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Bisphenol A Summary

BPA is neglected by most U.S. environmental laws, with the exception of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved its use for food packaging and beverage containment and this has become the dominant source of human exposure. The FDA considers the chemical to be “generally regarded as safe (GRAS).”

The FDA’s definition of acceptable exposure, its reference dose, or RfD, is based upon animal studies that are now two decades old, and which did not consider or test the effects resulting from low-dose exposures. Nor did the FDA have the benefit of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) studies that found BPA present in the tissues of nearly everyone tested. Exposure is widespread and chronic. Recent studies cited above report effects at doses nearly 1,000-fold smaller than that used to establish the reference dose. Many state laws have been proposed to control childhood exposure to BPA, but at the time of this writing, none have been adopted. The landscape of regulations is continuously changing, but currently it is a patchwork of voluntary actions by some manufacturers, retailers and hospitals, as well as some local and state governments.

 

 

 

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