Chemical threat persists in food and beverage packaging

Despite mounting scientific evidence that bisphenol A (BPA) leaches from packaging into food, the U.S. food and beverage industry widely uses the chemical in product packaging. BPA mimics estrogen in the body, and researchers have found links between the chemical and numerous health problems including heart disease, diabetes, cancer and metabolic disorders. In 2007, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found BPA in the urine of more than 90 percent of Americans tested, signaling widespread exposure to the chemical.

Two shareholder groups surveyed 20 leading packaged food companies about how they are responding to increased consumer and investor concern about BPA. The groups developed a scorecard that ranks the companies on their efforts to find and implement alternatives to BPA and their plans to phase out BPA in products for which alternatives exist.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) are lead sponsors of the Ban Poisonous Additives Act (S. 593/H.R. 1523), which  will ban the use of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in food and beverage containers.