The Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) has called for more stringent standards for safe exposure of workers and consumers to bisphenol A (BPA). The recommendation is included in the report, Bisphenol A. Part 2. Recommendations for risk management. RIVM further suggested that special attention should be given to protecting small children, pregnant women and women who breastfeed as animal studies from 2014 show that BPA can impair the immune system of unborn and young children at a lower exposure level than the one on which the current standards are based.

The report recommends that the Dutch Government file requests to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to revisit the tolerable daily intake (TDI) of BPA, to the European Commission to ask the EU Scientific Committee on Occupational Exposure Limit Values (SCOEL) to revisit the occupational exposure limit (OEL), and to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to re-open the evaluation of the health hazards of BPA and the consequent exposure limit values, taking into account the most recent data on the effects of BPA on the immune system. With respect to food-contact materials, RIVM suggested the possibility of lowering the specific migration limit (SML) of BPA in the Plastics Regulation (EU) No 10/2011.

The European Commission is currently working on an EU measure applicable to plastic food contact materials, as well as coated/varnished food contact materials, which would incorporate an SML for BPA derived from the EFSA’s temporary TDI (t-TDI) of 4 µg/kg of body weight per day (EFSA, 2015) and which would also take into account of exposure from sources other than food contact materials. .

Part one of RIVM’s report was published in 2014.