American Chemistry Council Lobbies to Keep BPA in Baby Bottles

Obesity? No biggie. Cancers? No sweat. Heart disease and reproductive problems? Eh, don't worry about it. Those must be the sentiments of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), which successfully nixed the proposed bisphenol-A (BPA) ban from the pending FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510).

BPA, a hormone-disrupting chemical, has seen its reputation go from bad to worse over the past few years. According to The Independent, more than 5,700 international studies link the chemical to cancers, diabetes, obesity, reproductive problems, heart disease, and several other health maladies. What's worse is that BPA is basically ubiquitous throughout Americans' food supply, turning up in everything from aluminum cans to plastic bottles to credit card receipts to baby formula. Yes, baby formula — and other products geared towards infants, for that matter.

The evidence tying the hormone disruptor to health problems is so compelling that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) proposed including a BPA ban in the food safety reform bill (S. 510), which is currently before the Senate. Feinstein suggested that S. 510 also make a point of restricting the use of hormone-disrupting chemicals in baby bottles and sippy cups. While BPA is pretty much bad for everyone, you would think that the least we could do would be to protect infants — one of the most vulnerable sectors of the population — from dangerous toxins. The ACC, however, thought otherwise.

As a result of some super intense, 11th-hour lobbying from the ACC yesterday, the Senate decided to move forward with S. 510 sans Feinstein's proposed amendment. Public health and consumer advocacy groups like Consumer's Union, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Breast Cancer Fund are naturally outraged by the decision. It's a move that unabashedly puts corporate interests way above the health of consumers — even consumers that are cute, little, snuggly-wuggly babies.

It may be too late to slip a BPA ban into S. 510, but we can still demand that corporations do a better job of protecting consumers' health. Some companies like General Mills, H.J. Heinz, and Hain Celestial have voluntarily made moves to phase out BPA from their food packaging. Coca-Cola and Del Monte are two of the largest canned food suppliers that have stubbornly made no such commitments. You can help rid our food supply of BPA by signing our petition asking Coca-Cola and our petition asking Del Monte Foods to eliminate the hormone-disrupting chemical from their food packaging. If legislation won't protect consumers from toxins, then we've got to pressure the corporations that use these dangerous chemicals.

Photo credit: abbybatchelder via Flickr