FDA Requires BPA-Free Baby Bottles and Sippy Cups

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — Baby bottles and sippy cups just got safer.  On Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug and Administration (FDA) said child beverage containers could no longer contain the plastic chemical bisphenol-A, or BPA.

Consumers Union, the advocacy group spawned from Consumer Reports, praised the FDA’s announcement.

This is a big day for everyone who has worked so hard to get BPA out of our sippy cups and baby bottles, especially the families who have lobbied the government to do the right thing for our kids,” Jean Halloran, Consumers Union Director of Food Policy Initiatives, said Tuesday in a statement.

Manufacturers have used BPA since the 1960s to make plastic bottles and food containers, including those used to package infant foods, according to The New York Times.  Studies have shown traces of the chemical to be found in the food and beverages contained in the bottles and cans made with BPA, the Times reports.

Groups like Consumers Union have long proposed a ban on BPA in food containers used by babies and young children. After California’s passage last year of a law banning the chemical in child food containers, the American Chemistry Council immediately requested that the FDA introduce rules against the chemical’s use in these products. Manufacturers, after all, had already stopped using BPA in order to satisfy consumer preferences.

Halloran said Tuesday that the FDA’s action, “will help protect millions of the most vulnerable Americans,” with various studies proving the serious health risks associated with BPA.  Now, she says, “FDA’s next step should be to ban this chemical in infant formula containers. Babies’ exposure to BPA should be minimized in every way possible.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio