Consumer Reports Publishes Results of BPA Testing
Consumers Union (CU) has issued the results of bisphenol A (BPA) testing on 19 name-brand canned foods such as soups, juice, tuna, green beans, and infant formula. According to a December 2009 Consumer Reports article titled “Concern Over Canned Foods,” the tests revealed that both organic and conventional foods contained detectable BPA levels, including “some products in cans that were labeled ‘BPA-free.’” The average amount of BPA purportedly “varied widely,” ranging from trace amounts to 32 parts per billion (ppb), for both epoxy-lined
metal cans and alternative packaging. “Nevertheless, our findings are notable because they indicate the extent of potential exposure,” concludes the article. “Consumers eating just one serving of the canned vegetable soup we tested would get about double what the FDA now considers typical average dietary daily exposure.”
While noting that these results “convey a snapshot of the marketplace and do not provide a general conclusion about the levels of BPA in any particular brand or type of product [tested],” CU has continued to criticize the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for failing to restrict BPA use. The organization maintains that by setting a daily upper limit of safe exposure to 50 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight, FDA is relying on “experiments done in the 1980s rather than hundreds of more recent animal and laboratory studies indicating that serious health risks could result from much lower doses of BPA.” In a November 2, 2009, letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, CU food-safety scientists recommended restricting daily BPA exposure to “0.0024 micrograms per kilogram of body weight, significantly lower than FDA’s current safety limit.” See CU Press Release, November 2, 2009; FoodProductionDaily.com, November 3, 2009.
Meanwhile, the North American Metal Packaging Alliance (NAMPA), the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and other industry groups have emphasized the safety findings of FDA, the European Food Safety Authority and the UK Food Standards Agency. “BPA-based epoxy coatings in metal packaging provide real, important and measurable health benefits by reducing the potential for serious and often deadly effects from food-borne illnesses,” a NAMPA spokesperson was quoted as saying. “The packaging enables the high-temperature sterilization of food products when initially packaged and continuously protect [sic] against microbial contaminants. According to FDA records, there has not been an incidence of food-borne illness resulting from a failure of metal packaging in the U.S. for more than 30 years.” See FoodProductionDaily.com, November 4, 2009.
