A recent study has reportedly claimed that the first generation of mouse offspring exposed to bisphenol A (BPA) before birth “displayed fewer social interactions as compared with control mice, whereas in later generations… the effect of BPA was to increase these social interactions.” Jennifer Wolstenholme, et al., “Gestational Exposure to Bisphenol A Produces Transgenerational Changes in Behaviors and Gene Expression,” Endocrinology, June 2012. After feeding BPA-laced chow to female mice during mating and pregnancy, researchers evidently noted that the brains of embryos exposed to BPA “had lower gene transcript levels for several estrogen receptors, oxytocin, and vasopressin as compared with controls,” with decreased vasopressin mRNA persisting into the fourth generation, “at which time oxytocin was also reduced but only in males.” According to the authors, their results “demonstrated for the first time… that a common and widespread EDC [endrocine-disrupting chemical] has transgenerational actions on social behavior and neural expression of at…
Category Archives Issue 445
A recent study analyzing the effects of three weight-loss maintenance diets has purportedly concluded that subjects who adhered to either a low-glycemic or very low-carbohydrate diet burned more calories than those on low-fat diets. Cara Ebbeling, et al., “Effects of Dietary Composition on Energy Expenditure During Weight-Loss Maintenance,” Journal of the American Medical Association, June 2012. According to a June 26, 2012, Boston Children’s Hospital press release, researchers analyzed data on total energy expenditure from 21 adult participants who first lost 10 to 15 percent of their body weight and then completed each of the following three diets in random order for four weeks at a time: (i) a low-fat diet comprising “60 percent of daily calories from carbohydrates, 20 percent from fat and 20 percent from protein”; (ii) a low-glycemic-index diet comprising “40 percent of daily calories from carbohydrates, 40 percent from fat and 20 percent from protein”; and (iii)…
This week’s issue of PLoS Medicine includes an article in its “Big Food” series titled “Manufacturing Epidemics: The Role of Global Producers in Increased Consumption of Unhealthy Commodities Including Processed Foods, Alcohol, and Tobacco.” According to the authors, “market data on commodity sales from EuroMonitor Passport Global Market Information database 2011 edition” show a “significant penetration by multinational processed food manufacturers such as Nestle, Kraft, PepsiCo, and Danone into food environments” in low- and middle-income countries. They suggest that this penetration coincides with a growth in the consumption of unhealthy commodities that is reaching and even exceeding “a level presently observed” in high-income countries. Comparing data on global trends in tobacco and alcohol commodities, the authors claim that “population consumption of unhealthy non food commodities such as tobacco and alcohol are strongly correlated with unhealthy food commodity consumption. In other words, in countries where there are high rates of tobacco…
The United Kingdom’s (UK’s) Children’s Food Campaign (CFC) has reportedly urged the Ministry of Health to prohibit use of the chemical 4-Methylimidazole (4-MEI), a byproduct of fermentation often found in soy sauce, roasted coffee and the caramel coloring added to colas and beer. In January 2012, California EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment adopted a no significant risk level for 4 MEI, with Proposition 65 cancer warnings unnecessary for exposures at or below 29 micrograms per day. The development was covered in Issue 424 of this Update. According to news sources, CFC’s effort was prompted by test results indicating that colas sold in Britain contain 135 micrograms of 4-MEI per can. Malcolm Clark, CFC campaign coordinator, asserts that only caramel colorings “free of known cancer-causing chemicals” should be used worldwide. See Daily Mail, June 25, 2012.
