Whatever Industry Wants [1]
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton [2] on
Public interest groups, including the Center for Science in the Public Interest [3], are blasting the Food and Drug Administration [4] for relying on industry-funded studies in evaluating the safety of bisphenol A [5], a chemical widely used in food packaging materials. The FDA's BPA draft assessment [6] says the chemical is safe, ignoring numerous independent and government-funded studies which show risk of harm including brain and prostate damage to developing infants, fetuses, and children, as well as increased risk of diabetes and heart disease [7]. Instead, the FDA relied on two studies funded by an arm of the American Chemistry Council [8], a trade organization representing chemical manufacturers. Employees of SABIC Innovative Plastics and Dow Chemical [9], which manufacture BPA, coauthored the two studies. The studies' lead author, Rochelle Tyl [10] of Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina, previously worked for the chemical industry and received research funding from the plastics industry.