The U.S. Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has issued guidance to industry on the “Use of Social Media in the Advertising of Alcohol Beverages.” According to the May 13, 2013, circular, TTB considers that the advertising provisions of the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (FAA Act) apply to all advertisements “including social media.” The guidance aims to provide “a basis for voluntary compliance with the FAA Act and the TTB advertising regulations with regard to social media, both in terms of required mandatory statements and prohibited practices or statements.” TTB defines social media outlets as social network services, video sharing sites, blogs, microblogs, forums or comment sections on websites, apps for mobile devices, and links and quick response codes. Applicable to advertisements for wine, distilled spirits and malt beverages, the requirements include posting a responsible advertiser name and address and avoiding prohibited statements, including false health…
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reportedly sent letters to more than 90 businesses in an effort to educate them about updates to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) that take effect July 1, 2013. According to a May 15, 2013, FTC press release, the agency sent separate letters to both domestic and foreign companies “that may be collecting images or sounds of children” as well as those “that may be collecting persistent identifiers from children.” The letters explain to recipients that under the new rules, personal information now includes (i) “a photograph or video with a child’s image, or an audio file that has a child’s voice,” and (ii) “persistent identifiers, such as cookies, IP addresses and mobile device IDs, that can recognize users over time and across different websites or online services.” “Companies whose apps collect, store or transmit this information, as well as other personal information…
A recent study has reportedly concluded that while fewer food advertisements overall are shown during U.S. Spanish-language children’s TV programs than during similar English-language programs, “the nutritional quality of food products on Spanish-language channels was substantially poorer than on English channels.” Dale Kunkel, et al., “Food Marketing to Children on U.S. Spanish-Language Television,” Journal of Health Communications, May 2013. Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the study analyzed 158 Spanish language children’s programs “for [their] advertising content and compared them with an equivalent sample of English-language advertising.” Researchers also evaluated the nutritional quality of the advertised products using a rating system developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) that divides foods into three categories: Go (foods that are “rich in nutrients and relatively low in calories”), Slow (foods that are “higher in fat, added sugar and calories than Go foods”) and Whoa (foods that are…
Chinese scientists investigating the spread of airborne influenzas have reportedly combined genetic material from avian (H5N1) and swine (H1N1) flu strains to create more than 100 different hybrid viruses, five of which proved contagious among mammals. Ying Zhang, et al., “H5N1 Hybrid Viruses Bearing 2009/H1N1 Virus Genes Transmit in Guinea Pigs by Respiratory Droplet,” Science, May 2013. According to the study, researchers engineered 127 reassortant viruses using “a duck isolate of H5N1, specifically retaining its hemagglutinin (HA) gene throughout, and a highly transmissible, humaninfective H1N1 virus,” then tested the reassortants in mice “as a correlate for virulence in humans” and in guinea pigs, “which have both avian and mammalian types of airway receptor,” as a test of transmissibility. The results evidently showed that in addition to H5 HA gene mutations, which “improve affinity for human-like airway receptors,” specific H1N1 genes enhanced mammal-to-mammal transmission, including “the polymerase PA gene and nonstructural protein…
A recent study has allegedly concluded that food commercials increased brain activity in adolescent viewers regardless of body weight. Ashley Gearhardt, et al., “Relation of Obesity to Neural Activation in Response to Food Commercials,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, May 2013. Researchers with Yale University’s Rudd Center for Policy & Obesity, the University of Michigan and the Oregon Research Institute apparently used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the brain activity of 30 adolescents described as either normal weight (10 participants), overweight (eight participants) or obese (12 participants), who viewed a TV show interspersed with 20 food and 20 non-food commercials. The study’s authors then asked participants “to list five commercials that they had seen during the television program they just viewed to measure top-of-mind recall” and “to rate how much they liked the products/companies featured in the advertisements on a 5-point Likert scale” and “how familiar they were with…
During a recent interview with Atlantic journalist Joe Fassler, author Michael Moss discussed “the language of junk-food addiction” and the role of salt, sugar, fat, and texture in snack foods allegedly engineered to promote “mindless eating—where were [sic] not really paying attention to what we’re putting in our mouths.” According to Moss, who spoke with Fassler about why consumers find processed foods like potato chips so appealing, the food industry has invested “a trillion dollars of money” in creating and marketing products that seek “to override the natural checks that keep us from overeating.” “And I’ve found that the language they use to describe their work and their products and their [sic] striving not just to make us like their products but to make us want more and more of them is absolutely revealing,” opines Moss. “When they talk about the allure of food, they hate the word addiction: but…
Writing in the May 2013 edition of the Harvard Business Review (HBR), the editorial director of the HBR Press, Tim Sullivan, considers the questions raised by three new books that examine the evolution of the food industry and its relationship to consumer health. Turning to Michael Moss’s Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Melanie Warner’s Pandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal and Jon Krampner’s Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food, Sullivan notes that despite the blame leveled at food processors and marketers, “it’s much harder to tell the public that they are partly culpable for the state of their personal and national health (food, after all, is not crack) than it is to point the finger at Big Business, Wall Street, or the government.” “When monoliths take over and aim to get us ‘addicted’ to their product— whether we’re talking…
A perspective article published in the May 9, 2013, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) urges local governments to consider supplementing the federal Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) menu-labeling provisions with their own laws designed to improve consumer responsiveness to the calorie listings and increase overall compliance among businesses. Sara Bleich and Lainie Rutkow, “Improving Obesity Prevention at the Local Level—Emerging Opportunities,” NEJM, May 2013. Noting that many local governments “have already begun engaging in innovative regulatory activity related to obesity prevention (e.g., pre-ACA local menu-labeling laws) and will continue to do so,” the authors propose several strategies for influencing consumer behavior through more robust menu-labeling requirements, such as “presenting consumers with calorie information in the form of a physical-activity equivalent (e.g., minutes of running required to burn off a particular food)” instead of a straight calorie count; “replacing the default fries and soda in a child’s meal with apple…
New York University Nutrition Professor Marion Nestle has co-authored a rebuttal to claims that U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) made about a bill (H.R. 1572) which would prohibit the use of federal money “for print, radio, television or any other media advertisement, campaign, or form of publicity against the use of a food or non-alcoholic beverage that is lawfully marketed under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.” Schock introduced the measure, titled the “Stopping Taxpayer Outlays for Propaganda Act” or “STOP Act,” on April 15, 2013. In a Politico essay two days later, Schock claimed, “Using taxpayer dollars to attack the beverage and food industry might seem like a good idea to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but it’s this exact type of harmful government spending that we can ill afford and serves no purpose in the overall wellness debate—other than to be critical of domestic companies that employ…
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has filed a consumer-fraud lawsuit on behalf of the people of the state of California against Monster Beverage just one week after the company sued Herrera to halt his investigation into company advertising practices and demands. People v. Monster Beverage Corp., No. CGC-13-531161 (Cal. Super. Ct., San Francisco Cty., filed May 6, 2013). According to Herrera’s press release, Monster Beverage’s preemptive suit constituted “‘forum shopping’ and a bid to win the race to the courthouse.” Details about Monster Energy’s lawsuit appear in Issue 482 of this Update. The new lawsuit alleges that the company “aggressively markets” its energy drink products to children and teenagers, fails to adequately warn consumers about the purported risks of consuming such products, and illegally sold its beverages until earlier this year as a dietary supplement. According to the complaint, product labels claim that three 16-ounce cans can be safely…
