For the third time in three years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has sided with science and rejected a petition from anti-plastic groups demanding that phthalates be banned from food contact uses. As Chemical Watch News reported on October 30:

“The FDA concluded that the NGOs’ objections ‘did not provide a basis’ to convince the agency to deviate from its earlier decision to allow for the continued use of some ortho-phthalates in food contact applications.” …

Phthalates are chemicals used to make some plastics more flexible and durable. They’ve been safely utilized since the 1930s in food-contact materials. This recent controversy over their application in food containers began in 2016, when the activist coalition initially filed its petition with the FDA.

After more than five years of reviewing the evidence, FDA rejected the petition in May 2022, then repudiated it again on appeal in July 2023. Refusing to take a hint, the NGO coalition reformulated its complaints and filed yet another appeal. The FDA was still having none of it, concluding that the petition treated all food-contact phthalates (most of which are no longer in use) as essentially a single chemical:

“Fundamental to the petition was the claim that all 28 phthalates could be reviewed together as a class, applying data from one chemical to the entire set of 28. The FDA assessment found that available information does not support grouping all 28 phthalate chemicals into a single class assessment.”

Of course, phthalates are a broad group of compounds with diverse chemical properties and applications. Evaluating any one of them based on data related to another makes little sense. Unfortunately, this is the kind of sophomoric reasoning we’ve come to expect from agenda-driven NGOs: make scientifically dubious assertions and hope that no one notices.

The proper way to identify the health effects of exposure to any chemical is to … assess the health effects of that chemical. Formally known as a “risk assessment,” this approach is widely endorsed by the science community as the most reliable method of evaluating the safety of any product. When public health agencies like the National Toxicology Program evaluate phthalates, this is the method they employ. 

Kevin Ott, executive director of the Flexible Vinyl Alliance, nicely summarized the situation: the activist assault on phthalates has forced the FDA to re-litigate settled science. As he told Chemical Watch:

“In overruling the latest objections, ‘FDA has once again relied on up-to-date data on these substances, again coming down on the side of science and safety,’ Ott said. The use of phthalates in food contact applications is minimal. And given limited FDA resources, these repeated citizen petitions are ‘detrimental’ to improving public health, he said.”

Repeated failed attempts to ban ortho-phthalates — by those who refuse to accept sound science — are a waste of taxpayer money and place a tremendous burden on the FDA’s limited resources. These petitioners are about themselves, not the public interest.