The French Agency for Food Health Safety (ANSES) has called on the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to classify BPA as a more severe category 1 reprotoxic substance under the EU rules on the classification, labeling and packaging (CLP) of chemicals.
BPA is classified as a category 2 substance at the moment, which means its reprotoxicity is only suspected.
According to ANSES, there is now sufficient evidence to change the chemical's CLP status to clearly hazardous and making BPA a category 1 substance would lead to the adoption of more stringent restrictions in Europe.
The French proposal to change BPA's classification will now be considered by ECHA's risk assessment committee, which will give an opinion within 18 months of the proposal's publication on the ECHA website.
A public consultation will also be launched by the end of 2012 or early 2013.
