The Food
and Drug Administration has stated that baby bottles and children’s
drinking cups could no longer contain bisphenol
A, or BPA, an estrogen-mimicking
industrial chemical used in some plastic bottles and food packaging.
Manufacturers have already stopped using the chemical
in baby bottles and sippy cups, and the F.D.A. said that its decision was a
response to a request by the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry’s
main trade association, that rules allowing BPA in those products be phased out,
in part to boost consumer confidence. But the ban does not apply more broadly to the use of
BPA in other containers, says an F.D.A. spokesman, Steven Immergut, who
emphasized that the decision did not amount to a reversal of the agency’s
position on the chemical. The F.D.A. declared BPA safe in 2008, but began
expressing concerns about possible health risks in 2010.
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