“Food is not tobacco… But the public health community is concerned about both diet and tobacco use for a very good reason,” writes Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) Executive Director Michael Jacobson in a June 2, 2015, Huffington Post blog post claiming that both industries “share some common bloodlines.” Jacobson claims that both industries not only market to children, but purportedly “blame their customers for the harm caused by their products.” In addition, he argues that these companies emphasize personal responsibility while overlooking “the extent to which companies persuade, lure, and manipulate customers—including children—into making the very decisions that companies say should be up to them.” “Like Big Tobacco, Big Food goes to great lengths to muddy the waters and obscure the connections between soda and disease,” the article concludes. “Big Tobacco and Big Food are now separate industries, but the playbook is much the same. How…
Category Archives Issue 567
During a May 31, 2015, interview with BBC One’s “The Andrew Marr Show,” National Health Service (NHS) England Chief Executive Simon Stevens called on industry stakeholders to reduce the amount of sugar in food and beverage products. In particular, he claimed that “one in three of our teenagers are drinking high-energy, sugary drinks,” urging “responsible retailers [and] food producers” to reformulate their products as they once did to reduce salt content. “We’ve done very well in terms of cutting smoking and teenage pregnancy and drink driving,” Stevens was quoted as saying. “But the new smoking is obesity. One in five cancer deaths is now caused by obesity.” See Press Association, May 31, 2015. Issue 567
Buckfast Abbey, an English monastery approaching its millennial anniversary, has drawn criticism for its production of a sweet caffeinated wine, The New York Times reports. The beverage, which the abbey sells in 750-milliliter bottles through a distributor, is 15 percent alcohol and contains more than 300 milligrams of caffeine. The fortified wine was originally sold as a tonic, intended for medicinal purposes, but in recent years has gained popularity in Scotland among young people. Critics cite a 2009 report for the Scottish prison service that purportedly found that four in 10 young offenders ranked Buckfast tonic wine as their favorite drink, and 43.3 percent of respondents said they consumed the beverage before committing a crime. “There is no doubt that caffeine-alcohol mixers make wide-awake drunks,” a physician and member of Scottish Parliament, Richard Simpson, told the Times. “If you drink enough alcohol you eventually become comatose, but if you combine…
The British Medical Association in Scotland (BMA Scotland) has reportedly backed legislation under consideration by the Scottish Parliament’s Health and Sport Committee that seeks to ban alcohol advertising at all events geared toward children younger than age 18. According to media reports, the proposed measure would also prohibit the marketing of alcoholic beverages near schools in addition to limiting ads on retail premises. “The alcohol industry’s sponsorship of entertainment or sporting events can see children become walking billboards for alcohol products, exposing them to alcohol brands while they are at an impressionable age,” BMA Scotland Peter Bennie told reporters. “It should not be acceptable for the alcohol industry to sponsor and brand events that are aimed at under-18s and MSPs should use this opportunity to take action on alcohol advertising.” See BBC News, June 4, 2015. Issue 567
The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a “non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment,” has issued an analysis of more than 250 foods that identifies which of the products’ cans are lined with bisphenol A (BPA) as well as an online petition imploring consumers to encourage companies to stop using BPA-based epoxy resins in can linings. “The biggest problem is that people have no reliable way of knowing whether they are buying food that is laced with this toxic chemical,” an EWG representative was quoted as saying. “Federal regulations do not require manufacturers to label their products to identify cans with BPA-based linings. … We hope to arm people with the critical information they need to avoid BPA and make smarter shopping decisions.” EWG classifies the food companies mentioned in the survey into four categories of “players,” claiming that 78 brands (“worst” players) use BPA-lined cans for…
The shareholder advocacy group As You Sow has announced the success of a three-year campaign targeting baby formula purportedly made with ingredients derived from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). According to a May 27, 2015, press release, the group drafted a shareholder resolution asking Abbott Laboratories to remove GMOs from its Similac® Advance® baby formula. In response to the resolution, which apparently garnered support from $2.7 billion in Abbott shares (6 percent of voting shares) at the company’s annual meeting, Abbott has reportedly agreed to offer a GMO-free version of its popular formula. Among other things, As You Sow claims that GMO crops “are contributing to several environmental concerns in the United States,” including the allegedly excessive use of pesticides and herbicides. “Polls show that 93% of Americans want GMOs to be labeled or taken out of their foods. Concerned parents are driving the decisions to have safer food products—they are creating…
Yum! Brands Inc.’s KFC has announced on its Chinese-language website that it has filed lawsuits against three Chinese media companies for allegedly spreading rumors that the company has bred its chickens to have eight legs and six wings. The complaint, filed in Shanghai Xuhui District People’s Court, reportedly alleges that the media companies disseminated false information on social media about KFC’s food quality, including digitally altered photos of deformed chickens and rumors of maggots in a delivery order. KFC has more than 4,600 restaurants in China, accounting for about one-half of its revenue. The company reportedly alleges that 4,000 defamatory messages were viewed more than 100,000 times and seeks 1.5 million yuan, or about US$242,000, from each media company as well as an apology. See The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, June 1, 2015. Issue 567
Absolut Co. has filed a complaint and a motion for an injunction against Happy Hearts Wine LLC, a New York City importer of Israeli wine, after Absolut noticed a Certificate of Label Approval filed with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau for “Kahfua,” which it alleges is too close to Kahlua®. Absolut Co. Aktiebolag v. Happy Hearts Wine, LLC., No.15-3224 (E.D.N.Y., motion filed June 3, 2015). Happy Hearts’ Kahfua, a “coffee expresso [sic] liqueur,” is packaged in a similar brown bottle with a similar yellow and red label written in a similar script to Kahlua®, Absolut argues in its motion. It further alleges that Happy Hearts has acted with bad faith by infringing Absolut’s trademarks. “Simply stated, there can be no ‘innocent explanation’ for such a blatant knockoff,” the motion asserts. In addition to trademark infringement, Absolut alleges that Happy Hearts is engaging in trademark counterfeiting, which requires…
Two plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit against Gerber Products Co. alleging that the company misrepresented its Gerber® Good Start® infant formula by advertising it as the “first and only formula whose consumption reduces the risk of infants developing allergies.” Hasemann v. Gerber Prods. Co., No. 15-2995 (E.D.N.Y., filed May 21, 2015). The complaint echoes a similar lawsuit against Gerber pending in New Jersey federal court. The plaintiffs assert that Gerber advertises its product as providing health benefits through partially hydrolyzed whey protein despite an alleged U.S. Food and Drug Administration denial in 2005 that Gerber’s formula aids against allergy development. The plaintiffs seek class certification and damages of more than $5 million. Additional details about Gerber’s successful motion to receive medical records in the analogous case appear in Issue 562 of this Update. See Legal Newsline, June 2, 2015. Issue 567
A ban on growing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Jackson County, Oregon, took effect on June 5, 2015, after a federal court refused to block the voter-approved statute at the request of alfalfa farmers who have grown GMO crops. Schultz Family Farms LLC v. Jackson Cty., No. 14-1975 (D. Ore., Medford Div., order entered May 29, 2015). The court noted that the issue of GMO farming encompasses several broad questions about the American food supply that it would not attempt to answer; its decision “is simply about the statutory construction of the Right to Farm Act, Jackson County Ordinance 635, and Oregon Senate Bill 863.” The court first describes Oregon’s Right to Farm Act, finding that “in the conflicts that arise between active, functioning farms and new, neighboring suburbanites, who inevitably find the farming practices loud, smelly, invasive, or simply irritating, the Oregon legislature has decided, as have many states,…
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