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Policy

Bisphenol A Delisted In California

Litigation: A state court orders BPA to be removed from list of reproductive toxicants

by Britt E. Erickson
April 26, 2013 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 91, Issue 17

California must remove bisphenol A (BPA) from its list of chemicals known to cause reproductive toxicity until an industry-led lawsuit challenging the listing is resolved, a California superior court ruled on April 19.

California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment proposed listing BPA as a reproductive toxicant under the state’s Proposition 65 in January and followed through with the listing earlier this month. Proposition 65 is a list of chemicals that are known to cause cancer, birth defects, or reproductive harm.

The American Chemistry Council filed a lawsuit in March on behalf of the chemical industry in an attempt to stop the agency from listing BPA as a reproductive toxicant. The industry group claims that there is not enough evidence that BPA is harmful to humans.

“We do not believe there is a scientific basis for including BPA on the Proposition 65 list, and we look forward to our case being heard on the merits sometime this summer,” says Steven G. Hentges, head of ACC’s Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group.

California decided to list BPA as a reproductive toxicant on the basis of a 2008 report by the National Toxicology Program that linked exposure to high levels of the plastics chemical to developmental problems in laboratory animals. A panel of independent experts reviewed the same study in 2009 but voted at the time not to add BPA to Proposition 65 because of the lack of evidence that it causes developmental defects in humans.

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