The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has launched a new working group “to evaluate new scientific evidence on the potential effects of bisphenol A (BPA) on the immune system.” Prompted by a Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment report on new studies “describing pre- and perinatal effects of BPA on the immune system,” EFSA’s Panel on Food Contact Materials, Enzymes, Flavorings and Processing Aids plans to issue a scientific statement on BPA and immunotoxicity at its September 13-15, 2016, plenary meeting. See EFSA News Release, June 20, 2016. Issue 609
Tag Archives BPA
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has launched what it describes as “the first easily, searchable database of nearly 16,000 processed food and drinks packaged in materials that may contain the hormone-disrupting chemical bisphenol A, or BPA.” According to EWG, the new database organizes information obtained from a food industry website into a list of products that users can search from EWG’s Food Scores application. “The industry website’s apparent main purpose is to help food companies supply warning signs to retailers,” states EWG in a June 17, 2016, press release. “It reveals that Americans are far more widely exposed than previously known to a hormone-disrupting industrial chemical that poses greatest risk to pregnant women, infants and children. But the website is a chaotic jumble––incomplete, inconsistent, poorly organized and hard to use.” EWG claims that its BPA database features 926 brands linked to 16,000 products, “including more than 8,000 soup, vegetable, sauce…
A study allegedly linking prenatal bisphenol A (BPA) exposure to increased fat mass index (FMI) in children has suggested that the common plasticizer “contribute[s] to developmental origins of adiposity.” Lori A. Hoepner, et al., “Bisphenol A and Adiposity in an Inner-City Birth Cohort,” Environmental Health Perspectives, May 2016. Using data from 369 mother-child pairs enrolled in the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health New York City birth cohort, the study authors assessed the urinary BPA of mothers during the third trimester of pregnancy and followed up with their children from birth through age 7. Their analysis purportedly shows that although “prenatal BPA concentrations were not associated with birth weight,” they were “positively associated” with FMI, body fat percentage and waist circumference (WC) at age 7 years. Upon closer examination, prenatal BPA exposure was significantly associated with increased FMI and WC in girls, but not boys. As the study further explains, “These…
A study has allegedly linked fast-food consumption to higher urinary phthalate-metabolite levels but not to increased bisphenol A (BPA) levels. Ami Zota, et al., “Recent Fast Food Consumption and Bisphenol A and Phthalates Exposures among the U.S. Population in NHANES, 2003–2010,” Environmental Health Perspectives, April 2016. Using 24-hour dietary recall data obtained from 8,877 participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES 2003- 2010), researchers with George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health apparently “observed evidence of a positive, dose-response relationship between fast food intake and exposure to phthalates.” The study authors report that, compared to participants who did not consume fast food, those who received more than 34 percent of their total energy intake from fast food had 23.8 percent and 39 percent higher levels of metabolites of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (ΣDEHPm) and diisononyl phthalate (DiNPm), respectively. In particular, the data suggested that (i) “fast food-derived…
The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has proposed an emergency action to temporarily allow the use of standard point-ofsale warning messages for bisphenol A (BPA) exposures from canned and bottled foods and beverages. Under Proposition 65 (Prop. 65) regulations, consumer products that contain any chemical known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity or cancer must display a “clear and reasonable” warning on “labeling, shelf tags, shelf signs, menus or any combination thereof as long as the warning is prominent and conspicuous.” Starting May 11, 2016, all foods and beverages that result in BPA exposure must display a similar warning “unless the person causing the exposure can show that the exposure is 1,000 times below the no observed effect level for the chemical.” To avoid consumer confusion and give manufacturers time to transition to BPA-free packaging, OEHHA proposes allowing the temporary use of point-of-sale…
School meals may contain enough bisphenol A (BPA) to exceed low-dose toxicity thresholds, according to Stanford and Johns Hopkins researchers. Jennifer Hartle, et al., “Probabilistic modeling of school meals for potential bisphenol A (BPA) exposure,” Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, September 2015. Using federal school nutrition guidelines as well as information obtained from San Francisco Bay Area schools, the researchers modeled BPA exposure scenarios for elementary and middle schoolers consuming a mix of fresh and packaged foods at school lunch. The results evidently showed exposures ranging from 0.00049μg/kg-BW/day for a middle-school student with a low-exposure breakfast, to 1.19μg/kg-BW/day for an elementaryschool student eating a high-exposure lunch. “During school site visits, I was shocked to see that virtually everything in school meals came from a can or plastic packaging,” Stanford Prevention Research Center Postdoctoral Fellow Jennifer Hartle is quoted as saying. “Meat came frozen, pre-packaged, pre-cooked and pre-seasoned. Salads…
A study examining increased preterm birth rates in the United States has found “little evidence of a relationship between BPA [bisphenol A] and prematurity.” David Cantonwine, et al., “Urinary Bisphenol A Levels during Pregnancy and Risk of Preterm Birth,” Environmental Health Perspectives, September 2015. After analyzing urinary BPA levels throughout pregnancy in 130 cases of preterm birth (PTB) and 352 randomly assigned controls, researchers with Harvard Medical School and University of Michigan School of Public Health report that, “[i]n adjusted models, urinary BPA averaged across pregnancy was not significantly associated with PTB.” They note, however, that “averaged BPA exposure during pregnancy was associated with significantly increased odds of being delivered preterm among females, but not males.” “Our study had several strengths, including a repeated time point assessment of BPA exposure, ultrasound dating of gestational age, physician-validated clinical outcomes, and a large number of subjects and preterm cases, which allowed for exploring…
France’s administrative supreme court, Conseil d’Etat, has ruled that PlasticsEurope’s challenge to the country’s ban on bisphenol A (BPA) in food-contact materials can be heard in its Constitutional Council because the legal question presented is new. The plastics group argued that the opinion from the French Agency for Food, Environment and Occupational Health and Safety that the 2012 prohibition cited as justification was inadequate because it was a “danger study” rather than an “evaluation of risks.” The Constitutional Council now has three months to rule on the case. See Bloomberg BNA, June 19, 2015. Issue 570
The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a “non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment,” has issued an analysis of more than 250 foods that identifies which of the products’ cans are lined with bisphenol A (BPA) as well as an online petition imploring consumers to encourage companies to stop using BPA-based epoxy resins in can linings. “The biggest problem is that people have no reliable way of knowing whether they are buying food that is laced with this toxic chemical,” an EWG representative was quoted as saying. “Federal regulations do not require manufacturers to label their products to identify cans with BPA-based linings. … We hope to arm people with the critical information they need to avoid BPA and make smarter shopping decisions.” EWG classifies the food companies mentioned in the survey into four categories of “players,” claiming that 78 brands (“worst” players) use BPA-lined cans for…
Canadian researchers have published a study measuring free and conjugated forms of bisphenol A (BPA) and triclosan (TCS) in urinary samples obtained from 2,000 pregnant women enrolled in the Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC). Tye Arbuckle, et al., “Exposure to Free and Conjugated Forms of Bisphenol A and Triclosan among Pregnant Women in the MIREC Cohort,” Environmental Health Perspectives, April 2015. Billed as “the largest national-level data” to address both the free and conjugated forms of these phenols, the results evidently suggest that exposure varies by material age, household income, education, and smoking factors, depending on the type of consumer products used by individuals. In particular, researchers detected conjugated BPA and TCS in 95 and 99 percent of samples, and free-form BPA and TCS in 43 and 80 percent of samples, respectively. “Significant predictors of BPA included material age < 25 vs. ≥ 35 years, current smoking, low vs.…
