In the past few years, the FDA has made a concerted effort to review new research on BPA to provide evidence-based recommendations to the public, including answers to common questions, which can be found on “FDA Answers Key Questions about BPA Safety” or its “Questions and Answers on Bisphenol A (BPA) Use in Food Contact Applications” page. These recommendations include:
In September 2018, the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) released the final report on the CLARITY Core Study. The scope and magnitude of this study are unprecedented for BPA and the results clearly show that BPA has little potential to cause health effects, even when people are exposed to BPA throughout their lives.
The CLARITY study results are consistent with the results of previous studies from U.S. federal government researchers, which collectively indicate that BPA is unlikely to cause health effects at the very low levels to which people are exposed. Based on these results, along with results from other relevant studies, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to reaffirm the answer to the question “Is BPA safe?” with a clear answer – “Yes.”
Past FDA Actions
Response to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)’s Citizen Petition in 2012: The FDA denied NRDC’s petition in its entirety, which asked the FDA to prohibit the use of BPA in human food and food packaging. This response included the statement that “the Food and Drug Administration’s assessment is that the scientific evidence at this time does not suggest that the very low levels of human exposure to BPA through the diet are unsafe.” FDA noted a variety of limitations in the studies cited by the NRDC petition. Visit the FDA website for more information on this decision.
In its decision to reject the NRDC’s petition, the FDA reconfirmed its earlier conclusion that BPA is safe for use in food-contact applications. In an update coinciding with its response to the petition, FDA stated that “the scientific evidence at this time does not suggest that the very low levels of human exposure to BPA through the diet are unsafe.” This is consistent with both an August 2008 assessment and a January 2010 update that affirmed that BPA “is not proven to harm children or adults…” As noted by an FDA spokesperson, FDA objectively weighs all the evidence in an unbiased evaluation to reach its conclusion.
For more information on FDA research on BPA safety, please click here.