EcoWaste Coalition Calls Out Health Authorities for Long-Overdue Ban on Bisphenol A in Baby Feeding Ware (Draft DOH Administrative Order Banning Bisphenol A in Baby Feeding Bottles and Sippy Cups Pending Since 2013)
Through a letter delivered last week to the offices of
Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque III and Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) Director General Nela Charade Puno, the EcoWaste Coalition
stated that “BPA, an endocrine disrupting and reprotoxic chemical, should not
be present in children’s products, especially in food contact materials such as
feeding bottles and sippy cups.”
The group noted that a draft DOH Administrative Order
entitled the “Prohibition on the Manufacture, Importation, Advertisement and
Sale of Polycarbonate Baby Bottles and Sippy Cups Containing Bisphenol A in the
Philippines” has been pending since 2013.
“The over-extended delay in promulgating the government’s
policy on BPA in feeding bottles and sippy cups is very difficult to justify,
especially when the products in question are typically used by a large sector
of the society --- the children --- who are most vulnerable to the adverse
health impacts of chemical exposures. We cannot delay action when it comes to
children's safety from chemicals of concern,” wrote Eileen Sison, President,
EcoWaste Coalition.
According to the World Health Organization, “children are
not little adults, they have special vulnerabilities to the toxic effects of
chemicals. (Their) exposure to chemicals
at critical stages in their physical and cognitive development may have severe
long-term consequences for health.”
“DOH Secretaries Enrique Ona, Janette Loreto-Garin and
Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial have come and gone, but the directive banning BPA in
feeding bottles and sippy cups remains on the back burner since 2013,” wrote
Sison.
“Under your watch, we hope the much-awaited regulation
will see the light of day in the weeks to come,” Sison told Duque.
At the first DOH-organized stakeholders’ consultation
held in 2013, the EcoWaste Coalition and Arugaan (a breastfeeding advocacy
group) pushed for a precautionary ban on BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups
citing the regulatory moves in other countries to address growing consumers’
health and safety concerns against BPA
During the deliberations, the groups pushed for consumer
right to information via uniform, visible and truthful product labels that will
indicate if a product is BPA-free or not.
They also expressed support for the inclusion of a provision that will
disallow the substitution of BPA with alternatives that can also lead to
adverse health effects.
The EcoWaste Coalition has been constantly pursuing the
matter with the DOH and lately with the FDA via follow-up letters, including
two petitions signed by over 70 concerned civil society organizations.
The plan of the South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug
Safety to ban BPA in food contact materials intended for infants and young
children prompted the EcoWaste Coalition to write anew to the DOH and FDA on
February 11, 2019 to check on the government’s response to the group’s appeal
to prohibit BPA in baby feeding bottles and sippy cups.
To date, over 35 countries have already banned BPA, particularly
in baby feeding bottles, including Brazil, Canada, China, India, Malaysia,
Taiwan, South Africa, Thailand, USA and the 28-country European Union, with
France banning BPA in all food contact materials in 2015. China, the country’s largest trading partner,
banned BPA in baby feeding bottles as early as June 2011.
In January 2017, the European Chemical Agency added BPA
to the candidate list of substances of very high concern (SVHCs) for
authorization because it is “toxic for reproduction.” BPA’s inclusion to the said list was updated
in January 2018 due to its “endocrine disrupting properties.”
-end-
Reference:
https://www.tuv.com/jp/japan/about_us_jp/regulations_and_standard_updates_jp/latest_regulations_2/latest_regulations_content_404032.html
https://www.sgs.com/en/news/2018/10/bpa-bans-and-restrictions-in-food-contact-materials
https://www.who.int/ipcs/highlights/children_chemicals/en/
https://echa.europa.eu/-/seven-new-substances-added-to-the-candidate-list-entry-for-bisphenol-a-updated-to-reflect-its-endocrine-disrupting-properties-for-the-environment
https://echa.europa.eu/-/four-new-substances-of-very-high-concern-added-to-the-candidate-list
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