According to news sources, the Codex Alimentarius Commission concluded its meeting in Geneva by reaching an agreement on labeling foods that contain genetically modified (GM) ingredients. While the guidance is not mandatory, it would allow countries to label GM foods without risking a legal challenge before the World Trade Organization. National laws based on Codex guidance or standards cannot apparently be challenged as trade barriers. The matter has been debated before the commission, which consists of food safety regulatory agencies and organizations from around the world, for some two decades. Consumer interest organizations were apparently pleased with the agreement, but had urged the commission to adopt mandatory labeling. Still, a Consumers Union scientist reportedly said, “We are particularly pleased that the new guidance recognizes that GM labeling is justified as a tool for post-market monitoring. This is one of the key reasons we want all GM foods to be required…
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The European Parliament has reportedly approved new food labeling rules aimed at helping consumers make “better informed, healthier choices.” As outlined in a July 6, 2011, press release, the new regulations will require labels “to spell out a food’s energy content as well as fat, saturated fat, carbohydrate, sugar, protein and salt levels, in a way that makes them easy for consumers to read.” To this end, such nutritional information must be presented “in a legible tabular form on the packaging, together and in the same field of vision,” and “expressed per 100g or per 100ml,” with the option of expressing values per portion. Slated to take effect three to five years after publication in the EU Official Journal, the new rules also (i) tighten allergen labeling requirements for both pre-packaged products and non-packaged foods sold in restaurants or canteens; (ii) extend existing country-of-origin labeling laws to fresh meat from…
The Michigan Liquor Control Commission has reportedly reversed its decision to ban sales of a Maryland-based beer with a controversial name. Flying Dog Brewery has received approval to promote and sell its “Raging Bitch” Belgian-Style IPA in Michigan. According to Flying Dog, the commission has barred the beer’s sale in Michigan since 2009, claiming its label was “detrimental to the public health, safety and welfare.” The brewery subsequently filed a First Amendment lawsuit in a Grand Rapids federal court. More information about the lawsuit appears in Issue 388 of this Update. The commission switched its position after the U.S. Supreme Court recently determined that states cannot engage in “content-based discrimination,” according to a news source. Although calling the move “a victory for craft beer,” Flying Dog has announced that it has no plans to drop its pending lawsuit. “Most companies would take what Michigan did and say, ‘Great, I can…
Several consumer protection organizations have filed a citizen petition with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), seeking a rulemaking “for labeling and point of sale advisories concerning mercury in seafood to minimize methylmercury exposure to women of childbearing age and children.” According to the petition, some 200,000 children in the United States, between ages two and five, have blood mercury levels nearly 50 percent higher than base levels recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency. Noting that the percentages of women and children exceeding recommended mercury levels are higher in coastal regions and among African-Americans, Asians, the affluent, and those in the fishing industry, the petition claims that consumers “do not know the risks inherent in exposing themselves and their families to this potent neurotoxin.” Jane Hightower, a physician who authored Diagnosis: Mercury—Money, Politics & Poison, signed the petition, which was also brought on behalf of Earthjustice, the Zero Mercury Working…
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report recommending that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) improve its enforcement of the Children’s Television Act (CTA) of 1990, which restricts advertising during children’s programs, requires a certain amount of informational/educational programming as a condition of broadcast license renewals and prohibits the use of program characters in advertising during any program for children younger than age 12. On the basis of its review of FCC data, interviews with FCC and broadcast station officials and focus groups with parents, GAO expressed concerns about the agency’s lack of specific standards to assess informational (or “core children’s”) programming. The report also found that most self-reported violations involved broadcasters exceeding advertising time limits. According to the report, core children’s programming on commercial broadcast stations “increased significantly” from 1998 to 2010, along with cable and satellite providers—“to which core children’s programming requirements do not apply—increasing the number…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has announced an expansion of the Salmonella Initiative Program (SIP) to help industry reduce foodborne pathogens in raw meat and poultry products. The agency has extended the comment period to September 12, 2011. According to FSIS, the voluntary, incentive-based program allows “participating establishments to operate under certain regulatory waivers to try new procedures, equipment or processing techniques to better control Salmonella.” As a condition for participation, establishments selected for SIP must regularly collect product samples to test for Salmonella, campylobacter and generic E. coli, and then share the data with the agency. FSIS has set new deadlines for establishments currently operating with regulatory waivers to apply for SIP and has allowed a “limited number of establishments to operate with modified line speed” which will be evaluated by a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study. See USDA…
The United States and Mexico have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that resolves a long-haul, cross-border trucking dispute involving “retaliatory tariffs” on more than $2 billion in U.S. exports, including food and agricultural products. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the July 6, 2011, agreement will “lift tariffs and put safety first.” Under the agreement, Mexico will immediately suspend half of the retaliatory tariffs imposed in March 2009, with the remaining 50 percent to be removed within five days of the first Mexican trucking company receiving U.S. operating authority. In return, Mexican long-haul truck drivers will be allowed to ship goods into the United States after complying with, among other things, the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and electronic vehicle monitoring designed to track “hours-of-service compliance” to ensure that drivers make cross-border shipments and not “domestic cargo between points within the United States.” According to U.S. Agriculture…
A recent University of Michigan study has reportedly suggested that phthalates and bisphenol A (BPA) could affect thyroid functioning in humans. John Meeker and Kelly Ferguson, “Relationship Between Urinary Phthalate and Bisphenol A Concentrations and Serum Thyroid Measures in U.S. Adults and Adolescents from NHANES 2007-08,” Environmental Health Perspectives, July 11, 2011. Researchers apparently used thyroid serum measures from 1346 adults and 329 adolescents enrolled in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to determine that “[g]enerally speaking, greater concentrations of urinary phthalate metabolites and BPA were associated with greater impacts on serum thyroid measures.” In particular, the study found that as urinary metabolite concentrations for di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) and BPA increased, certain thyroid hormones decreased. “The current study showed the strongest relationship between thyroid disruption and DEHP,” explained a July 12, 2011, University of Michigan press release, which noted that “urine samples in the highest 20 percent of exposure…
Harvard University obesity experts have reportedly proposed that some parents should lose custody of their extremely overweight children to foster care. In a July 13, 2011, Journal of the American Medical Association opinion piece titled “State Intervention in Life-Threatening Childhood Obesity,” David Ludwig and Lindsey Murtagh suggest that the same legal precedents that protect undernourished children should apply to severely obese kids. According to news sources, Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Harvard-affiliated Children’s Hospital Boston, and Murtagh, a lawyer and Harvard School of Public Health researcher, claim that removing a severely obese child from the home may be legally justifiable because of imminent heath risks such as Type 2 diabetes, liver problems and breathing issues. State intervention “ideally will support not just the child but the whole family, with the goal of reuniting child and family as soon as possible,” after possible parenting instruction, Ludwig reportedly said. The commentary has…
In 2007, a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine generated widespread media coverage for its claims that obesity can be transmitted via social networks, such as friendship, familial relationship or marriage. Details about the study appear in Issue 225 of this Update. The authors wrote additional papers on other personal characteristics, including smoking cessation, happiness and loneliness, concluding in each that a process of contagion or infection within the social network transmits the characteristics and that the transmission occurs up to three steps in the network, thus providing evidence of a “’three degrees of influence’ rule of social network contagion.” A new study published in a lesser-known journal, contends that the authors’ statistical analyses do not support their conclusions. Russell Lyons, “The Spread of Evidence-Poor Medicine via Flawed Social-Network Analysis,” Statistics, Politics, & Policy, Vol. 2, Issue 1 (2011). According to Russell Lyons, an Indiana University mathematician, the 2007…
