Quotes of the Day: Opinions on the FDA Declaring BPA Safe
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 08.21.08
We noted recently that a draft report from the FDA concludes that BPA is safe for babies. The response from others:
"The FDA's assessment relies on just two studies which were funded by the American Chemistry Council (ACC). This ignores dozens of other studies done by independent scientists which have found evidence of health consequences," Dr. Sarah Janssen, a physician and scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
"The chemical industry's efforts to hide or misrepresent the hazards of its product have been so blatant that Congress has felt the need to intervene," Dr. Jennifer Sass, a scientist with NRDC.
"Since the regulators are asleep at the wheel, I've introduced legislation to ban BPA in all food and beverage containers, and will continue to work to ensure that it is enacted into law." Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-MA)
"There is clear, credible evidence in the growing number of scientific studies that link bisphenol A to the very health effects we see on the rise today," Christopher Gavigan, executive director of Healthy Child, Healthy World.
"The federal government's failure to prevent harm for American citizens is unacceptable: When will government learn to err on the side of caution instead of risk equations?" Lois Gibbs, founder/executive director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice. ::Yahoo
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- BPA Update: How Science Works at the FDA
- FDA Throwing BPA Panel Under the Bus
- Dow Chemical Challenges Canadian Chemical Ban
- FDA Chair Studying BPA Took $5 Million Donation From BPA Supporter
As I said in my long comment on the original post... PLEASE READ THE FDA STUDY FIRST. Maybe if these commenters above had read it, they wouldn't be saying such non-credible things.
Take this one... "The FDA's assessment relies on just two studies which were funded by the American Chemistry Council (ACC)".
This is a complete fabrication! The FDA study cites well over a hundred different sources, most of them at University labs, most of them independent and all nothing to do with the ACC. I went through and traced some of the original references (via PubMed), and I couldn't find a single study that WAS funded by the ACC. I stopped looking when I got to about #40 because it was obvious this is a futile exercise. Have you even opened the PDF - it's very long and contains lots of long words, but it also has over 300 references and footnotes, and contains 30 pages alone which is a table (about 10 entries per page) listing all of the previous work on BPA toxicity.
So please Dr. Janssen of the NDRC, which two ACC-funded studies are you referring to? Who is being objective here - you singling out two studies, or the FDA referring to nearly 300? Call yourself a scientist? Ha!
And seriously TreeHugger, get with the frickin' program. If you're gonna go out on a limb and publish a bunch of quotations on your website, you have a duty to determine if these people are spouting cr@p. Just reading the PDF document itself would let you see this is the case for several of the above individuals.
"And seriously TreeHugger, get with the frickin' program. If you're gonna go out on a limb and publish a bunch of quotations on your website, you have a duty to determine if these people are spouting cr@p."
Why, Virgil. Then your comments might not get published!
(couldn't help it)