A new report from the independent research organization Fraser Institute claims that Canada’s rigid advertising standards leave consumers in the dark about the potential health benefits of certain food products. “Canadian consumers are being denied,” Brett Skinner, the Fraser Institute’s director of bio-pharma and health policy, was quoted as saying. “They don’t know about the potential health benefits of many food products because information can’t be printed on labels.” The Consumers’ Association of Canada responded to the report by asserting that Canadians are well-served by the current system. “There’s no reason we should follow American standards,” an association representative said. “Some American consumer groups aren’t even happy with the amount of claims made on labels for foods.” See Fraser Institute Press Release; Canwest News Service, July 20, 2009.
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A new report by an independent investigator is harshly critical of Canada’s food safety system with respect to the 2008 Listeria outbreak linked to the deaths of 22 people. Sheila Weatherill, a nurse and health executive who led the federally appointed investigation, said the system was caught unprepared and acted without urgency, citing a void in leadership, a raft of systematic flaws, a shortage of inspectors, and evidence of contamination on meat-production lines months before last summer’s outbreak that was not effectively monitored. While Listeria is difficult to detect, “more could have been done to prevent it happening in the first place . . . and more must be done to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Weatherill asserts. Her 57 recommendations include (i) providing better training for food inspectors, (ii) assigning Canada’s public health agency the lead role in responding to national foodborne emergencies and (iii) performing an external…
Shook Agribusiness and Food Safety Practice Co-Chair Madeleine McDonough will serve on a panel during the American Conference Institute’s “3rd National Forum on FoodBorne Illness Litigation, Advanced Strategies for Assessing, Managing & Defending Food Contamination Claims,” to be held October 26-27, 2009, in Chicago. McDonough joins a faculty that includes federal regulators and in-house counsel for industry trade associations and food companies. She will discuss issues relating to “Global Food Safety: Factoring in New Threats Associated with Foreign Food Product Imports.” Among the specific topics she will address are risks and threats to the food supply and managing those risks.
Just last month, the Endocrine Society – composed of thousands of doctors in this field – issued a powerful warning that endocrine disruptors including phthalates are ‘a significant concern to public health,’” writes New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in this op-ed article examining the chemicals’ purported role in a range of health problems such as sexual deformities, early onset puberty in girls and the “feminization” of male anatomy. According to Kristof, endocrinologists have increasingly found this “mounting evidence” persuasive enough to raise alarms despite the reassurances of the American Chemistry Council, which has pointed to research like a recent study in the Journal of Urology that casts doubt on the link between phthalates and hypospadias, a birth defect. “One of the conundrums for scientists and journalists alike is how to call prudent attention to murky and uncertain risks, without sensationalizing dangers that may not exist,” opines Kristof, who nevertheless notes…
Whole Foods Market Inc. has reportedly announced a partnership with the Non-GMO Project to independently certify that its private label products do not contain genetically modified (GM) ingredients. A non-profit collaboration of manufacturers, retailers, processors, distributors, and consumers, the Non-GMO Project maintains a product verification program (PVP) “to scientifically test whether a product has met a set of defined standards for the presence of genetically engineered organisms,” according to a July 7, 2009, Whole Foods press release, which claims that “75 percent of processed foods in the United States may contain components from genetically modified crops.” Whole Foods products bearing the non-GMO seal must undergo a verification process involving “on-site facility audits, document-based review and DNA testing” for “any ingredient at high risk for genetic contamination,” such as corn or soy. “Since there is no regulation regarding disclosure on products manufactured with GMO ingredients, we are committed to helping our…
Pepperdine University School of Law Professor Richard Cupp argues in this article that the better way to protect animal welfare is to focus on the human moral obligation to treat animals without cruelty. He contends that the current, rapidly expanding movement to endow animals with legal rights would be counterproductive if successful. Cupp reports that 94 law schools either now teach animal law or are planning to do so; three scholarly journals focus exclusively on animal law; and national, state and local bar associations have inaugurated sections dedicated to the subject. Among other matters, Cupp suggests that allowing some animals to ‘earn’ dignity rights if sufficiently intelligent “implies that perhaps some humans should lose their dignity rights if they are sufficiently unintelligent.” He envisions what would happen to our view of infants and mentally incapacitated adults if intelligent animals were accorded rights because of their intelligence. He also claims that…
The Iowa Supreme Court has awarded disability benefits to a former slaughterhouse worker who allegedly contracted brucellosis from butchering hogs. IBP, Inc. v. Burress, No. 07-1887 (Iowa, decided July 10, 2009). The court determined that the disease was caused by a traumatic event and thus was a compensable injury under state law. So ruling, the court affirmed an intermediate appellate court decision rejecting a district court’s determination that the claimant had an occupational disease and failed to timely file his workers’ compensation petition. The court discusses in some detail how the claimant came into contact with Brucella organisms through open cuts while exposed to hog blood during his 10-year tenure at IBP, Inc.’s meat-packing plant. He allegedly developed a chronic infection of the hips and bone as a result of his contact with blood products and tissue from slaughtered hogs, but was not apparently diagnosed with the disease until some six years…
Acting on behalf of an apparently energized Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a complaint for injunction against a New Jersey company and its owner seeking to halt the manufacture and sale of their dietary supplement products, in part, for failure to comply with good manufacturing practice requirements. U.S. v. Quality Formulation Labs., Inc., No. 09-03211 (D.N.J., filed July 1, 2009). The complaint alleges that the defendants have caused their protein powders and other dietary supplements to be adulterated “in that they have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby they may have become contaminated with filth (as a result of rodent activity) or may have been rendered injurious to health (as a result of cross-contamination with a major food allergen).” The allergen at issue is milk. The complaint also alleges that one of the defendants’ articles of food is adulterated “in…
According to news sources, the scientific advisory committee considering whether to place bisphenol A (BPA) on California’s Proposition 65 (Prop. 65) list of chemicals known to the state to cause reproductive effects has voted against the action, calling research on human health effects unclear. During the committee’s July 15, 2009, meeting, dozens of mothers, environmentalists and scientists reportedly provided testimony to the Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee of Cal/EPA’s Office of Environmental and Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), calling on the agency to list BPA so that warning labels would be added to foods alerting consumers to its presence. The committee’s scientists apparently acknowledged the growing body of research linking BPA to fetal abnormalities in animals and noted that its decision could be revisited if future studies provide clearer evidence of human health effects. According to committee member Carl Keen, the scientists decided not to list environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)…
USDA’s Economic Research Service has issued a report to Congress that assesses the effects of “food deserts,” low-income rural or urban neighborhoods that frequently lack access to affordable, healthy food venues like supermarkets but instead offer convenience and small neighborhood stores that offer few, if any, healthy foods. Public health literature links such access issues to obesity and diet-related diseases. Titled “Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences,” the report asserts that “a small percentage of consumers are constrained in their ability to access affordable, nutritious food because they live far from a supermarket or large grocery store and do not have easy access to transportation.” USDA notes that the causes of limited food access varied between urban core areas, which were “characterized by higher levels of racial segregation and greater income inequality,” and small-town and rural areas, where “lack of transportation infrastructure…
