EU bans BPA in infant feeding bottles from March 2011

26 November 2010 12:30  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS)--EU member states will have to ban the manufacture of polycarbonate (PC) infant feeding bottles with bisphenol A (BPA) from 1 March 2011, the European Commission said on Friday.

The Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health had reached a qualified majority on a proposal from the Commission on a directive to ban bisphenol A from plastic infant feeding bottles, the executive body said.

It added that from 1 June 2011, imports of these bottles into the EU and their sales in the union would also be prohibited.

The Commission said the decision followed months of discussion and exchanges of views between the Commission's services, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), member states and the industry.

“In... the recent opinion of EFSA, I had stressed that there were areas of uncertainty, deriving from new studies, which showed that BPA might have an effect on the development, immune response or tumour promotion,” said John Dalli, Commissioner in charge of Health and Consumer Policy.

The Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health, set up to assist the Commission in preparing measures relating to foodstuffs, is made up of representatives of EU member states and is chaired by a representative of the Commission.

The Committee is a regulatory body, and the Commission may adopt the implementing measures only if they obtain a favourable opinion from the committee.

The EFSA said in October that it had concluded that it could not identify any new evidence to justify revising the current tolerable daily intake for BPA of 0.05mg per kg weight. That announcement followed a review of recent scientific literature and studies, which have suggested there may be possible neurodevelopmental effects from the ingestion of BPA.

However, later the same month Dalli said the Commission would discuss the possibility of reducing infants’ exposure to BPA as the report pointed to areas of uncertainty, based on new studies.

The Commission said it had also taken note of the fact that member states France and Denmark had adopted national measures to restrict the use of BPA in infant feeding bottles.

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By: Hilde Ovrebekk
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