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Urge Your Senator to Protect Kids from BPA!

BPA has been linked to many chronic diseases and disorders--and fetuses, babies, and children are especially vulnerable. Please urge your Senators to co-sponsor and support the "BPA Act" which would eliminate BPA from products children use every day including baby bottles, cups, and formula can linings.

February 09, 2010

Subject:

Dear Senator,

As a member of MomsRising.org, a national organization of more than a million members committed to building a family-friendly America, I am writing to urge you to support including the BPA Act in the Food Safety Modernization Act currently being considered by the Senate HELP Committee.

The presence of BPA in food and beverage containers is an important food safety issue that needs addressing now. BPA is an unstable polymer, meaning that the chemical bonds between molecules can be easily disrupted by heat, acidic conditions and many other everyday conditions. Once these bonds break, BPA leaches out of the plastic or can lining, entering the food and ultimately people. The Ban Poisonous Additives Act of 2009 (S. 593), sponsored by Senator Feinstein, would eliminate this serious food safety issue by phasing out the use of the toxic chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) as a packaging additive in from food and beverage containers.

MomsRising members are committed to eliminating BPA from products that pregnant women and children are exposed to on a daily basis.  Over the last several decades, children have faced an increasingly challenging time making it through what should be normal stages of growth and development.  Incidences of reproductive defects, childhood obesity, early onset puberty, learning disabilities, and many other chronic health problems are on the rise.  Many of these problems have been linked with exposure to toxic chemicals.

BPA was first synthesized as an estrogen replacement therapy in the 1930s but was discarded in favor of other therapies. In the 1940s, chemists discovered they could use BPA to make plastic.  Now BPA can be found in baby bottles, water bottles and food storage containers. It is also used in the lining of metal food cans, including infant formula cans.

BPA is of particular concern to moms because even minuscule amounts--parts per billion or parts per trillion--have been shown to cross the placenta and disrupt normal prenatal development.  Early life exposure to BPA has been linked to a host of developmental problems, such as breast cancer, prostate cancer, obesity, early onset puberty, abnormal brain development , hyperactivity, and the genetic defect that causes Down’s syndrome.  The CDC found BPA in 93% of all Americans and the scientific literature points to food as being the major route of exposure.

There are more than 200 studies that document the adverse impacts of this extremely toxic chemical on human health. This is why Canada has announced it will ban BPA in baby bottles and has signaled its intent to regulate it as a toxic substance. Recently Chicago banned BPA from baby bottles and sippy cups.  In addition Minnesota and Connecticut became the first states in the nation to ban BPA from consumer products and similar legislation to regulate BPA-containing products has been introduced in more than 29 states and localities.

State action is not enough, however. Congressional action is needed to ensure all food and beverage containers are free of BPA to protect the American public, particularly children, from this toxic chemical.

I urge you to co-sponsor and support the BPA Act.

Sincerely,

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