A proposal being considered by European regulators finds that current BPA exposure limits vastly underestimate the harm the plastic additive causes to human health. The revised rules say the new exposure threshold should be 20,000 times lower than today's level.
If the recommendations in the new assessment — released today by the European Food Safety Authority, the European equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — are adopted, it would more than likely force bisphenol-A, or BPA, out of products that come into contact with food in Europe.
“This new safe level is so low that it will drive and accelerate changes in the supply chain,” Maricel V. Maffini, an environmental consultant focused on environmental chemical exposures who has worked with the Environmental Defense Fund and others, told Environmental Health News (EHN).
The new assessment and recommended daily dose is more in line with current science, which continues to find BPA impacts our health in myriad ways. It is also in stark contrast to U.S. regulations of the ubiquitous chemical. The U.S. safe daily exposure level for BPA, which was set in 1988, is 250,000 times higher than the new European recommendation.
The new risk assessment “provides scientific evidence that makes it urgent for FDA and other agencies to act to reduce the levels of exposure,” Maffini told EHN.
EHN asked the FDA why that exposure level has stayed the same for 35 years and about the discrepancy between U.S. and European agencies’ BPA safety determinations.
“The FDA has supported research and reviewed the safety of BPA uses in food packaging as it has become available,” a spokesperson wrote in an emailed response. “The FDA’s regulatory decisions are grounded in the robust evaluation of the totality of the available science on food additives, including substances used in food packaging.”
The European Food Safety Authority estimates that most people, including kids, have more than a hundred times more BPA in their blood than their new recommended daily dose.
Credit: CDC
BPA is an endocrine disruptor, meaning it alters the proper functioning of our hormones. The chemical has been linked to multiple health problems, including cancer, diabetes, obesity, reproductive, nervous and immune system impacts, and behavioral problems. It remains a key ingredient in polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins — ending up in Tupperware, food can liners and other food packaging. The chemical can leach out of such packaging and get into our food.
Most people have BPA in their blood. The European Food Safety Authority estimates that most people, including infants and toddlers, have more than a hundred times more BPA in their blood than their new recommended daily dose.
Academic scientists and health advocates have for years called into question how BPA and other endocrine disruptors — such as phthalates, some flame retardants, pesticides — are regulated. Most federal agencies subscribed to the concept that “the dose makes the poison.” However, for chemicals like BPA, that’s not always true and sometimes low doses and high doses can have different effects: Europe’s new assessment recognizes that.
Today’s assessment, which included a broad range of human and animal studies, represents the latest European move on BPA.
OK, here’s some math: In 2015 the agency set a temporary “tolerable daily intake” for BPA of 4 parts per billion of body weight — which is more than 12 times lower than the U.S. level of 50 ppb. In 2021, the European Food Safety Authority recommended slashing the allowable daily dose to 0.00004 ppb of body weight per day – a 100,000-fold drop. Today’s assessment revises that 2021 recommendation up to a 0.0002 ppb tolerable daily intake — but that still represents a 20,000-fold drop from Europe’s current allowable levels.
The bottom line? Even the tiniest amount of BPA in, say, the cap of a soda bottle will violate the new exposure limits. Europe says we basically shouldn’t have BPA in our products at all if we don’t want health impacts.
The assessment released today will go to the European Commission, which will make the final decision on changes to allowable BPA levels.
As part of the reevaluation, the European Food Safety Authority reviewed new studies on BPA since 2013, and pointed out that some of the most critical research came out of the CLARITY-BPA Core Study, which was a U.S. research effort meant to bridge the gap between FDA scientists and academics and environmental health advocates.
While well-meaning, the program didn’t work out as planned: Academics found BPA was having a profound impact on various health endpoints in lab studies, but the FDA didn’t consider the academic contributions and put out a 2018 report, along with the National Toxicology Program, stating the current uses of BPA remain safe. Environmental Health News investigated the CLARITY project and found, via Freedom of Information requests and dozens of interviews, the FDA often sought to discredit the independent evidence of harm from BPA while favoring pro-industry science despite significant shortcomings.
