wfn.org | Coalition calls for safer baby bottles, plastics

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

May 13, 1999	News media contact: Joretta Purdue*(202)546-8722*Washington
10-21-71B{271}

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - Staff representatives of two United Methodist agencies
have joined the effort to ban a potentially harmful, hormone-like chemical
from baby bottles and plastic wrap. 

Several scientists say the substance leaches into children's food from these
products.

A request was directed to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and
manufacturers on May 12 to make plastic food containers and wrap safer for
children. 

The petition from 12 religious, environmental and consumer groups cited FDA
and Japanese studies that showed the chemical bisphenol-A migrated into the
food in polycarbonate baby bottles or other containers when heated. The
petition notes that "recent, peer-reviewed studies on bisphenol-A have found
biological effects (on laboratory animals) at extremely low levels."

The document also states that DEHA - a liquid plasticizer added for
flexibility to some plastic cling wraps - migrates to food. DEHA levels in
some plastic-wrapped cheese have exceeded the FDA's contamination level, and
some of these U.S. cheeses have exceeded the European Economic Community's
provisional migration limit by eight times, according to the petition. U.S.
National Toxicology Program studies have linked DEHA to developmental
effects in laboratory animals.

Pamela Sparr signed the petition for the Women's Division's Office of
Environmental Justice, a unit of the United Methodist Board of Global
Ministries.

"The women of the United Methodist Church and their predecessor groups have
been deeply involved in promoting the well-being of children for more than
100 years," she explained. "Our mission to safeguard the health of children
stems for the Gospel mandate to remove stumbling blocks for children." She
added that several resolutions from the denomination's highest legislative
body deal with safety, health and the environment.

Sparr urged all parents and child-care givers to take precautions without
waiting for industry changes. "One immediate step everyone can take to
safeguard children's long-term health is to stop microwaving baby bottles or
food in plastic containers."

Jaydee Hanson signed the petition for a division of the denomination's Board
of Church and Society called the Ministry of God's Creation. "We want the
FDA to look at the effects on the most vulnerable population, especially
children," said Hanson, an agency executive. "We are expressly concerned
about products like baby bottles."

The petition is a follow-up to the call issued last year for the Consumer
Products Safety Commission to take certain chemicals out of children's toys,
Hanson said. He is concerned that the FDA has not yet tested the plastics
cited last year to verify earlier studies by other scientists, he said.

"We believe the FDA should much more aggressively move to regulate," Hanson
said. "It's just a matter of taking simple precautions."

The petition calls for the use of alternative packaging materials that it
says "are readily available and affordable"; of polymerized plasticizers in
cling wrap film to reduce migration dramatically; and of baby bottles made
from plastics that do not contain bisphenol-A.

Last fall, Sparr's office was part of a coalition that convinced the FDA to
re-examine its standards for materials used in teething rings and other such
devices for infants. 

"We all need to pay special attention to the health risks for infants,
children and youth," she said, "because their bodies are in developmental
stages, which make them more vulnerable to toxins in both the short and the
long run."

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