Chalk up another victory for voting with your wallet and mouthing off to corporations: Earlier this month, the six largest American baby-bottle manufacturers announced that they'd voluntarily stop selling bottles containing bisphenol A (BPA) in the United States. BPA is an endocrine-disrupting chemical found in polycarbonate (as well as in canned food linings) that has been linked to a range of health problems, such as impaired neurological development in children, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
That's great news for American parents. However, I was surprised to learn from this article (thanks, Matt!) that the bottle makers will continue to sell the BPA-containing products in the U.K.
It's unexpected because of the wider pattern that characterizes the different approaches to chemical safety taken by the United States vs. Europe. Across the pond, it's the precautionary principle. If a growing body of research indicates that a substance is potentially harmful, you can't use it: The risks of not acting outweigh the risks of acting, even in the absence of scientific certainty of harm. In America, the philosophy is essentially innocent until proven guilty; if there's "no evidence" of harm (never mind the fact that oftentimes no safety assessments are ever performed, as is the case with so many personal-care-product ingredients), no problem!
What an intriguing reversal. Mind you, BPA is not banned in the U.S., where our applicable agency, the (insert your own characterization here: "lax"? "on crack"?) FDA still considers it safe; the baby-bottle victory occurred thanks to the court of public opinion. But usually—as happened with phthalates—such voluntary actions on the part of companies happen because Europe banned the chemical first.
Yet BPA is still permitted in the European Union. What gives? Are all those scientific reports raising suspicions about BPA not credible? Personally, I find that hard to believe. Yet STATS, a nonpartisan nonprofit affiliated with George Mason University, points to the European Food Safety Authority's 2006 report on BPA that concludes that the substance is safe.
Of course, that was a couple years ago; this is now. And while poking around online, I did find this letter (pdf) from four European NGOs expressing concern about BPA to the European Parliament last month.
This is something I'll be watching with great interest in the months ahead.