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FDA Panel Chairman on Bisphenol-A Secretly
Received $5 Million Payment
As an FDA panel prepares to issue a ruling on whether the
controversial chemical bisphenol A (BPA) should be considered safe,
press reports have
revealed that the research center headed by the panel's chair recently
received a massive donation from a vocal BPA supporter and former
medical device manufacturer.
In July, the University of Michigan's Risk Science Center, headed by FDA
panel chair Martin Philbert, received a $5 million donation from
anti-regulation activist Charles Gelman. This donation amounted to
almost 50 times the center's annual budget, but was never reported to
the FDA.
Gelman vocally supports organizations that are critical of research into
the risks of chemicals, global warming and other environmental hazards.
He also has a long history of opposing government regulation of
pollutants.
Gelman told reporters that he considers BPA to be perfectly safe, and
that he made his perspective clear to Philbert on multiple occasions.
"He knows where I stand," he said.
The FDA's associate commissioner for science, Norris Alderson, responded
to the revelation by saying that since Gelman's salary was not paid from
Gelman's donation, the agency does not regard it as a conflict of
interest.
BPA is a widely used industrial chemical that helps make plastics hard
and translucent. It has found uses in polycarbonate plastic water and
baby bottles, as part of the resins that line cans of food, and in
non-food products such as compact discs.
Laboratory studies have implicated the chemical as a hormone mimic and
endocrine disruptor, however, with the potential to cause reproductive,
developmental and neurological problems, particularly in infants and
children. Concerns over the chemical have been heightened by findings
that it can leach from plastics and resins into food and beverages,
especially when heated. Scientists have found traces of the chemical in
the bodies of 90 percent of people over the age of six.
Sources for this story include:
www.washingtonpost.com
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