As state officials decide whether to extend the ban of bisphenol A, known as BPA, to food packaging for babies and toddlers, they should keep in mind that the debate is not as polemical as some may make it out to be. That’s because Maine consumers and stores have largely demonstrated through their purchasing power their preference for BPA-free products.
Action already taken in Maine and around the world appears to be building up to an extension of the ban. The Maine’s Kids Safe Products Act passed in 2008 and required baby bottles and drinking cups to be BPA free. Manufacturers across the country stopped using the chemical due to safety concerns, and stores started adopting policies to not sell products with BPA. Walmart made a high-profile decision in 2008 to halt the sale of baby bottles, sippy cups, pacifiers, food containers and water bottles made with BPA.
In 2010, Canada became the first country to declare BPA a toxic substance. Recently the Federal Drug Administration announced it was banning BPA from baby bottles and cups.
The Board of Environmental Protection, a group of seven people appointed by the governor, will gather this fall to decide whether to limit children’s exposure to the chemical by extending the BPA ban to packaging used for baby and toddler food. BPA is used to produce some of the epoxies that line cans, such as those for infant formula and baby food, and it can seep into the meal.
It would have been more controversial for the state board to have extended the ban several years ago. As publicity has increased, many consumers have stopped purchasing products that could contain BPA. Food manufacturers Nestle, Heinz and General Mills are removing the chemical from packaging. Campbell Soups is removing it from its canned food products.
There are BPA alternatives for manufacturers. And chemicals producers do not stand to see dramatic losses. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that less than 5 percent of BPA produced is used for items that come into contact with food.
There is wide local support for the extension of the ban, indicated by the petition organized by a group of mothers and signed by more than 800 Mainers to phase out the use of BPA in the packaging of foods intentionally marketed to children under the age of three.
And backing for a federal reform law to update the Toxic Substances Control Act may be growing. U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe recently announced her support for the Safe Chemicals Act, which would require chemical companies to submit data to the EPA about each chemical they produce and the EPA to prioritize the chemicals based on their risks.
More studies are needed to determine the full effects of BPA, but both the National Toxicology Program at the National Institutes of Health and the FDA have some concern about how it affects the brain, behavior and prostate gland of fetuses, infants and young children.
The FDA has not banned BPA from packaging, but it is facilitating the development of alternatives to BPA for the linings of infant formula cans and other food can linings. We’d also like to see follow-up tests conducted to show whether eliminating BPA has actually reduced health risks.
The market is driving the state in a direction away from BPA. A state board decision to ban the chemical from packaging would basically be a response to current consumer and businesses practices.
It’s too bad that in a few years that beautiful baby in the picture will be forced to be hidden behind a veil or burqa like her mother there.
on another note, bpa is bad and should be absolutely banned in every country.
It’s funny how you would just assume they are going to force her to adopt their religion. Why assume the worst when it is someone who happens to be different than you? Do you know this family personally? If not, why do you feel the need to pre-judge them like this? It speaks poorly of your character.
I agree with you on the BPA front though, get rid of it. All of it.
muslims do force their children not to “adopt”, but to strickly follow their religion.
to “adopt” means that you had a choice.
muslim children have no choice but to follow their religion.
in fact, there are many cases where muslim teens rejected their “faith” and were killed for it by their family. they call them “honor killings”
but that’s beside the point.
BPA is a bi-product of plastics manufacturing and have no place in the human food supply, especially in our youngest, most vulnerable infant children!
That is not a burqa and the mother’s face is hidden more by those western sunglasses than by that beautiful headscarf.
In any case, it’s not OUR business.
And this voluntarily ban of its use in baby bottom just means that the estrogen like compounds can undermine American manhood, at its most basic level,
as it continues to used in other UNLABELED food containers.
That is what a Regular Joe should worry about, not woman’s fashions.
But it must be too late for some men, like those with small stones or booobs,
(Pauly ?) and their bearded ladies.
