The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has entered a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Boston’s Northeastern University to “develop collaboration between the two parties in the areas of education, research, and outreach.” Focusing broadly on biotechnology and analytical chemistry, the MOU is intended to “provide opportunities for exchanging of graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, and personnel and for advanced training and outreach; stimulate cooperative research, and information exchange in biological product characterization and regulation with Northeastern University’s Barnett Institute of Chemical and Biological Analysis; and develop training programs for FDA and potentially other Government agencies and Industry.”

Northeastern University is home to law professor and anti-tobacco activist Richard Daynard who also formed the Public Health Advocacy Institute to address food and obesity issues through legislation and litigation. The law school received a $2.7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute in 2009 to conduct a five-year research project, headed by Daynard, on “how the tobacco industry has used personal responsibility rhetoric to influence courts, legislatures, regulatory agencies and public opinion, and to see to what extent the food and beverage industries have made use of similar strategies.” See Federal Register, January 5, 2010.

About The Author

For decades, manufacturers, distributors and retailers at every link in the food chain have come to Shook, Hardy & Bacon to partner with a legal team that understands the issues they face in today's evolving food production industry. Shook attorneys work with some of the world's largest food, beverage and agribusiness companies to establish preventative measures, conduct internal audits, develop public relations strategies, and advance tort reform initiatives.

Close