Is BPA the FDA’s Latest Gift to the Chemical Industry?

Ironically, some of the more alarm­ing research is funded by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is spend­ing $30 mil­lion to study BPA, with much of it pub­lished already and more to come. Not sur­pris­ingly, the chem­i­cal indus­try claims the addi­tive is per­fectly safe.

But with the sci­en­tific stud­ies pil­ing up to show how BPA increases the risk of every­thing from can­cer to heart dis­ease to fer­til­ity prob­lems, and more recently, even obe­sity, this lat­est industry-friendly move by FDA is espe­cially trou­bling. Meanwhile, with­out a hint of irony, FDA also main­tains sev­eral web pages with help­ful infor­ma­tion for par­ents and oth­ers wish­ing to avoid BPA, such as: “What You Can Do to Minimize Your Infant’s Exposure to BPA.”

So if FDA admits the chem­i­cal is scary enough to avoid and pre­vi­ous inde­pen­dent sci­en­tific advi­sory pan­els have derided the agency for ignor­ing the mount­ing evi­dence, why did the agency back down yet again?

A reveal­ing arti­cle in the New York Times on Tuesday enti­tled “White House and FDA Often at Odds” could explain what’s behind this disconnect:

The inter­nal clashes over FDA pol­icy played out against a broader back­drop of reg­u­la­tory pol­i­tics. Republicans have made the charge that Mr. Obama is an overzeal­ous and job-killing reg­u­la­tor — a cen­tral ele­ment of their case against his re-election. And on issues from clean air to investor pro­tec­tions, the White House has been care­fully cal­i­brat­ing its elec­tion sea­son positions.

Lack of sup­port from the White House to allow FDA do its job would cer­tainly explain other polit­i­cally safe deci­sions dur­ing the Obama Administration. These include refus­ing to act on the overuse of antibi­otics in ani­mal feed and con­tin­u­ing to ignore demands to label foods con­tain­ing genetically-engineered ingredients.

But if the recent uproar over “pink slime” is any indi­ca­tion, Americans are wak­ing up to the stark real­ity that our food sup­ply is con­trolled by cor­po­rate enti­ties with pow­er­ful influ­ence over our polit­i­cal sys­tem. This increas­ing aware­ness, com­bined with strong con­sumer back­lash means more com­pa­nies are feel­ing the heat and start­ing to respond. For exam­ple, Campbell’s Soup recently announced plans to phase out BPA from its cans, fol­low­ing other food mak­ers.

FDA seems to be in favor of this vol­un­tary approach: “The Food and Drug Administration is sup­port­ing cur­rent efforts by indus­try to stop the man­u­fac­ture of infant bot­tles and feed­ing cups made with BPA from the U.S. market.”

How nice. But we can’t only rely on the kind­ness of com­pa­nies. The White House should get out of FDA’s way and let pub­lic health guide the agency, not politics.

Michele Simon

Michele is a pub­lic health lawyer who has been research­ing and writ­ing about the food indus­try and food pol­i­tics since 1996. Visit her site at www.EatDrinkPolitics.com/