Even though her provision to ban bisphenol A (BPA) was removed from the Food Safety Modernization Act, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) refuses to give up and is asking California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign into law a bill banning BPA in children’s food and drink packaging. In her letter to Schwarzenegger, she urges him to “err on the side of caution” and points out that “major retail companies and six major baby food makers have [already] phased out, or are in the process of phasing out, the chemical from their products.” Feinstein still hopes to include a nationwide BPA ban in the federal food safety bill pending in the Senate.
“Same old, same old…there is no scientific merit whatsoever for her argument that trace-levels of BPA in food and drink packaging will harm children,” ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan says. “And what makes her think that these BPA-free alternatives, if they exist, are safer and as efficacious in preventing foodborne disease in canned food as BPA is?”
