The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week published its long-awaited “reassessment” of bisphenol A (BPA) – see Plasteurope.com of 19.01.2010. What was the verdict? It’s complicated, to borrow a phrase from “Facebook” and a currently popular movie. Or, better: unsatisfactory at best.

After waiting over a year for the FDA to wring meaning out of the growing amount of contradictory data on the ubiquitous chemical used to make polycarbonate or epoxy food packaging linings, few are cheered by the agency’s cautious remarks that it has “some concern” that there may be some health risks.

Other organisations reached this shaky conclusion long ago. While the world has watched the FDA struggle to prove it is not the industry’s lapdog, hardly a week has passed without a new study claiming that BPA interferes with reproduction and child development, causes heart attacks, cancer or something else.

Although the latest report is heralded as a reversal of the FDA’s earlier thinking, it reaches no real conclusion and adds to the millions already invested in R&D by governments, scientific organisations and the plastics industry itself.

Companies working with BPA are convinced that the substance poses no health threat and that they have the right science. But by now they also must have “some concern” that the public is literally “not buying it.” Neither repeatedly stating that there is nothing to worry about nor confusing consumers with complex chemical data appears a workable strategy.

The industry may find it reassuring that its worldwide institutions are speaking with one voice. However, the identical statements released this week by the American Chemistry Council and PlasticsEurope may convince others that this is merely a continuation of the “public relations blitz” that copies cigarette makers’ tactics, as the US newspaper “Milwaukee Journal Sentinel” alleges.

The FDA’s offer to help consumers source BPA-free baby products must be less reassuring to companies whose livelihood is tied to polycarbonate or epoxy resins. Negative publicity and local bans already are encouraging substitution.

So what’s the plastics industry to do?

Proactively helping to end the long-running drama could sharpen its profile as part of the solution rather than the problem. If companies and industry research bodies communicate and explain their own research, in an understandable manner and of their own accord, no one will be able to claim that information is being suppressed.

Returning to “business as usual” could mean waking up tomorrow and finding today’s markets gone.