The Environmental Protection Agency’s decision last week to add bisphenol-A, or BPA, to its list of “chemicals of concern” and its pledge to intensify its study of how it affects the U.S. water supply and wildlife is gratifying. It is the second indication in recent months that the Obama administration is pursuing stricter regulation of BPA. It’s about time official Washington did so.
Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates BPA and all other chemicals’ effects in food items, reversed its long-time view on the substance. The agency vacated its earlier finding that BPA was safe and announced that it had some concern about the chemical’s effect on the brain, behavior and prostates of fetuses, infants and young children. The new-found FDA “concern” is welcome, but it should have come sooner — much sooner..
There’s ample evidence available that BPA poses dangers to humans and the environment. Hundreds of independent, peer-reviewed studies confirm the hazards, but the agencies generally ignored them during the Bush administration. Rather than accept and act on them, the FDA and the EPA chose to cite other studies — almost all paid for by the chemical industry, a heavy contributor to Republican coffers — that found BPA to be harmless. That put politics ahead of public health and safety. Doing so clearly exposed Americans to considerable harm.
BPA is present in a wide variety of consumer products. It was used in baby bottles until a consumer revolt prompted most manufacturers to end the use of the chemical in them. Still, BPA is used in many other products, including most food and drink cans. It also is used to manufacture hard, clear plastic items like eyeglasses, DVDs, dental sealants, tableware and many containers (typically marked with a 7 for recycling) used to heat or reheat foods in microwave or conventional ovens. The latter is especially dangerous, scientists say, since the chemical can leach into other substances when it is heated.
BPA’s impact on humans and the environment is profound. More than 90 percent of Americans — from newborns to adults — have at least a trace of BPA , which acts like a hormone and which can damage cells in low doses, in their systems. About 6 billion pounds of the chemical are manufactured each year and more than 1 million pounds of it are released into the environment annually, the EPA reports. Given that history, government action long has been necessary. Only recently, though, has it been undertaken at a level that might prove useful.