FDA rejects call to ban BPA from food packaging

The Food and Drug Administration has rejected a petition from environmentalists that would have banned the plastic-hardening chemical bisphenol-A from all food and drink packaging, including plastic bottles and canned food. The agency said Friday that petitioners did not present compelling scientific evidence to justify new restrictions on the much-debated chemical, commonly known as BPA, though federal scientists continue to study the issue. The Natural Resources Defense Council's petition was the latest move by public-safety advocates to prod regulators into taking action against the chemical, which is found in products from CDs to canned food to dental sealants. But FDA reiterated in its response that that those findings cannot be applied to humans. The agency said the studies cited by the NRDC were often too small to be conclusive. In other cases, they involved researchers injecting BPA into animals, whereas humans ingest the chemical through their diet over longer periods of time. The agency also said that humans metabolize and eliminate BPA much more quickly than rats and other lab animals...more