BPA Settlement: A Sign Of Things To Come?

(NHI Nanoblog)court settlement with an environmental group will force the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to finally make a judgement on the controversial chemical bisphenol A by next spring. Will similar petitions on nanotechnology products get the same result?

BPA, as the chemical is known, is used in a wide variety of plastics. After studies showing potential problems related to exposure to the substance, it’s largely been removed from children’s products such as baby bottles and plastic food dishes. The FDA has maintained that low-level exposure is safe, and it’s still used in products from soup cans to cash-register receipts.

The Natural Resources Defense Council sued in 2008 to try to force the agency’s hand. The group reached a settlement with the FDA last week, which gives the agency until March 31 to decide whether to ban the chemical. Several states have already barred BPA from kids’ products, including Connecticut, California and Maryland. Connecticut’s ban, passed in 2009, went into effect in October. 

The BPA settlement may raise the hopes of advocacy groups that have pushed the federal government to be more aggressive in regulating products that contain super-small materials. Such nanotechnology-enabled products include everything from mineral-based” sunscreens to anti-stink socks.

By leveraging the often-amazing properties of these ultra-tiny materials, nanotechnology can make airplane wings stronger and help cancer treatments ruthlessly target the bad cells. As nano-enabled products proliferate, however, there’s a big gap between what’s possible and what’s been tested for safety. Growing evidence suggests that shrinking these materials can sometimes changes the way they interact with the world around them, raising serious questions about their impact on health and the environment.

That’s led to the push from consumer and environmental advocates. In 2006, the International Center for Technology Assessment and an assortment of other groups petitioned the FDA to add regulations of nanomaterials, including in sunscreens. Two years later, the organization called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to use its power to regulate pesticides to stop the sale of products containing nanosilver. That coalition includes Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports magazine.

The fight over BPA has been going on for some time, and the upcoming election year makes any prediction about regulatory policy difficult. Still, advocates clearly see the courts as a potential way to break the policy logjam; the NRDC’s success won’t be lost on those looking to hasten the government’s actions on nanotechnology.

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