The European Union’s Food Safety Authority reaffirmed the findings of its 2006 risk assessment on Bisphenol A (BPA) last week. As with the 2006 risk assessment, the focus was on the risk to children:
The AFC Panel, in its final session, took into account both the previous and the most recent information and data available on the way that BPA and related substances are handled in the human body. The Panel concluded that the exposure of the human foetus to BPA would be negligible because the mother rapidly metabolises and eliminates BPA from her body. The scientists also concluded that newborns are similarly able to metabolise and eliminate BPA at doses below 1 milligram per kilogram of body weight per day. This implies that newborns could effectively clear BPA at levels far in excess of the TDI of 0.05 mg/kg bw set by the Panel and therefore its 2006 risk assessment remains valid.”
Despite hundreds of news reports on the alleged risks of BPA in the United States and Canada, few media outlets reported this latest research and comment by the European Union, even though its scientists dismissed concerns in the U.S. and Canada over the safety of the chemical as being based on poor science:
“EFSA took note of the U.S. National Toxicology Program’s draft brief on BPA and of the Canadian government’s recent Draft Screening Assessment on BPA, which took into account findings from the low-dose studies, notably with respect to neurodevelopmental toxicity, though both pointed out that these studies were limited in rigour, consistency and biological plausibility.
EFSA also took into account the recent report published by one of the institutes of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre [2] which concluded that due to the low confidence in the reliability of the developmental neurotoxicity studies and the lack of consistency in the results of behavioural testing, no conclusions can be drawn from these studies. This opinion is very similar to that of EFSA in 2006.”
The U.S. and Canadian media also largely ignored the 2006 risk assessment when reporting on the risks of BPA, even though the report explained in detail the scientific reasons for rejecting the studies that claimed there was a risk.
