U.K. members of Parliament (MPs) have reportedly agreed to revisit a beer duty escalator tax that raises the price of a pint each year by 2 percent plus the rate of inflation. According to media reports, Conservative MP Andrew Griffiths argued in the House of Commons that the current beer tax has cost the country thousands of jobs as beer sales decline and pubs are forced out of business. The debate purportedly concluded with 100 MPs voting to review the tax despite Treasury Minister Sajid Javid’s concern that the government would lose £105 million over the next two years if it were abolished. “The reality is since the introduction of the beer duty escalator [in 2008], beer duty has increased by a crippling 42 per cent,” said Griffiths, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group. “The point about an escalator is you stop when you get to the top. We…
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The U.K. Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has announced a public consultation seeking feedback on proposed legislation that would implement the European Union’s (EU’s) regulation “on the provision of food information to consumers” (Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011). According to DEFRA, the regulation known as FIC requires food business operators (FBOs) to provide specific information to consumers “so that they are able to make informed choices about the food they buy.” These requirements address a number of technical issues, including (i) “country of origin/place of provenance labeling”; (ii) “mandatory nutrition declaration and voluntary front of pack nutrition labeling”; (iii) “ingredients and nutrition labeling of alcoholic drinks”; (iv) “consumer information about non-prepacked foods”; (v) “food allergen labeling and information”; (vi) “clarity of food labels and minimum font size”; (vii) “labeling of vegetable oil including palm oil”; (viii) “labeling of engineered nano-materials”; and (ix) “quantity labeling.” The U.K. legislation enacting FIC…
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published a Science Strategy 2012-2016 outlining the agency’s plans to protect the food supply chain “in the coming years through up-to-date, science-based risk assessments.” Intended to complement EFSA’s corporate Strategic Plan 2009-2013, the new strategy reflects internal deliberations among its Scientific Committee, Advisory Forum, Management Board and staff, and various stakeholders. The document focuses on four objectives designed to (i) “further develop [the] excellence of EFSA’s scientific advice”; (ii) “optimize the use of risk assessment capacity in the EU”; (iii) “develop and harmonize methodologies and approaches to assess risks associated with the food chain”; and (iv) “strengthen the scientific basis for risk assessment and risk monitoring.” To achieve these goals, the strategy proposes several key initiatives, including a bid to “enhance the contribution of EFSA staff to support the scientific work of the EFSA Scientific Committee and Scientific Panels.” EFSA has also recommended…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has issued instructions for inspection program personnel (IPP) to follow “when verifying that large official establishments (with 500 or more employees) that produce meat and poultry products have prepared and are maintaining required written recall procedures.” According to FSIS, the notice complies with a May 8, 2012, final rule outlining requirements for notifying the agency of adulterated or misbranded products and maintaining written recall procedures. It also calls on IPP to remind large establishments “of the availability of food defense plan guidance because food defense plans also facilitate the removal of adulterated products from commerce.” Although food defense plans are currently voluntary, FSIS has stressed that their purpose is to help meat and poultry companies “respond to intentional contamination of products” and may be used with other recall systems. Written recall procedures, however, must “specify how the official establishment…
The Agricultural Marketing Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued a final rule clarifying that the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 and its implementing regulations require “periodic residue testing of organically produced agricultural products by accredited certifying agents.” Effective January 1, 2013, the rule also “expands the amount of residue testing of organically produced agricultural products by clarifying that sampling and testing are required on a regular basis [and] requires that certifying agents, on an annual basis, sample and conduct residue testing from a minimum of five percent of the operations that they certify.” See Federal Register, November 9, 2012.
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…
