, said the cans did not have epoxy liners, the usual source of BPA.
Rangan said the BPA likely leached into the packaging from the factory where it was made or came from environmental sources — seawater or the fish itself.
Vital Choice CEO Randy Hartnell said his firm was an early adopter of BPA-free packaging. “We’ll get to the bottom of it and fix it,” he said.
Several major retail chains have removed items containing BPA from their shelves. Six manufacturers of baby bottles agreed in March to stop selling bottles containing BPA in the U.S. Canada has forbidden use of the chemical in baby bottles, and Connecticut, Minnesota, the city of Chicago and Suffolk County, New York, have banned baby bottles and sippy cups made with BPA.
Click here for the full report.
