Launching the campaign, Breast Cancer UK said the weight of research raised clear concerns about BPA. The call has been backed by a number of scientists and charities, including the NCT (formerly National Childbirth Trust), the Cancer Prevention and Education Society and CHEM Trust."
However, this is the first major campaign in the UK to outlaw BPA. As part of this drive, a group of scientists from the Universities of Stirling, Ulster, London, Plymouth, and Reading have written to Andy Burnham MP, Secretary of State for Health, urging the Government “to adopt a standpoint consistent with the approach taken by other Governments who have ended the use of BPA in food contact products marketed at children”.
Professor Vyvyan Howard, of the Biomedical Sciences Research Institute at Ulster University, said: "As a medically qualified pathologist and parent to an 8-month-old baby boy, I feel that it is essential for the Government to heed our call for precautionary measures to limit exposure of BPA to very young children. Babies in their first year have not fully developed the ability to clear BPA from their bodies as quickly as adults."
But UK scientific opinion is divided on the issue. Professor Richard Sharpe, from the Medical Research Council Human Reproductive Sciences Unit at the University of Edinburgh, said: "There is no direct evidence that links bisphenol A exposure in women, or in animal studies, to the development of breast cancer.”
Breast Cancer UK also presented the results of a YouGov survey that found 79 per cent of the respondents either strongly agreed (50%) or agreed (29%) “it is important that the UK Government acts in a precautionary way when it comes to protecting babies and very young children from BPA”. Some 61 per cent believed the UK Government should “act to end the use of BPA in baby bottles” while just 10 per cent thought the Government “should follow the current FSA guidelines and leave things as they are”.
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