Industry attorneys have offered differing views about whether California regulators will have the scientific and legal backing to pursue a potential class-wide listing of p,p′-bisphenols under Proposition 65.
If enacted, such a listing could allow California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) to ensure the public is warned about exposures to a range of bisphenols, a class sometimes cited as being prone to ‘regrettable substitutions’ between structurally similar substances.
At the same time, a class-based Prop 65 listing could also foment legal and scientific challenges, while widening the scope for private enforcement of a substance group that has already seen a recent uptick over businesses’ alleged failures to provide warnings, industry experts told Chemical Watch News & Insight.
The varying viewpoints follow OEHHA’s selection in October of p,p′-bisphenols and their ethers and esters for review by the state’s Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee (DARTIC), which will meet to determine whether to recommend listing the substances as reproductive toxicants under Prop 65.
If pursued, the broad listing could apply to dozens of bisphenol substances and affect products across many sectors, including can liners, food containers, water bottles, medical devices, dental sealants and plastic goods.
Three bisphenols are already listed under Prop 65: bisphenol A (BPA) and bisphenol S (BPS) for reproductive and developmental toxicity, and tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) for carcinogenicity.
A class-wide bisphenol listing could add dozens more substances to the state’s right-to-know scheme, ushering in a requirement for companies to provide warnings when exposing individuals to any of the substances above a safe harbour level.
