Urgent health warning about toxic ‘gender-bending’ chemicals in food as EU officials determine current ‘safe’ limit is 20 THOUSAND times too high
Health chiefs today issued a new warning about the skyrocketing levels of toxic ‘gender-bending’ chemicals found in food and drink – saying millions are probably consuming too much.
Bisphenol A is found in parts of water dispensers, food containers, and reusable bottles because it makes plastics more flexible and harder to break.
But the “gender-bending” chemical, also known as BPA, mimics the female sex hormone estrogen and has been linked to low sperm count and infertility in men, as well as breast and prostate cancer.
EU officials have now said that the current level of recommended BPA exposure through food and drink is 20,000 times too high.
Officials made this decision after reviewing 800 new studies.
BPA is most commonly found in refillable beverage bottles and food storage containers, as well as the protective coatings and liners for food and beverage cans (stock image)
This included one in mice that suggested high exposure to BPA could cause the immune system to mistakenly attack the body.
There have been concerns for years about BPA leaching from packaging directly into food and drink and potentially damaging the body.
EU watchdogs previously ruled in 2015 that a safe daily exposure, due to the small amounts leaking from plastic packaging, was 4 micrograms per kilogram of body weight.
But experts from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) have now revised this to 0.2 nanograms per kilogram per day.
With a nanogram representing one billionth of a gram, that means the new safe figure is 20,000 times lower than the old limit.
EU experts estimate that all age groups exceed the safe BPA threshold on average ‘by two to three orders of magnitude’.
Britain is currently following the old EU BPA safety level set in 2015 and adopted post-Brexit.
These rules restricted the use of BPA in baby bottles and infant formula packaging, both in the block and in Britain.
Dr. Claude Lambré, chair of EFSA’s panel on food contact materials, enzymes and processing aids, said their analysis helped unravel BPA’s toxicity.
“In the studies, we saw an increase in the percentage of a type of white blood cell called T helper in the spleen,” he said.
“They play a key role in our cellular immune mechanisms and such an increase could lead to the onset of allergic pneumonia and autoimmune diseases.”
The EFSA report says that mice with this effect were exposed to an equivalent human dose of 8.2 nanograms of BPA per kilogram of weight per day.
EFSA experts have also identified how BPA can have potentially harmful health effects on the reproductive, developmental and metabolic systems.
They noted that efforts by EU lawmakers in 2015 likely reduced people’s average exposure to BPA, making their estimate of exposure levels “conservative.”
EFSA’s findings are now officially going to the European Commission, which could enforce a new limit on BPA use across the block to protect consumers.
France has already banned the use of BPA in all food packaging, containers and utensils due to health concerns.