Beginning in March 2011, the European Union will outlaw the use of bisphenol A (BPA) in the manufacture of plastic baby bottles, and their import and sales will be proscribed in June 2011.
Labeled an “estrogen-like chemical” and “endocrine disruptor,” BPA was banned from baby products in Canada earlier this year.
The news is both perplexing and disappointing to ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. “Am I crazy? Do I know something the European Commission doesn’t, or is it the other way around? There has been a worldwide panic over BPA for absolutely no reason — there is no evidence to indict BPA, as the science clearly demonstrates.”
ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross was equally perturbed by this turn of events and believes the unfounded BPA “anxiety pandemic” is due solely to the various precautionary principles set in place by politically-biased authorities. “Now the E.U. has joined Canada — as well as some American states — in the hysterical campaign over BPA, which the scientific consensus clearly shows to possess no adverse health risks.”
Professor Richard Sharpe of the University of Edinburgh tells the BBC that he doesn’t “know of any convincing evidence that bisphenol A exposure, in the amounts used in polycarbonate bottles, can cause any harm to babies as not only are the amounts so minuscule but they are rapidly broken down in the gut and liver.”