WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration’s assurances that a controversial chemical is safe for use in food containers are badly flawed, an independent panel of scientific advisers has concluded.
Bisphenol A is used to make plastic for food packaging, baby bottles, and other consumer and medical goods. Environmental groups want to ban BPA in products for infants because of concerns that it can interfere with their development.
But the FDA recently said there is no harm from the low doses of BPA most people get.
Not so, said the panel.
“The margins of safety defined by FDA as ‘adequate’ are, in fact, inadequate,” said Tuesday’s report. The advisers found that the FDA had not considered all available, credible scientific evidence and urged the agency to go back to the lab.
