ACC offers comments in response to BPA study on children

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) offers the following comments in response to queries regarding a study by Joe M. Braun, MSPH, Ph.D., et al. published on-line today in Pediatrics and titled "Impact of Early-Life Bisphenol A Exposure on Behavior and Executive Function in Children." Quotes from the following analysis of the study may be attributed to Steven G. Hentges, Ph.D., of the ACC's Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group.

"For parents, the most important information from this report is that the authors themselves question its relevance: 'the clinical relevance of these findings is unclear at this point.'

"ACC and its member companies strongly support research to advance scientific understanding about chemicals. The study released in Pediatrics has significant shortcomings in study design and the conclusions are of unknown relevance to public health. The researchers themselves acknowledge that it had statistical deficiencies, including its small sample size and the potential for the results being due to chance alone.

"Parents and consumers need information about actual, real-world safety. Recent, robust research funded by the EPA and conducted by scientists at the government's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, CDC and FDA do not support the findings of this study.  Consistent with previous human and animal studies, the Pacific Northwest study (Teeguarden et al.) indicates that, because of the way BPA is processed in the body, it is very unlikely that BPA could cause health effects at any realistic exposure level. Furthermore, regulators from Europe to Japan to the US have recently reviewed hundreds of studies on BPA and repeatedly supported the continued safe use of BPA."