News Coverage
Ca. Progress Report: Leaked Industry Memo Prompts Warning on Hormones
Published June 22, 2009
Like similar legislation in other state houses this year, California Senator Fran Pavley’s (D-Agoura Hills) SB 797, the Toxin-Free Toddlers and Babies Act, will face coordinated opposition from a chemical industry fighting to preserve $6 billion dollars in annual sales of the plastic hardening agent, bisphenol A (BPA) as the bill now heads to assembly committees on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials and Health.
But it is the leak of an industry memo this month outlining a BPA joint trade association’s political strategy designed to incite doubt, propagate fear, seek a pregnant spokesperson willing to promote the benefits of the chemical, introduce the idea through online media that banning BPA is thinly-veiled racism, and ‘befriending people that are able to manipulate the legislative process’ in California and Connecticut, that has shed an intriguing light upon a bill that, until now, none but environmentalists and anti-cancer advocacy groups knew.
The trade association memo also noted that its committee doubted “obtaining a scientific spokesperson” to support BPA would be possible. The Washington Post was the first to report on the leaked memo earlier this month.
Click this link to read the entire article: http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2009/06/leaked_industry.html
