On February 3, 2022, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published the presentation slides from the stakeholder meeting on the re-evaluation of bisphenol A (BPA, CAS 80-05-7). On January 24, EFSA scientists and members of the working group on BPA re-evaluation spent a morning presenting their research process and reasons for suggesting the tolerable daily intake (TDI) of BPA be lowered 100,000-fold (FPF reported).
Cristina Croera, the BPA working group coordinator, outlined the systematic approach the group took to undertake the hazard assessment. Their primary aim was to determine whether evidence published since EFSA’s last BPA review in 2012 “still supports the previous TDI of 4 μg/kg bodyweight per day” (FPF reported, also here and here). The reviewers looked at human, animal, and toxicokinetic studies, the relevance of any findings to human health, ranked the validity of results in a four-tiered system, and categorized any effects into groups by which body system was affected.
Presentations by Ursula Gundert-Remy and Rex FitzGerald described the process of health hazard identification and the types of hazards identified. They presented the working group’s evidence that BPA affects hormone systems including estrogen, androgen, and corticosterone; that BPA induces oxidative stress, and that it impairs mitochondrial function and calcium regulation (FPF reported, also here and here).
The slides from the afternoon question-and-answer session include more background information to support discussion and help answer questions that came up during the meeting.
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EFSA (January 24, 2022). “Stakeholder meeting on the draft scientific opinion on re-evaluation of bisphenol A (BPA).”
