With an apparent backtrack, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced it will intensify its investigation into how BPA affects our nation’s wildlife and water supply and will now designate the compound as a “chemical of concern.”
This is a turnaround since their announcement last December of their list of “chemicals of concern” which didn’t include BPA, even after the EPA’s top administrator Lisa Jackson had said that her agency would take a more aggressive approach to regulating chemicals of concern, specifically mentioning BPA as one of these.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates the chemical’s effects in food contact items, reversed its position on BPA, declaring it had some concern for the chemical’s effects on the brain, behavior and prostates of fetuses, infants and young children. To date, 5 states have banned the chemical’s use in baby bottles.
BPA is found in a variety of familiar consumer products
Trace amounts of the chemical have been found in 93% of Americans tested.
The EPA’s announcement is definitely a move in the right direction and paves the way for the potential mandatory removal or BPA from consumer products.
How soon that could come, however, is anyone’s guess.
Filed under: Health concerns Tagged: | BPA, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, FDA, water supply
