Bisphenol A - Government and Industry Response - United States

United States

Currently 11 states have banned BPA from baby bottles and children's sippy cups. In October 2011, California became the latest to enact such legislation, when it passed the Toxin-Free Infants and Toddlers Act. The American Medical Association also recently announced its support of tighter restrictions on products containing BPA.

Organizations like the American Chemistry Council (ACC) have been lobbying to make BPA federally recognized as a safe product. The ACC is composed of companies that represent 85% of chemical manufacturing capacity in the United States. The ACC position states that BPA is safe for use in products. "Government and scientific bodies around the globe have extensively evaluated the weight of scientific evidence on bisphenol A (BPA) and have declared that BPA is safe as used, including in materials that come into contact with food, such as reusable foodstorage containers and linings in metal cans."

Due to consumer pressure, by 2011 BPA was no longer being used in sippy cups and baby bottles. In October 2011, the ACC said that it had petitioned the FDA to make it clear to consumers that BPA is no longer present in those products. Steven Hentges of ACC's Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group said, "What we are trying to do is cut through the confusion and provide some clarity about sippy cups and baby bottles. We want that to be very clear, these products are not on the market. There is no need for parents or consumers to worry about them. They aren't there and they won't be in the future." In July 2012, the FDA moved to ban BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups to satisfy a request by the ACC, stating that the measure was intended to "boost consumer confidence" and not due to safety concerns. (See 2012 below)

Read more about this topic:  Bisphenol A, Government and Industry Response

Famous quotes related to united states:

    “God knows that any man who would seek the presidency of the United States is a fool for his pains. The burden is all but intolerable, and the things that I have to do are just as much as the human spirit can carry.”
    —Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

    “When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
    His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
    I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
    And of Priapus in the shrubbery
    Gaping at the lady in the swing.”
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

    “On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children’s children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.”
    —William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    “Some time ago a publisher told me that there are four kinds of books that seldom, if ever, lose money in the United States—first, murder stories; secondly, novels in which the heroine is forcibly overcome by the hero; thirdly, volumes on spiritualism, occultism and other such claptrap, and fourthly, books on Lincoln.”
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    “Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity—an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.”
    —Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)