Implementation of the evidence‐based risk assessment for the re‐evaluation of Bisphenol A: preparatory work on cross‐sectional studies.

EFSA is implementing evidence‐based risk assessments for the re‐evaluation of the safety of bisphenol A (BPA) for human health. The aim of this work was to carry out some preparatory work for the working group on BPA re‐evaluation, with particular reference to the preparation of individual summary tables of human studies with cross‐sectional design, and a narrative and factual summary of the above studies when grouped by health outcome category and by effect/endpoint. The first stage of the work was conducted using DistillerSR, the web‐based systematic review software used by EFSA which enabled direct access/download to the published documents and provided an on‐line template for data extraction and reporting. A total of 161 published articles were considered and data extracted from these into the online templates. Using these data, with additional reference back to the published articles, a narrative report was produced that sub‐divided the studies into seven key toxicological areas: reproduction, neurotoxicity, immune system toxicity, metabolic effects, cardiovascular effects, carcinogenicity and general toxicity.