Canada Officially Labels BPA Chemical as “Toxic”

Amy Minsky
Postmedia News
October 14, 2010

The federal government has made good on a two-year-old promise to add bisphenol A, a hormone-disrupting chemical linked to some cancers, to the country’s list of toxic substances, in spite of industry opposition.

In 2008, Canada became the first country in the world to ban the chemical, an estrogen-mimicking substance also known as BPA, in baby bottles after concluding that the industrial chemical could eventually lead to prostate and breast cancer.

The next step for the government was to designate the chemical as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

The delay in its listing was due to a formal notice of objection from the American Chemistry Council, filed on July 15, 2009, which maintained BPA is safe. The government rejected the request on July 27, 2010, on the grounds the council did not “bring forth any new scientific data or information with respect to the nature and extent of the danger posed by bisphenol A.”

Environmental Defence, a non-profit environmental organization, has spent five years leading the lobby campaign for the toxic designation.

“This is a really significant public health victory,” the organization’s executive director, Rick Smith said, shortly after popping open a bottle of Champagne to share with his colleagues. “We’re seeing a rapid and dramatic transformation of the children’s product industry.”

A Statistics Canada study released in August reported nearly all Canadians — 91 per cent of those aged six to 79 — have BPA in their urine, and that children and teenagers have higher levels of the estrogen-mimicking chemical than adults. It is believed people ingest the chemical when it leaches into food from polycarbonate plastic food containers, bottles and tableware, and from tin cans.

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