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« There's BPA in infant formula. | Main | Ask EWG: What is "fragrance"? »

December 6, 2007

BPA in formula: This is not a call to panic.

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
—Elizabeth Stone

Being a parent, as I understand it, involves a lot of trust. You have to trust your pediatrician, eventually you'll have to trust a babysitter, and of course you have to trust all the well-meaning relatives who just want to hold her for a minute. Then there are all the companies you have to trust to protect your child: the company that made the car seat, the one that made the crib, the toys, the pacifiers. But of all those companies parents end up trusting, formula companies may be the most inherently risky. We all know breast milk is best, but seventy percent of babies in the US will be given some formula by the time they're three months old. For most babies, formula will be the very first manufactured food to pass their lips, and parents are left with little choice but to trust that the formula manufacturers are doing what's right for children.

Which is why it's such an outrage that every formula manufacturer in the U.S. puts infant formula into cans lined with the toxic plastics chemical bisphenol A. EWG spoke with representatives from each of the companies three times to ascertain the answer, and it's true: liquid formulas packaged in cans, and powdered formulas packaged in canisters with metal tops and bottoms, are exposed to a toxic chemical that is known to leach into food. Based on BPA levels found in ready-to-eat liquid formula,

1 of every 16 infants fed the formula would be exposed to the chemical at doses exceeding those that caused harm in laboratory studies.

Are you angry yet? Because this is not a call to panic. This is a call to action.

The use of BPA to line infant formula cans is, as Izzy put it in an email, unconscionable. Here's what you can do:

1. Switch to powdered. If you're currently bottle feeding a baby and using liquid formula, switch to powdered right away. Powdered formula has lower BPA exposure because only thirty percent of the container (the top and bottom) is lined with it.
   
2. Pay it forward. If anyone you know is formula feeding a baby, pass this information along (our one-page parent's guide to bottle feeding makes a good fact-sheet).
   
3. Make noise. Formula companies actually do care what you think -- after all, parents, you're their best customers. We've compiled email addresses for each of the companies, and we've even written a sample email to give you a jumping-off point.
   
4. Make MORE noise. Join the community at Moms Speak Up and League of Maternal Justice (yup, even if you're a dad), because there's power in numbers.
   
5. Be vigilant. The internet is full of resources to help play it safe when it comes to chemical exposure. Websites Safe Mama and SAFbaby will keep you updated on the latest, and Z Recommends does research to bring you useful reports like this one on BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups.
   

Someday soon there will be even more you can do -- and believe me, I'll let you know when that day comes. In the meantime, let manufacturers know: We may have trusted them blindly in the past, but now they're going to have to work for it.

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