EcoWaste calls on DOH to ban BPA in children’s products

A nurse feeds a newborn baby from a bottle in this April 9, 2010, photo. AFP

MANILA, Philippines — Environmental watchdog EcoWaste Coalition appealed to the Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday to enforce a long-overdue policy to protect babies from bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used in hard plastic linked to endocrine and reproductive disorders.

EcoWaste, in a letter to DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Director General Nela Charade Puno, said 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 emphasized that a DOH administrative order titled “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,” EcoWaste Coalition President Eileen Sison wrote.

“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,” Sison added.

Sison also told Duque, “Under your watch, we hope the much-awaited regulation will see the light of day in the weeks to come.”

The European Chemical Agency added BPA in January 2017 to the list of substances of very high concern (SVHCs) because it is “toxic for reproduction.” BPA’s inclusion to the list was updated in January 2018 due to its “endocrine disrupting properties.”

According to EcoWaste, 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.” /cbb