FDA Takes Steps To Ban Chemicals In Pizza Boxes

Back in March, a few different consumer groups – the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Food Safety, the Breast Cancer Fund, the Center for Environmental Health, Clean Water Action, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Children’s Environmental Health Network, Environmental Working Group, and Improving Kids’ Environment (phew!) – all combined to issue a petition to the FDA to ban three specific chemicals. Now, Food Safety News alerts us that the petition has been successful.

These chemicals, related under the perfluoroalkyl ethyl family, are used primarily in the food industry as water and oil repellents; they’re used in coatings to prevent wet, greasy, and/or delicious foods from soaking through paper or cardboard containers. Their most popular use is probably in pizza boxes, but they can be found in all kinds of packaged pre-made foods.

There have also been a handful of studies in the past decade or so examining the potential toxicity and danger of these substances; the EPA has actually compiled a brief that lists these and similar substances as “emerging contaminants,” meaning there’s a pretty fair chance these are not totally safe. The substances seem to have potentially damaging effects on the serum, liver, and kidney, and there’s also a possibility of them causing developmental problems in youngsters.

So! Last week, the FDA posted a final rule on the Federal Register seeking to ban these three substances, directly in response to the petition from earlier this year. Weirdly, the petition actually cites a 2010 FDA memorandum in which the FDA concluded that these sorts of substances were likely to be just as toxic as extremely similar substances (this is kind of a complex chemical comparison that we’ll spare you; basically it’s like saying “we can conclude that this blue gun is dangerous because this red gun is dangerous, and the differences between the guns do not affect their danger; and also we have no evidence to suggest blue guns are somehow not dangerous”).

Anyway, the FDA said, yes, we looked at the evidence, including…our own evidence…and decided that this petition makes a good point, and these substances should be banned. So, they’re banned! Anyone who has objections has a month to talk to the FDA about it, but the filing notes that nobody really seems to have a problem – so it looks like pizza boxes are about to get much safer. The FDA didn’t note, however, whether they’ll allow packaging manufacturers to replace this chemical with something else, or if we’re trading our health for soggy boxes.