The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued draft industry guidance in a question-and-answer format that provides information about complying with the reportable food registry requirements of a 2007 law. The purpose of the registry is to provide a “reliable mechanism to track patterns of adulteration in food [which] would support efforts by the Food and Drug Administration to target limited inspection resources to protect the public health.” The draft guidance is a second edition, updated to provide information about a new federal safety reporting portal. FDA requests public comments by July 26, 2010. The agency is particularly interested in comments addressing the meaning of the word “transfer” which is used in the context of an exemption from the requirement that “a responsible party submit a reportable food report.” For the exemption to apply, “the adulteration must have originated with the responsible party, the responsible party must have detected the…
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced its intention to issue compulsory process orders to 48 food and beverage manufacturers, distributors, marketers, and quick service restaurant companies for information on their marketing activities and expenditures targeted toward children and adolescents. FTC also seeks nutritional information about the companies’ food and beverage products marketed to children and adolescents in calendar years 2006 and 2009 “to evaluate possible changes in the nutritional content and variety of youth-marketed foods.” The plan follows FTC’s July 2008 report that analyzed expenditures and promotional activities related to food and food products targeted toward children and adolescents in 2006. FTC wants to use the new data to study how industry allocates promotional activities and expenditures among various media and for different food products and to evaluate the impact of self-regulatory efforts on the nutritional profiles of foods marketed to children and adolescents. Based on the calendar year…
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has introduced a bill that would regulate six confirmed strains of E. coli that have largely been ignored given the notoriety of recalls involving meat and produce contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. Referred to by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as non-0157 STECs, the six strains are apparently estimated to cause 36,700 illnesses, 1,100 hospitalizations and 30 deaths in the United States annually. In a May 27, 2010, statement, Gillibrand indicated that these strains are increasingly found in imported beef, which is not checked for the unregulated non-0157 STECs. One of the six strains was implicated in the recent outbreak linked to tainted romaine lettuce; that outbreak reportedly sent three teenagers to the hospital with kidney failure. According to a news source, the U.S. Department of Agriculture regulated the lesser-known E. coli strains for three years, but industry has resisted regulation contending that the…
A study recently published in the American Heart Association’s Circulation journal purportedly shows that consumption of processed meats “is associated with higher incidence of [coronary heart disease] and diabetes mellitus.” Renata Micha, et al., “Red and Processed Meat Consumption and Risk of Incident Coronary Heart Disease, Stroke, and Diabetes Mellitus. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” Circulation, May 17, 2010. The Harvard researchers apparently reviewed some 1,600 studies involving about 1.2 million subjects and found that the consumption of just 50 g per day of processed meat, such as one hot dog, was associated with a 42 percent higher risk of developing heart disease. They found no increased risk associated with the consumption of unprocessed red meats and reportedly suggested that the difference may be explained by the levels of salt and nitrate preservatives found in cold cuts, bacon and sausage. The president of the American Meat Institute, which objected to the findings,…
A coalition of public interest organizations has issued a report, “No Silver Lining, An Investigation into Bisphenol A in Canned Foods,” that purportedly detected levels of the chemical in more than 90 percent of the cans from consumers’ shelves that were tested. While the highest levels of BPA, at 1,140 parts per billion (ppb), were apparently found in a can of green beans from a residential pantry in Wisconsin, average levels were 77.36 ppb. According to the report, a pregnant woman of average build consuming several canned food and beverage products in a single day could ingest as much as 138.19 µg of BPA, or 1.94 µg/kg body weight. Outlining the scientific research purportedly linking BPA exposure to a number of negative health impacts, including obesity, low sperm count, miscarriage, placental cell death, infertility, heart disease, and changes in brain development, the report contends that levels of just 1 or…
AlterNet staff writer and editor Daniela Perdomo takes a look in this article at the money that the beverage industry is purportedly spending to oppose federal and state efforts to impose a tax on soft drinks. According to the article, the American Beverage Association increased its lobbying nearly 4,000 percent over the last quarter of 2009, from $140,000 to $5.4 million. The article cites statistics indicating that children and teens today consume 10 to 15 percent of their daily caloric intake in the form of soft drinks, and weigh more, at a shorter average height, than their counterparts when soft drinks were first introduced in the late 1880s. While some public health advocates argue that people should not consume more than one sweetened beverage each week, those blaming American obesity on lack of exercise counter that “soft drinks are an enjoyable, safe product that people have been enjoying for generations.”…
This article by book author Anneli Rufus discusses a recently issued scientific study that purports to show that caffeine can “significantly reduce [] the number of errors” made by shift workers and can, in fact, be more effective at preventing errors than a nap. Rufus further explores how widespread U.S. consumers’ alleged addiction to coffee, caffeine and energy drinks has become, noting that nearly one-third of American teenagers “regularly consume caffeinated energy drinks.” The article discusses the purported physical effects of ingesting too much caffeine, reporting that the National Institutes of Health this year classified caffeine as a “poisonous ingredient” and recommends calling the National Poison Control Center if caffeine overdose is suspected. The author provides anecdotal evidence about the difficulty some encounter when they consume ever higher amounts of caffeine to maintain the same effects and then attempt to quit cold turkey.
Tufts University Professor Alice Lichtenstein and Harvard Medical School Professor David Ludwig team up in this commentary to advocate bringing back home economics to school classrooms as a way to combat the country’s childhood obesity epidemic. “Instruction in basic food preparation and meal planning skills needs to be part of any long-term solution,” they write. The authors welcome better food and beverage choices in schools and communities, but assert that those choices will have limited effect “if children do not have the ability to make better choices in the outside-school world,” which they will inhabit for the majority of their lives. “If children are raised to feel uncomfortable in the kitchen, they will be at a disadvantage for life.” They opine that unlike home economics classes of the 1960s, new food education classes should be open to both genders. “Girls and boys should be taught the basic principles they will need…
In an article reprinted by AlterNet with the permission of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), journalist and freelance writer Ian Shearn provides an in-depth look at public relations guru/lobbyist Rick Berman. Shearn contends that Berman is making a fortune taking money from large corporations to attack the charities that criticize big business and to otherwise lobby against laws that regulate business, such as those preventing animal cruelty in animal husbandry. Because Berman operates as a public charity, he is not required to disclose who funds his multimillion dollar campaigns, as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow learned when she interviewed him earlier this year and he refused to reveal his funding sources. Shearn discusses the various entities Berman has established, including the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) “to educate the public on food and beverage issues,” and the American Beverage Institute “to fight government regulation of alcohol consumption,” as well…
Authored by a Cornell Law School visiting scholar with a Ph.D. in economics, this legal commentary suggests that government critics err when they call efforts to address obesity an infringement on their freedom of choice. According to the article, this objection has “no meaning in the context of a modern economy” where “we are being manipulated into eating unhealthfully.” To illustrate, the author says that those opposing government regulation in this area are saying, in essence, “Don’t let Big Brother tell me what to eat. I do what the Pillsbury Dough Boy tells me.” The author argues that governmental initiatives aimed at altering our eating habits do not violate our freedom, but rather constitute “an important way to push back against all of the ways in which people are manipulated and harmed by industrial food production.” Because government is already “inextricably involved in deciding what is grown and sold, how…
