France study finds food packaging chemical Bisphenol A could harm pregnant women

A chemical called Bisphenol A could produce health and behavioural problems for pregnant women and their unborn children, according to French health authority ANSES.

Bisphenol, known as BPA,

is used in food packaging such as tins, bottles and boxes and also in dental fillings.

Health risks include obesity, reproductive problems and developing tumours later in life.

In 2006, the US Government sponsored an assessment of the scientific literature on BPA. 38 opponents of bisphenol A gathered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina to review several hundred studies on BPA, many conducted by members of the group. At the end of the meeting, the group issued the Chapel Hill Consensus Statement,which stated "BPA at concentrations found in the human body is associated with organizational changes in the prostate, breast, testis, mammary glands, body size, brain structure and chemistry, and behavior of laboratory animals."

The Chapel Hill Consensus Statement claimed that average levels in people are above those that cause harm to many animals in laboratory experiments. They noted that while BPA is not persistent in the environment or in humans, biomonitoring surveys indicate that exposure is continuous, however, which is problematic because acute animal exposure studies are used to estimate daily human exposure to BPA, and no studies that had examined BPA pharmacokinetics in animal models had followed continuous low-level exposures. They added that measurement of BPA levels in serum and other body fluids suggests the possibilities that BPA intake is much higher than accounted for, and/or that BPA can bioaccumulate in some conditions (such as pregnancy).

A panel convened by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in 2007 produced a 384 review of the literature and found that many of the studies referenced by the Chapel Hill group had methodological problems. Its conclusions. "expressed relative to current estimates of general population exposure levels in the U.S." were:

1. For pregnant women and fetuses the Expert Panel has different levels of concern for the different developmental endpoints that may be susceptible to bisphenol A disruption, as follows:

• For neural and behavioral effects, the Expert Panel has some concern

• For prostate effects, the Expert Panel has minimal concern

• For the potential effect of accelerated puberty, the Expert Panel has minimal concern• For birth defects and malformations, the Expert Panel has negligible concern
2. For infants and children the Expert Panel has the following levels of concern for biological processes that might be altered by Bisphenol A, as follows:

• some concern for neural and behavioral effects

• minimal concern for the effect of accelerated puberty

3. For adults, the Expert Panel has negligible concern for adverse reproductive effects following exposures in the general population to Bisphenol A. For highly exposed subgroups, such as occupationally exposed populations, the level of concern is elevated to minimal.

A 2008 report by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) found "some concern for effects on the brain, behavior, and prostate gland in fetuses, infants, and children at current human exposures to bisphenol A"; "minimal concern for effects on the mammary gland and an earlier age for puberty for females in fetuses, infants, and children at current human exposures to bisphenol A", and "negligible concern that exposure of pregnant women to bisphenol A will result in fetal or neonatal mortality, birth defects, or reduced birth weight and growth in their offspring" and "that exposure to bisphenol A will cause reproductive effects in non-occupationally exposed adults and minimal concern for workers exposed to higher levels in occupational settings."