Cornell Law School Professor Michael Dorf has observed in his blog that each of the three main opinions in the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the “Affordable Care Act” “discussed the consumption of vegetables.” In his opinion upholding much of the law as a valid exercise of congressional authority, Chief Justice John Roberts stated “[M]any American do not eat a balanced diet. That group makes up a larger percentage of the total population than those without health insurance. The failure of that group to have a healthy diet increases health care costs, to a greater extent than the failure of the uninsured to purchase insurance. . . . Congress addressed the insurance problem by ordering everyone to buy insurance. Under the Government’s theory, Congress could address the diet problem by ordering everyone to buy vegetables.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg apparently responded in her dissenting and concurring opinion that the concept…
The World Trade Organization (WTO) recently agreed to a convene a dispute settlement panel to investigate India’s restrictions on the importation of U.S. poultry, eggs and other agriculture products purportedly due to concerns over avian influenza. The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) apparently requested the panel after failing to resolve the dispute during an April 16-17, 2012, consultation with the Indian government, which has restricted the importation of various agricultural products from “those countries reporting Notifiable Avian Influenza (both Highly Pathogenic Notifiable Avian Influenza and Low Pathogenic Notifiable Avian Influenza).” According to USTR, however, these restrictions violate several provisions of the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Agreement as well as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994, in part “because India’s avian influenza measures are not applied only to the extent necessary to protect human or animal life or health, are not based upon scientific principles, and are maintained without sufficient…
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has issued a report claiming that cereal companies “have improved the nutritional quality of most cereals marketed directly to children, but they have also increased advertising to children for many of their least nutritious products.” Titled Cereal F.A.C.T.S. Food Advertising to Children and Teens Score, the report analyzes the nutritional quality of more than 100 brands and nearly 300 individual varieties of cereal marketed to children, families and adults while examining industry advertising on TV, the Internet and social media sites. According to the report, while nutritional quality improved for 22 cereal brands advertised to children in both 2008 and 2011, total media spending to promote child-targeted cereals increased by 34 percent during that same time period. Among its findings, the report concludes that (i) “Children viewed fewer TV ads for 7 of 14 child-targeted brands, including Corn Pops and Honeycomb”; (ii)…
According to a news source, Whole Foods Market Inc. is seeking to stop its deposition in consumer fraud litigation filed against Skinny Girl Cocktails LLC, arguing that it does not own or operate Whole Foods retail stores nor does it “decide which suppliers, food brokers or distributors are to be used by Whole Foods Market retail locations.” Greene v. Skinny Girl Cocktails LLC, 12-550 (W.D. Tex., motion to quash filed June 22, 2012). A number of putative class actions alleging that the defendants falsely market margaritas as “all natural” were filed in district courts around the country after Whole Foods stores pulled the product from their shelves upon learning that it contains sodium benzoate as a preservative. An effort to have the actions consolidated before a multidistrict litigation court failed; additional details about that ruling appear in Issue 422 of this Update. See Law360, June 25, 2012.
Kraft Foods and its subsidiary have asked a federal court in California to dismiss claims that they mislead consumers by labeling Wheat Thins® crackers as “100% whole grain,” contending that the theory of the case does not meet the plausibility pleading standard and the state law-based claims are preempted under federal law. Garcia v. Nabisco, Inc., No. 12-4272 (C.D. Cal., motion filed June 22, 2012). According to the defendants’ motion, this is nothing but a “lawyer-concocted class action lawsuit” and reasonable consumers understand that the “100% whole grain” representation “merely indicates that the only type of grain used in the crackers is ‘whole grain’ as opposed to non-whole grains used in enriched flours,” not that the crackers contain nothing but whole grains. “Common sense dictates that processed crackers are not made with only a stalk of whole grain and that they are made with the help of processing agents, baking…
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) alleging that they have failed, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, to produce documents pertaining to risk assessments for antibiotics used in livestock production. NRDC v. FDA, No. 12-4757 (S.D.N.Y., filed June 18, 2012). Seeking a declaration that the defendants violated FOIA and an order that they disclose “all responsive, non-exempt records to plaintiff within fifteen days,” NRDC refers to industry guidance that FDA issued in 2003 on “assessing the safety of antimicrobial new animal drugs with regard to the microbiological effects on bacteria of human health concern” and actions the defendants have taken since then relying on the guidance. After FDA acknowledged in a December 2011 Federal Register notice that it had begun “to look at the safety of some .…
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