European researchers, however, found the academic contributions to CLARITY quite useful in their latest assessment. They used such studies to show evidence of harm to thyroid, pituitary and adrenal glands, bone marrow, kidneys and livers. Maffini also pointed out that studies show “the immune system is the most sensitive to BPA toxicity.”
Pete Myers — chief scientist for Environmental Health Sciences which publishes EHN.org — has been following the BPA saga since the early 1990s when University of Missouri scientist Fred vom Saal’s research first started to appear on BPA as an endocrine disrupting compound.
Commenting on this new assessment, Myers said “it’s not surprising but it is reassuring that European Food Safety Authority’s estimates of BPA safety are consistent with the work of 18 independent investigators who participated in the CLARITY-BPA mega-study.”
Myers said it’s also not surprising that the findings are dramatically different from the conclusion that the U.S. FDA drew from CLARITY. “The FDA chose to ignore all the work of the independent scientists, established experts funded by the National Institutes of Health. It makes you wonder for whom FDA scientists are working. The public or the chemical industry.”
After Europe’s recommended slashing of BPA allowable doses last year, a group of doctors, scientists and health organizations petitioned the U.S. FDA to review the safety of BPA in food packaging. The FDA accepted the petition last summer, which means they need to complete an assessment that justifies whether they will accept the petition’s suggestions or not. That assessment hasn’t happened yet.
The FDA is currently reviewing a BPA petition we received in September 2022 … [and] does not comment on petitions that are under review,” the spokesperson said. “We will publish our response to the petition in the Federal Register once we have completed our review.”
Maffini, who submitted the petition along with several organizations, said “the finalized European Food Safety Authority risk assessment confirming that BPA is toxic to the immune system at extremely low levels should give FDA a greater sense of urgency to act on the petition that is already overdue.”
PFAS, pervasive environmental contaminants known as "forever chemicals," could play a role, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Obesity.
The study took a novel approach to a frustrating conundrum many adults have experienced at some point: Pounds that slowly creep back on after successful weight loss and despite faithful adherence to a healthier diet.
Researchers tracked the post-diet results of 381 Europeans who had lost a minimum of 8% of their original weight after two months of dieting, and tested their blood for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a family of chemicals used to make everything from firefighting foam to nonstick products and that have been linked to obesity.
Photo courtesy Milada Vigerova/Unsplash
All participants stayed on a specific diet for at least 26 weeks after the initial weight loss. Those who gained the most weight back had the highest levels of PFAS chemicals, researchers found. Study participants ranking in the top third of PFAS exposure regained an average of 10 pounds more than those in the bottom third of the exposure curve.
And perhaps even more alarming, higher background PFAS exposures had an even greater effect on weight gain than the diet, researchers found.
"The results suggest that PFOA and PFHxS may cause weight gain among people with obesity in weight loss programs," the researchers concluded. "These pollutants deserve attention in public health efforts to control the obesity pandemic."
Obesity has several causes. But researchers have long been puzzled at how people on the same diets – say, low carbohydrate – react so differently, suggesting some other factors are at play.
The new research suggests that PFAS and other mostly invisible environmental contaminants could play a role.
"PFAS exposures add to our risk of obesity," said Philippe Grandjean, a study author and a research professor at the University of Rhode Island. "It’s not just a matter of lacking physical activity and eating a poor diet."
Grandjean and colleagues previously examined weight loss and weight gains in people from Massachusetts and Louisiana and found PFAS exposure was linked to gaining weight back after initial loss via dieting. The researchers pointed out that PFAS have been shown to interfere with thyroid hormones, which are crucial for maintaining proper metabolism.
There are a number of confounding factors, however, the authors note in the new study. For starters, we are awash in obesogens — chemicals that can cause the human (and animal) body to produce, store and burn fat tissue differently than it normally would. Everything from BPA to air pollution affects how our body processes, stores and reacts to calories.
The study sample was fairly homogenous, consisting of adults with obesity in Europe.
It's an area worth studying, the researchers suggest. "Given the sizable increases in weight regain linked to PFAS exposures," they wrote, "future dietary trials may wisely consider blood concentrations of these contaminants to obtain more precise results."
"The Army should actively embrace efforts to reduce obesogen exposures to recruits," Myers says.
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Want to learn more about obesogens? Check out our guide to the chemicals, and read the latest science.
