A recent post on NPR’s “The Salt” blog has highlighted a sharp increase in the number of food labels designed to signal a product’s nutritional content and environmental status, raising questions about whether “the proliferation of ‘pick me!’ logos has become somewhat overwhelming.” According to the October 29, 2012, post, the International Ecolabel Index has counted 432 “green” marks “administered by governments, nongovernmental organizations and industry alliances” without even tracking those labels addressing nutrition or humane handling practices. “The Index’s Anastasia O’Rourke says this sea of stylized leaves and bean sprouts is confusing not only to individual consumers but to major purchasers like universities trying hard to do the right thing,” reports “The Salt,” which notes that some entities like the European Commission, United Nations and International Organization for Standardization have already embarked on efforts to standardize “the whole labeling game.” Meanwhile, some countries like Denmark have started moving toward…
Category Archives Issue 460
In a recent article detailing the safety risks faced by underage farm workers, New York Times journalist John Broder examines thwarted efforts to broaden farm labor regulations after reports of silo, bin and grain elevator fatalities at both large commercial enterprises and smaller family operations not currently covered by federal law. “Experts say the continuing rate of silo deaths is due in part to the huge amount of corn being produced and stored in the United States to meet the global demand for food, feed and, increasingly, ethanol-based fuel,” writes Broder. “That the deaths persist reveals continuing flaws in the enforcement of worker safety laws and weaknesses in rules meant to protect the youngest farm workers. Nearly 20 percent of all serious grain bin accidents involve workers under the age of 20.” In particular, the article describes agricultural child labor rules proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) that not…
“[T]he theory that the brain responds to high-fat, high-calorie foods similarly to how it responds to drugs is now gaining scientific muscle, led by renowned names in the field of addiction,” reports The Daily Beast’s Laura Beil in an October 28, 2012, article describing so-called food addiction as “one of the hottest topics in obesity research.” In particular, Beil recounts the work undertaken by former tobacco researchers such as Mark Gold, who now chairs the University of Florida’s Department of Psychiatry, as well as animal studies that examine how brain chemicals respond to “highly palatable” foods. The article also explains human brain scans that have led scientists to focus attention on dopamine receptors, which “can reveal a great deal about the dynamics of pleasure, reward motivation, and addiction,” and hormones such as ghrelin that help regulate the desire to eat. Although Beil notes that experts have cited data inconsistencies in…
Following publication of an article titled “Sweet Little Lies,” Mother Jones magazine has made available online the documents underlying the authors’ assertions of sugar-industry influence over government dietary policy and scientific health effects research. Additional details about the article appear in Issue 459 of this Update. Among the documents is one from 1942 that purportedly “encouraged sugar cane and sugar beet producers to create a joint research foundation to counter the ‘ignorance’ the industry was facing.” It discusses World War II sugar rationing and campaigns “derogatory to sugar.” A video featuring one of the article’s authors is also available online. In a related development, writing in the Harvard College Global Health Review, Dylan Neel calls for strict regulation of sugar, including taxation, reduced availability, control of the location and density of retail markets, and tightened vending machine and snack bar licensing. He claims in his October 24, 2012, article “The…
Two health experts who recently appeared on Australia’s ABC Lateline have reportedly called for additional government regulation to help combat rising obesity levels. University of Melbourne Professor Rob Moodie, who previously chaired Australia’s Preventative Health Taskforce, reportedly suggested that because voluntary programs have failed to curb obesity and diabetes rates, the government should step in with mandatory policies designed to tackle “the junk food industry the same way it confronted the tobacco industry.” “What they’ve failed to do is bring in the policies to reduce the obesigenic food environment,” Deakin University Professor Boyd Swinburn told Lateline’s Margot O’Neill. “Restrict marketing of junk foods to children, take fiscal policies, taxes, subsidies to make healthy foods cheaper and so on. That’s where the failure is: not addressing the unhealthy food environment.” But a representative from the Australian Food and Grocery Council countered that childhood obesity rates have already stopped increasing thanks, in…
