The California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program’s Scientific Guidance Panel decided at a December 4-5, 2008, meeting that it would designate diesel exhaust and flame retardants as the first substances the state will monitor in humans under a 2006 law (SB 1379) requiring the establishment of a state biomonitoring program. The panel also reportedly agreed that the program’s pilot project would focus on analyzing maternal-infant blood samples from 250 subject pairs. A spokesperson with the state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) apparently indicated that antimicrobials and synthetic hormones used in animal husbandry will be discussed at a future meeting. Environmentalists who attended the meeting reportedly urged the panel to prioritize other chemicals such as bisphenol A, nano silver and phthalates. According to a press report, panel members asked OEHHA legal counsel whether another 2006 law (A.B. 289) could be applied to the biomonitoring program. That law apparently authorizes a state…
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The Irish government this week recalled all pork products from pigs slaughtered in the country after testing revealed high levels of dioxin in animal feed and pork fat samples. Authorities have thus far linked the carcinogen to 10 pig farms that received feed from Millstream Power Recycling Limited, a Carlow company which reprocesses foodstuffs to make livestock meal. In addition, Ireland’s Department of Agriculture has placed 45 cattle farms under restrictions because they may have received feed potentially contaminated with dioxins. Health officials stated that three cattle herds of 11 tested had “technically non-compliant” dioxin levels, but stressed that there is “no public health concern” with regard to Irish beef. The government has also declared 490 pig farms “dioxin-free,” although the prohibition on the sale of domestic pork products has remained in effect. See CNN, December 8 and 9, 2008; The Associated Press, December 9, 2008. Meanwhile, the European Commission…
WHO experts have reportedly determined that a tolerable daily intake (TDI) of melamine is 0.2 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (mg/kg bw/d). This threshold is lower than the one recently adopted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which accepts 0.63 mg/kg bw/d as an appropriate TDI for dietary melamine. The WHO standard is also more stringent than the TDIs used in both Europe (0.5 mg/kg mw/d) and Canada (0.35 mg/kg bw/d). Although the organization felt that the U.S. measure provides an acceptable margin of safety, it nevertheless stressed that melamine is not ever considered “safe” for consumption. “Melamine is a contaminant that should not be in food. However, sometimes it is unavoidable,” said WHO in a statement. “TDI represents the tolerable amount of unavoidable contaminant in food that a person can ingest on a daily basis without appreciable health risks.” See Bloomberg.com, December 6, 2008; Law360, December…
Reversing a position it took in July 2008, the FDA has issued a notice announcing the withdrawal of a final rule that prohibited the extra-label use of cephalosporin antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals. As we noted in issue 266 of this Update, the FDA issued its prohibition “based on evidence that extralabel use of these drugs in food-producing animals will likely cause an adverse event in humans and, as such, presents a risk to human health.” According to the November 26 notice, “The agency received many substantive comments on the order of prohibition. Therefore, to allow more time to fully consider the comments, FDA has decided to revoke the order so that it does not take effect November 30, 2008.” Should the agency again decide to ban use of the drugs, it will provide a public comment period before implementing it. A number of organizations, including agriculture groups and animal-drug…
The National Research Council (NRC) has published a report, titled Review of Federal Strategy for Nanotechnology-Related Environmental, Health, and Safety Research, that finds “serious weaknesses in the government’s plan for research on the potential health and environmental risks posed by nanomaterials, which are increasingly being used in consumer goods and industry.” NRC describes the research plan developed under the auspices of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) as “incomplete,” noting that it does not “include research goals to help ensure that nanotechnologies are developed and used as safely as possible.” According to a December 10, 2008, NRC press release, the NNI plan takes only a cursory look at important research areas like “Nanomaterials and Human Health,” which should “include a more comprehensive evaluation of how nanomaterials are absorbed and metabolized by the body and how toxic they are at realistic exposure levels.” NRC also faults the NNI for failing to incorporate vital input from…
The GAO, which serves as the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, has released a report that analyzes federal oversight of genetically engineered (GE) crops and recommends steps the agencies could take to better address the unauthorized release of these crops into food, animal feed or the environment. Titled Genetically Engineered Crops: Agencies Are Proposing Changes to Improve Oversight but Could Take Additional Steps to Enhance Coordination and Monitoring, the 109-page report discusses the roles that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) play in regulating GE crops. It also notes how six unauthorized releases of GE crops in recent years may not have adversely affected human or animal health, but did result in lost trade opportunities. The GAO’s assessment was undertaken at the request of Senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia), the chair and ranking member respectively of the Committee on…
A researcher at a Swedish medical university, Karolinska Institutet, has studied the effect of a high fat, sugar and cholesterol diet on the brains of mice. Susanne Akterin’s doctoral thesis, “From Cholesterol to Oxidative Stress in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Wide Perspective on a Multifactorial Disease,” shows that mice fed a diet equivalent to the nutritional content of most fast food developed brain abnormalities similar to those seen in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. While she finds the results promising by suggesting how Alzheimer’s could be prevented, Akterin also noted that “more research in this field needs to be done before proper advice can be passed on to the general public.” Epidemiological studies have apparently shown that high cholesterol levels and lack of antioxidants may render people more susceptible to the development of the disease, so Akterin designed her research to find a mechanism that could explain these findings.
This article addresses one possible explanation for a phenomenon that New York Times journalist John Tierney refers to as “the American obesity paradox,” which he describes as the failure of America’s health food obsession to curb obesity rates. Tierney and Pierre Chandon, an assistant marketing professor with the Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires (INSEAD), asked separate groups of New York City residents and tourists to estimate the calories of two nearly identical meals from Applebee’s. The first meal contained a salad and a soft drink; the second meal was identical, but added a 100-calorie package of crackers labeled “Trans Fat Free.” The U.S. residents overestimated the calories in the first meal, but underestimated them in the second one. “Just as Dr. Chandon predicted, the trans-fat-free label on the crackers seemed to imbue them with a health halo that magically subtracted calories from the rest of the meal,” writes Tierney, who…
Inquirer staff writer Tom Avril opens his piece by focusing on a nutritionist who advised consumers to drink orange juice as a boost to the immune system when Forbes.com wrote an article in 2007 about preventing colds and the flu and turned to her for a quote. Apparently, nutritionist Lisa Hark was being paid by the Florida orange industry to promote its product when she gave the advice. According to Avril, such corporate ties are not unusual, and he notes how the federal government formed a new 13-member panel this year to review dietary guidelines, including six members who “have received funding from the food or pharmaceutical industries.” Most of the article details Hark’s ties to other corporations and questions whether she was qualified to make some nutrition recommendations she provided on their behalf. Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, is…
The City University of New York Campaign Against Diabetes and the Public Health Association of New York City (PHANYC) have published a report, titled Reversing Obesity in New York City: An Action Plan for Reducing the Promotion and Accessibility of Unhealthy Food, that aims to educate policy makers, advocates and health professionals about food policy issues. Focused on lowering obesity rates in New York City, the report asks local government to: (i) “create local healthy food zones” in schools, churches, health centers, and other public institutions; (ii) “use zoning laws to reduce density of unhealthy food outlets”; (iii) “strengthen oversight of deceptive health claims in food advertising”; (iv) “discourage racial/ethnic targeting of unhealthy food advertisements”; (v) “tax unhealthy food such as sweetened soda and other beverages”; (vi) “support counter-advertising campaigns against unhealthy foods”; and (vii) “restrict advertising and promotion of unhealthy food.” In addition, CUNY Campaign Against Diabetes and PHANYC…
