Seoul Listens to the Science on BPA

Steven Hentges, Ph.DMonday, July 30, 2018 SAFETY
Next time you walk down the canned food aisle of the grocery store, take a close look atthe labels on the cans. You’re likely to see some with logos indicating that the product isBPA-Free. Since the labels provide no information to explain what that really means, youprobably assume it must be a good thing. If it isn’t, why would they put it on the label?
But like the Seoul Metropolitan Government Research Institute of Public Health andEnvironment, you don’t have to assume anything about BPA in canned foods. A new
study describes how researchers in Seoul measured just how much BPA is in canned foods
with the goal of finding out whether that’s a good thing or not.
The researchers purchased 104 canned food and beverage products from local stores inSeoul and measured the level of BPA in each product. Not surprisingly, trace levels of BPA
were found in many of the products. By itself that doesn’t mean much since analyticalchemists have become very good at finding miniscule amounts of BPA, and just about
everything else, almost everywhere they look.
The presence of BPA at trace levels is an indicator that the cans contain a protective coating
made from a BPA-based epoxy resin. The coating prevents metal corrosion and helps toprotect the safety and integrity of the contents. That certainly is a good thing. Epoxy resins
have been used as protective coatings for decades because they excel in this critical foodsafety application.
Daily intake of BPA was then calculated based on Korean food consumption patterns andcompared with safe intake levels set by government bodies. Using scientific data rather thanassumptions, the researchers concluded that “the risk of bisphenol [A] exposure owing to1/2

canned food consumption for the population in Korea was low.” That conclusion should beapplicable elsewhere since the researchers reported that BPA levels in Korean products weresimilar to levels reported worldwide.
That conclusion is also consistent with the conclusion recently reached by the South Korean
Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) after its comprehensive risk assessment onBPA. As MFDS stated: “We find that there are no health concerns for the general Korean
population from dietary exposure or from aggregated exposure [to BPA].”
Both MFDS and the researchers in Seoul reached their conclusions before the results of theU.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) CLARITY study were available. That study,
which is of unprecedented scope and magnitude for BPA, was conducted by FDA seniorscientists in FDA’s own laboratory and was aimed at resolving remaining uncertainties about
the safety of BPA. That it did and the results, released earlier this year, provide very strong
reassurance that the conclusions reached in Korea are right on target.
So is it a good thing if a product is BPA-Free? Who knows since a BPA-Free label doesn’ttell you anything about what actually is in the product. All the label tells you is that theproduct doesn’t contain something that is safe. The lack of meaningful information in a BPAFree label begs the question – what is in the product and how do you know that it’s safe? ABPA-Free label doesn’t provide any information to answer that important question.

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