According to Hank Campbell, writing for Science 2.0, lawyers who made their fortunes suing cigarette manufacturers are now prepared to replace “Big Tobacco” with “Big Food.” “Not because they have done anything wrong, but rather because we live in a culture where a dizzying cross-section of people assume anyone working for a corporation must be unethical. And creating nuisance laws that make it possible to sue over labels without actually having any evidence of harm are a dream for litigation attorneys,” says Campbell. He suggests that the passage in California of Proposition 37 (Prop. 37), which will require foods containing genetically modified ingredients to be labeled as such, will create a goldmine for plaintiffs’ lawyers. The article discusses attorney Don Barrett, “who forced a settlement that cost tobacco companies more than $200 billion.” Barrett contends that money is not motivating him to target food manufacturers. “I’m 68 years old, frankly…
Nutritionists and consumer groups have reportedly criticized the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for reducing its per capita sugar consumption estimate from approximately 100 pounds per year to 76.7 pounds per year. According to an October 26, 2012, New York Times article, Center for Science in the Public Interest (CPSI) Executive Director Michael Jacobson “stumbled across” the agency’s latest assessment “while working on a project on sugar consumption.” Lowering the previous benchmark by 20 percent, the revised numbers apparently raised red flags with Jacobson, who suggested that the methodology used by USDA researchers was “built on a foundation of sand.” “The new estimate is still relying heavily on experts making what seem to me to be largely guesses,” he told Times reporter Stephanie Strom. “Other than the 4 percent they’re getting [from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey], what do they really know for certain?” In particular, Strom questioned…
Food & Water Watch has issued a report detailing how the consolidation of business along the entire food chain has resulted in farm losses, layoffs and higher prices with fewer choices for consumers. Titled “The Economic Cost of Food Monopolies,” the report discusses the effects of consolidation in Iowa’s hog sector, New York’s dairy industry, Maryland’s poultry production, the organic soybean market, and California’s processed fruit and vegetable industry. According to the advocacy organization, “The agriculture and food sector is unusually concentrated, with just a few companies dominating the market in each link of the food chain.” The pace of consolidation is attributed, particularly in the produce sector, to international trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, that by facilitating “lower U.S. tariffs, combined with loosened investment rules for U.S. companies operating in other countries, encouraged U.S. food processing companies to invest in factories overseas and shutter plants…
University of Wyoming College of Law Professor Mary Dee Pridgen has updated a treatise titled Consumer Protection and the Law to reflect recent developments in Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforcement of its 1995 policy statement on food advertising. As she notes, although FTC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have overlapping authority to police food advertising claims, they have generally divided their duties with FDA concentrating on food labels and FTC addressing advertising claims. FTC indicates in the policy statement that it will give advertisers “a bit more leeway in advertising than the FDA allows on labels,” but if an advertising claim complies with FDA labeling regulations, it will “generally be safe from FTC scrutiny.” Pridgen discusses FTC enforcement actions since the mid-1990s, involving Stouffer Foods, Häagen-Dazs, the Isaly Klondike Co., Mrs. Fields Cookies, Dannon, Gerber, and Kellogg, as well as companies that sell dietary supplements. She concludes, “In…
A California appeals court has determined that the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) may not add styrene or vinyl acetate to the Proposition 65 (Prop. 65) list of chemicals known to the state to cause cancer because they have been identified as “possible” but not known carcinogens. Styrene Info. & Research Ctr. v. OEHHA, No. C064301 (Cal. Ct. App., 3d Dist., decided October 31, 2012). Styrene is used in food packaging. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) had categorized the substances as Group 2b chemicals, which are “possibly” carcinogenic to humans, based on less than sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. The court acknowledged that the California Health and Safety Code requires that the Prop. 65 list contain “at a minimum, the substances identified by reference in Labor Code section 6382, subdivision (d),” which addresses “hazardous substances” that extend “beyond those that cause cancer or…
12
