We’re very pleased to announce that all Vital Choice fish cans and pouches are free of bisphenol A (BPA).
This milestone was made possible by the recent arrival of our newest batch of Portuguese Sardines, which at our insistence came in BPA-free cans ... as did our new Atlantic Mackerel.
And it means that, according to a report on NaturalNews.com, we are one of only three U.S. companies able to confirm using only BPA-free cans for our entire line of canned products.
This landmark achievement required persistent efforts. We managed to get our salmon and tuna can suppliers to go BPA-free fairly quickly, but it took much longer for our Portuguese Sardine supplier to make the change.
This is because European health authorities still maintain that BPA is completely safe, so food manufacturers there do not have easy access to BPA-free linings.
We thank our Portuguese partners for helping us get to the point where can now declare that all of our fish cans (and salmon pouches) are 100% BPA-free.
BPA: The brief history of a troubled packaging material
The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and European Union health authorities alike give this very common plastic packaging additive a clean bill of health.
But during the past year, two independent scientific panels disagreed with the FDA and called for more research and restrictions on BPA.
Frankly, we cannot claim to know whether BPA is safe or not – or safe for adults only – but there’s been enough evidence of possible harm for us to take all steps necessary to eliminate BPA entirely from our packaging.
We worked for almost three years to get BPA out of all of our fish cans, and have finally succeeded.
The safety of water bottles, baby bottles, and plastic-lined food cans made headlines last spring and fall.
This happened because two independent panels rejected the Food & Drug Administration’s long-standing ruling that BPA is entirely safe as currently used.
Concerns about BPA began a few years back, when various observers questioned the safety and wisdom of using it in baby bottles.
Nothing much happened, because the FDA and health authorities in Europe and Japan have long declared BPA a safe material for use in can linings.
But the FDA’s assurances proved insufficient when an April 2008 draft report by the U.S. National Toxicology Program raised new questions concerning BPA’s estrogenic (hormone-like) potential and its safety for developing fetuses and infants.
And last fall, an advisory board to the FDA said that the agency underplayed evidence suggesting that BPA in baby bottles and formula cans could be damaging to children.
The independent Science Board, which advises the FDA commissioner, voted to approve earlier recommendations made by its BPA subcommittee, which had concluded that the margins of safety in the FDA draft assessment on BPA in regard to the risks of infant exposure to the chemical were “inadequate”.
The National Toxicology Program (NTP) reached the above conclusions on the possible effects of average American exposures to bisphenol A on human development and reproduction. The possible levels of concern, from lowest to highest, are negligible concern, minimal concern, some concern, concern, and serious concern. |
JAMA study adds heart and diabetes concerns; Cancer risk deemed unlikely
The September 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) contained a controversial BPA study based on the “first large scale and high quality population representative (BPA) data set to become available.”
The authors reported finding a statistical link between BPA and heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and liver enzyme abnormalities (Lang IA et al. 2008).
The researchers concluded that the 25 percent of people with the highest levels of BPA in their bodies were more than twice as likely to have heart disease and/or diabetes compared to the 25 percent of the people with the lowest levels.
As they wrote, “Widespread and continuous exposure to BPA, primarily through food but also through drinking water, dental sealants, dermal exposure and inhalation of household dusts, is evident from the presence of detectable levels of BPA in more than 90 percent of the US population.”
Consequently, they concluded that the Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) established by the FDA is too high.
However, BPA has never been found to promote cancer. In 2003, Canadian researchers evaluated a large body of scientific data, and concluded that BPA does not pose a cancer risk to humans (Haighton LA et al. 2002): “Following a weight-of-evidence approach as recommended by IARC and U.S. EPA, it was concluded that BPA is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans”.
However, the paper noted uncertainties regarding developmental effects: “Further research is needed to resolve the uncertainties surrounding the potential for bisphenol-A to produce adverse effects on development at low doses”.
Sources
- Draft NTP Brief on Bisphenol A. [CAS NO. 80-05-7]. April 14, 2008. Accessed online December 28, 2008 at http://cerhr.niehs.nih.gov/chemicals/bisphenol/BPADraftBriefVF_04_14_08.pdf
- Haighton LA, Hlywka JJ, Doull J, Kroes R, Lynch BS, Munro IC. An evaluation of the possible carcinogenicity of bisphenol A to humans. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2002 Apr;35(2 Pt 1):238-54. Review.
- Haighton LA, Hlywka JJ, Doull J, Kroes R, Lynch BS, Munro IC. An Evaluation of the Possible Carcinogenicity of Bisphenol A to Humans. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology (2002) 35: 238-254.
- Hatch EE, Nelson JW, Qureshi MM, Weinberg J, Moore LL, Singer M, Webster TF. Association of urinary phthalate metabolite concentrations with body mass index and waist circumference: a cross-sectional study of NHANES data, 1999-2002. Environ Health. 2008 Jun 3;7:27.
- International Life Sciences Institute (ISLI). Polyethylene Terephthlate(PET) for Food Packaging. 200. Accessed at http://www.ilsi.org/file/ILSIPET.pdf
- Lang IA, Galloway TS, Scarlett A, Henley WE, Depledge M, Wallace RB, Melzer D. Association of urinary bisphenol A concentration with medical disorders and laboratory abnormalities in adults. JAMA. 2008 Sep 17;300(11):1303-10. Epub 2008 Sep 16.
- NTP-CERHR Monograph on the Potential Human Reproductive and Developmental Effects of Bisphenol A. Accessed online December 28, 2008 at http://cerhr.niehs.nih.gov/chemicals/bisphenol/bisphenol.pdf
- Palanza P, Gioiosa L, vom Saal FS, Parmigiani S. Effects of developmental exposure to bisphenol A on brain and behavior in mice. Environ Res. 2008 Oct;108(2):150-7. Review.
- Stahlhut RW, van Wijngaarden E, Dye TD, Cook S, Swan SH. Concentrations of urinary phthalate metabolites are associated with increased waist circumference and insulin resistance in adult U.S. males. Environ Health Perspect. 2007 Jun;115(6):876-82. Epub 2007 Mar 14. Erratum in: Environ Health Perspect. 2007 Sep;115(9):A443.
- Vandenberg LN, Hauser R, Marcus M, Olea N, Welshons WV. Human exposure to bisphenol A (BPA). Reprod Toxicol. 2007 Aug-Sep;24(2):139-77. Epub 2007 Jul 31. Review.
- Vandenberg LN, Maffini MV, Sonnenschein C, Rubin BS, Soto AM. Bisphenol-A and the Great Divide: A Review of Controversies in the Field of Endocrine Disruption. Endocr Rev. 2008 Dec 12. [Epub ahead of print]
- vom Saal FS, Hughes C. An extensive new literature concerning low-dose effects of bisphenol A shows the need for a new risk assessment. Environ Health Perspect. 2005 Aug;113(8):926-33. Review.