Thanks, brah, but I’m not worried about women’s fashions. I am worried about religious intolerance, though, as well as plastics in our food in general.
Do you know for a fact this is a religious thing or worn as sun protection for herself and the kid. It is neither a vail or a burka by the way.
It’s a hijab and it’s worn for modesty.
if god wanted us to be hidden and veiled then we would have been born that way.
Talmud Ketubot 72a, Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim, 75:2
Numbers 5:18
Now that would depend on what country you reside in wouldn’t it. So the choice argument usually only works in a Christian based society.
A person makes their own choices in this life.
So I take it you walk around naked, then? Seeing as you were born that way.
So you are saying since we are born naked, we should go through life that way or god will be displeased?
I agree BPA is harmful, but why are you buying food for your infant in the first place? I had several children and never bought formula or jarred baby food.
,,,,,,
A Mennonite woman probably would not use packaged baby food.
aaaaaa
worn for modesty?
how is covering your hair or face from the world modest?
it’s a form of oppression, a restriction of freedom.
deleted by poster
Umm looks like the “concerned” mother is letting her cute little baby chew on the plastic sign. The baby doesn’t even need to eating that crappy baby food anyway. Put down the sign, go home and make some good homemade food for our child.
Look at Noorah’s little face Mr. LePage and tell us again about how YOUR vast knowledge about the studies on BPA show it to do no harm to children. Even if there were only “Questions” about its safety most folks wouldn’t (As you did) come out to defend use of such a product. For what? Profits? When business’s, industry and politicians put profits ahead of the welfare of people they don’t often stay in business or around very long. Goodbye Mr. LePage.
Don’t even waste your breath on that know it all Lepage, once his feeble mind is close to a subject there is no getting through all that fat.
Why would any parent even buy crappy package baby food for their baby in the first place?
That was exactly my thought too. Who would feed any of that crap to an infant?
You are assuming that all consumers are fully informed. You do what happens when you make assumption, yes?
I’ve assumed nothing. I posed a question. You are assuming that I am assuming. To quote you: “You do what happens when you make assumption, yes?” :-)
Okay, I get it, you don’t like LePage, but am I missing something? Where does it say anything about LePage knowing, or claiming to know anything about BPA?
Did you miss the story several months ago, when LePage ridiculed people’s concern about BPA? “So the worst case is some women may have little beards,” opined our Governor.
You have no idea again what you are talking about. Babies shouldn’t even be having any food that is being packaged . You hate Gov LePage so much you have been clouded by the real issue. Why are parents even buying crappy baby food ? I don’t care if the package is paper, plastic or glass babies don’t need overly process baby food.
The issue isn’t whether people hate LeGov. The issue is why are toxins allowed in food packaging?
According to the FDA BPA is safe
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm297954.htm
The only studies that say BPA is dangerous are funded by environmentalist. So right there you know the results can not be trusted.
You’ve got a great point, the FDA has never been wrong. Oh, wait…
yep, the government would never lie to us… lol.
Gone are the days they fogged us with DDT.
What would be the reason for the environmentalists to lie?
Everyone knows environmentalists want to destroy everything that is great about America and prevent us from achieving our true Manifest Destiny – a blanket of pavement, patched with oil wells and strip mines, covered with clouds of smog from sea to shining sea!
It’s totally normal to allow any man-made chemicals into childrens bodies…
not.
Actually there is a BPA study being done at USM funded by the National Science Foundation which is not an environmentalist group. Most of the data supplied in the earlier EPA decision was provided by industry funded studies which rarely have finding that contradict the industry that funded them.
God forbid anyone concerned about protecting the environment should be listened to. Good conservatives believe only what corporate interests tell them.
I cannot refrain from pointing out that she expresses concern while her baby chews on….. yup, plastic and definitely not food grade. That said I want BPA out of all food packaging. You know that it will be linked to some chronic disease eventually….. maybe autism, parkinson’s, alzheimer’s?
I’m glad you noticed that too.