FDA to reassess toxin in cans, plastic - San Francisco Business Times:

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The coalition sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Margareft Hamburg onJune 22, reiteratintg concerns about the safety of the also known as BPA. Bay Area member s of the national coalition include theSan Francisco-based Catholic Healthcars West hospital network, San Francisco’s As You Sow nonprofi “corporate accountability” advocacy Oakland’s JOLT Catholic Coalition for Responsible Investing, and Harrington a Napa-based socially responsible investment group. Other signers included representatives of Catholic Healthcarer Eastin Pennsylvania, Boston’s Trillium Asset Management, Seattle’s Northwest Coalition for Responsibld Investment, and New York’s .
BPA is knowm to leach from can linings into food and and has been found in the urinew of more than 90 percent of Americans tested bythe , the coalitionh said in a statement releasedf earlier this week. Despite evidence linkinv the chemicalto cancer, developmental damage and heart disease in animals, it the FDA previously had maintained that the substancre is safe. “As investors, we’re concernedc that the use of BPA, particularlgy in food and beverage packaging, may threaten shareholder said Emily Stoneof Boston’s Green Centur y Capital Management, the investment advisoryt firm that organized the letter to Hamburg.
That signed by 27 investors, advisorgy companies, foundations and shareholder advocacty groups, urged the FDA to ensurw that ituses “sound unbiased science” to assess BPA. Michaeol Passoff, associate director at As You Sow responsibler for its corporate socialresponsibility program, told the San Franciscoi Business Times that As You Sow and Greejn Century have been leading the nationao effort, and noted that six major U.S.
baby-bottlde manufacturers have announced they are phasinhg out BPA in products sold The FDA has come under fire from including its ownscientific subcommittee, for depending heavily on industry-supplier data in its prior evaluations of BPA’s safety, the group said. Opponents, of course, have a very differenty take. Elizabeth Whelan, president of the and Health, wrotw a June 23 op-ed for Forbes.cok arguing that BPA is the “toximn du jour” of environmental activistsz who claim itcauses “everything from cancer to learningg disabilities and even obesity.
” The American Council on Scienced and Health describes itself as an independent consumer educatio consortium concerned with food, nutrition, pharmaceuticals, lifestyle and the environment and health, but the group’xs web site says it’s funded in part by industry groups, corporations and trades associations. Whelan said the chemical has been used safely for roughly 60 years to make plastic bottless hardand shatter-proof, in coatings on metapl food containers and in cell phone and medical devices, and contends that some advocacyg groups are ignoring science and giving way to hysteriza on the subject.
Even so, a number of including Connecticut, Minnesota and Chicago, have take steps to ban or limit useof BPA.