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The Food and Drug Administration has until Saturday to decide whether mothers know best. The agency is trying to determine whether bisphenol A, also known as BPA, should be forbidden in food and beverage packaging.

Saturday is the court-ordered deadline for the Food and Drug Administration to respond to a petition by the Natural Resources Defense Council asking that bisphenol A, or BPA, be banned as a food additive, which would also preclude its use in packaging.

The FDA is expected to make an announcement regarding its decision on the future of BPA within the next few days.

The FDA has until Saturday to decide whether to ban the plastic additive BPA from food packaging. Some scientists think BPA poses a risk to consumers because it can act like estrogen in the body. But recent studies by government scientists suggest the ...

Small doses can have big health effects. That is a main finding of a new report, three years in the making, published Wednesday by a team of 12 scientists who study hormone-altering chemicals. Dozens of substances that can mimic or block hormones are found in the environment, the food supply and consumer products, including plastics, pesticides and cosmetics. One of the biggest controversies is whether the tiny doses that most people are exposed to are harmful. The researchers concluded after examining hundreds of studies that health effects “are remarkably common” when people or animals are exposed to low doses. "Fundamental changes in chemical testing are needed to protect human health," they wrote.

As a scientist, I am often asked what “proof” links hormone-altering chemicals to diseases and birth defects. One mother questions whether exposures during her pregnancy caused her child’s autism. Another asks whether chemicals in the foods she a...