FDA Conspired with Chemical Industry to Declare Bisphenol-A Harmless

Friday, October 24, 2008 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: Bisphenol-A, FDA, health news

(NaturalNews) The FDA has been caught red-handed conspiring with the chemical industry to conclude that Bisphenol-A, the plastics chemical, is harmless to human health. As revealed by the Environmental Working Group (see below), the FDA based its evaluation of BPA on a report authored by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a trade group that represents chemical companies and plastics manufacturers.

The FDA's evaluation concluded that BPA was perfectly safe for consumers of any age, including infants. This conclusion stands in direct opposition to the Canadian government, which declared BPA to be a toxic chemical on Oct. 18 and moved towards banning the chemical in baby bottles.

Even the U.S. National Institutes of Health says BPA may be dangerous, admitting it is concerned about BPA's "effects on development of the prostate gland and brain and for behavioral effects in fetuses, infants and children."

How the FDA conspires with industry

The FDA, however, has never met a corporate-sponsored chemical it didn't like. Thanks to industry pressure, the FDA has once again stepped to the tune of private industry while betraying the safety of the American consumer. This decision on BPA is the latest example of why the FDA has become an enormous threat to the health and safety of the American people.

Two days ago, NaturalNews reported the FDA's masterminding of an extortion racket that targets small health supplement companies and threatens their owners with imprisonment if they don't pay huge sums of money to FDA contractors (https://www.naturalnews.com/024567.html).

It is now clear to most independent observers that the FDA is operating a criminal protect racket that seeks to multiply the profits of drug companies and chemical companies while betraying the health and safety of the American people. FDA decision boards are routinely stacked with "experts" who are on the take from the corporations impacted by their decisions, and even while the FDA is giving the big thumbs up to deadly pharmaceuticals and cancer-causing chemicals, it is targeting health supplement companies with threats so severe they would be considered criminal if uttered by anyone else.

Thanks to the FDA, it remains illegal in the United States to even link to a scientific study on the health benefits of cherries if you happen to sell cherries. Telling the truth about anti-cancer herbs can land you in prison, and placing a customer testimonial on your health product website can earn you a visit from FDA agents accompanied by armed SWAT-style assault teams (https://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html).

The FDA, it seems, has turned reality upside down and is now telling us that all the poisons are safe while all the natural substances are dangerous. Consider this:

According to the FDA:

• Aspartame is perfectly safe, but stevia is too dangerous to use in foods

• Vioxx is perfectly safe, but cherries are too dangerous to treat arthritis pain

• Chemotherapy is safe enough for everyone, but anti-cancer herbs might poison you

• Vaccines are so safe that we should inject all our teenage girls with them, but Vitamin D has no biological benefit whatsoever and has no effect on preventing infections

• Bisphenol-A is safe enough for babies to drink, but human breast milk is dangerous and outlawed from being sold

The FDA: Harming babies for profit

The number of babies that have been harmed or killed by the FDA is beyond accounting. This agency, through its outright abandonment of its duty to protect the People, has established itself as the single most dangerous organization operating on U.S. soil, far exceeding the harm posed by criminal gangs, white-collar criminals or even terrorist cells.

In the United States today, bankers who steal the People's money go free. Politicians who steal the People's vote stay in power. And regulatory agencies that steal the People's health are given yet more money by Congress. Is there no justice left in America? Is there no agency remaining that's willing to arrest the criminals who work for the United States government? When did the People surrender their freedoms to the jackals in Washington?

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." --Benito Mussolini

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone." -- Thomas Jefferson

"A truth's initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed. It wasn't the world being round that agitated people, but that the world wasn't flat. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic." -- Dresden James.

What follows is the original press release written by the Environmental Working Group (www.EWG.org)

Chemical Industry Wrote FDA's Glowing Assessment of BPA; Chemical Lobby Admits Involvement in Drafting Agency's Position

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported today that internal documents from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) show that an agency task force assessment of the toxic plastics chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) "was written largely by the plastics industry and others with a financial stake in the controversial chemical."

The newspaper reported that the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the Washington-based trade group that represents the $664 billion U.S. chemical industry, commissioned a review of all studies of the neurotoxicity of bisphenol-A and submitted it to the FDA. The FDA then used that report as the foundation for its evaluation of the chemical on neural and behavioral development.

An FDA assessment made public last August asserted that BPA, a synthetic estrogen and component of polycarbonate and epoxy resin plastics, is safe for use in consumer products, including baby bottles and infant formula containers.

"This latest revelation makes clear that no matter who is in the White House come January, he has to rebuild the FDA," said Environmental Working Group (EWG) President Ken Cook. "An agency that once epitomized independent, impartial expertise in the service of public health has degenerated to a disgraced stenographer for the chemical and plastics industry."

The FDA's stance conflicts with the position of National Institutes of Health's National Toxicology Program, which last month concluded that people are being exposed to BPA at levels which raise "some concern" for "effects on development of the prostate gland and brain and for behavioral effects in fetuses, infants and children."

On Oct. 18, the Canadian government, differing sharply with FDA's position on BPA brain toxicity, declared BPA a toxin, a first step in its efforts to restrict its use in baby bottles and formula.

The Journal Sentinel quoted ACC spokeswoman Tiffany Harrington as confirming ACC's involvement in drafting the agency's position: "We are a stakeholder just like anyone else," Harrington said. "It's part of the process."

Earlier this month the Journal Sentinel disclosed that University of Michigan toxicologist Martin Philbert, Ph.D., chair of a key science advisory panel guiding the FDA's continuing review of BPA's potential health risks, failed to disclose to the agency a $5 million gift from Charles Gelman, the retired head of Gelman Sciences, a medical device manufacturing company which used BPA in its products, to the university Risk Science Center which Philbert directs.

The FDA has said it will review Philbert's actions. But it has rebuffed calls by EWG and other groups to halt a meeting scheduled for Oct. 31 until a top-down investigation of this matter is concluded. At that meeting, Philbert is expected to make recommendations to the FDA Science Board on the safety of BPA in baby bottles, formula cans and other food packaging.

EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment.