California EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has published a notice seeking public comment on its latest proposal to add candidate chemicals to the state’s Proposition 65 (Prop. 65) list of chemicals known to the state to pose a cancer or reproductive health risk. Aspartame is among the 38 chemicals OEHHA is considering adding to the list. Comments on the proposal must be submitted by May 5, 2009, and the agency’s Carcinogen Identification Committee will meet May 29 to “provide OEHHA with advice on the prioritization of these chemicals for possible preparation of hazard identification materials.” According to OEHHA, “[n]o listing decisions will be made concerning these chemicals at the May 29 meeting.”
Category Archives Issue 295
A Suffolk County, New York, legislative committee on March 3, 2009, voted unanimously to prohibit the packaging chemical bisphenol A (BPA) from polycarbonate baby bottles. According to published reports, the bill goes before the full Suffolk County Legislature next week. The vote would reportedly ban BPA from baby bottles and cups sold in the county that are intended for children ages 3 or younger. Similar bills are under consideration in Washington state, Minnesota and Connecticut. See Foodproductiondaily.com, March 4, 2009.
Chinese legislators this week passed a new food safety law that consolidates hundreds of regulations, imposes stricter penalties for safety violations and establishes a national commission based in the Ministry of Health to monitor the food and beverage industry, improve standards and authorize product recalls. Effective June 1, 2009, the law will also hold celebrities liable for endorsing faulty products; require farmers to abide by stricter rules pertaining to pesticides, fertilizers, veterinary drugs, and feed additives; and implement record-keeping requirements for farmers raising crops and livestock for human consumption. Loopholes in the Chinese food safety system attracted international attention last year when melamine-tainted infant formula produced by the state-owned Sanlu Group dairy sickened thousands of children. “At present, China’s food security situation remains grim, with high risks and contradictions popping out,” the ministry stated in a press release. See Marler Blog, March 1, 2009. The new law has already drawn criticism…
EU environment ministers have reportedly upheld the sovereign right of nations to outlaw genetically modified (GM) crops even when approved by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The European Commission (EC) had asked the ministers to overturn Austria’s and Hungary’s ban on a GM maize produced by Monsanto, but 22 states backed the countries’ measures over the opposition of the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Finland, and Sweden. Green MEP Caroline Lucas then accused the commission of trying to “bulldoze through their pro-GM agenda in spite of public opposition.” “I just hope that [EC President José Manuel Barroso] will realize the commission needs to change its position of GMOs,” Lucas was quoted as saying. The ministers will next week consider a similar GM maize ban pending in France and Greece. Although the European Union currently imports animal feed made with GM crops, member states have balked at allowing farmers to cultivate…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Marketing Service (AMS) has announced an opportunity for soybean producers to request a referendum on the Soybean Promotion and Research Order (the Order), as authorized by the Soybean Promotion, Research, and Consumer Information Act. The referendum would require participation by 10 percent of 589,182 eligible producers, provided that one-fifth of the requests do not come from any one state. If these conditions are met, AMS will hold a referendum within 1 year of the request and publish the results in the Federal Register. The agency will accept referendum requests between May 4 and 29, 2009. See Federal Register, March 4, 2009. AMS earlier this week issued a final rule amending the Soybean Promotion, Research and Consumer Information program, also known as the soybean checkoff program, to update the number of eligible soybean producers. The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) based its data on information…
U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) have introduced the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510), which would expand and strengthen the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) authority to address the safety of the nation’s food supply. The proposal, which has reportedly attracted the support of industry and consumer groups alike, would increase the frequency of food plant inspections, expand FDA’s access to records, give the agency the authority to recall tainted food products, and require the creation of a national strategy to protect the food supply from terrorist threats and intentional contamination. Originally introduced in July 2008 with many of the same sponsors, the bill would require all food facilities to have HACCP plans in effect and allow the FDA to suspend the registration of any food facility that “has a reasonable probability of causing serious adverse health consequences or…
Health Canada has published the results of a survey it conducted to detect and measure levels of bisphenol A (BPA) in canned beverages such as soft drinks, tea and energy drinks. The federal agency detected the chemical in nearly all of the samples tested, with some of the highest levels appearing in energy drinks containing caffeine. Health Canada scientists detected no BPA in two tonic water products and one energy drink product. According to the survey, “It is believed that quinine hydrochloride, which is commonly used as a bittering agent in tonic type drinks, may interfere with BPA extraction.” While the levels found in the beverages were below regulatory limits, some scientists are reportedly concerned that the large number of sources of exposure may pose cumulative risks to human health. University of Missouri biologist Frederick vom Saal contends that harmful effects of the chemical, which mimics the effects of estrogen in…
A recent study has reportedly compared long-term teen obesity risks to those incurred by smokers. Martin Neovius, et al., “Combined effects of overweight and smoking in late adolescence on subsequent mortality: nationwide cohort study,” British Medical Journal, February 24, 2009. After examining the death rates of 45,920 Swedish servicemen over 38 years, researchers found that recruits who were obese in 1969 and 1970 were twice as likely to die by age 60 than those who had a normal body mass index between 25 and 29.9. Obese men thus experienced an increase in risk the same as that of normal-weight men who smoked half a pack of cigarettes or more per day. The study results also suggested that overweight recruits were approximately one-third more likely to die prematurely, a risk profile similar to that of normal-weight men who smoked 10 cigarettes per day. Although one expert from Emory University’s Rollins School of…
“The plants in Texas and Georgia that were sending out contaminated peanut butter and ground peanut products had something else besides rodent infestation, mold and bird droppings. They also had federal organic certification,” opines this article examining a marketplace perception that organic food is both healthier and safer than conventional products. The authors suggest that a convoluted organic certification program has subverted an organic ethos “built on purity and trust . . . between the farmer and the customer.” With fees sometimes exceeding thousands of dollars, manufacturers are apparently dependent on a “web of agents” sponsored by those farmers and operations seeking certification. “A private certifier took nearly seven months to recommend that the USDA revoke the organic certification of the peanut company’s Georgia plant, and then did so only after the company was in the thick of a massive recall,” states the article, which notes that agents are required…
“An examination of the largest food poisoning outbreaks in recent years – in products as varied as spinach, pet food, and a children’s snack, Veggie Booty – show that auditors failed to detect problems at plants whose contaminated products later sickened consumers,” claims this article exploring the role of private inspectors in the current food safety system. The authors point to the recent Salmonella outbreak linked to a Peanut Corp. of America (PCA) plant in southwest Georgia. According to a March 27, 2008, internal audit obtained by The New York Times, the operation received a food safety rating of “superior” from a third-party inspector hired by PCA to verify plant conditions on behalf of the Kellogg Co. and other food companies supplied by the peanut processor. “Federal investigators later discovered that the dilapidated plant was ravaged by Salmonella and had been shipping tainted peanuts and paste for at least nine months,” opines…
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