The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued guidance principles for conducting two-year whole food studies “to assess the risk of cancer and/or toxicity from the long-term consumption of such foods by humans.” Acting at the behest of the European Commission, EFSA relied on testing guidance (TG) 453 from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in addition to considering the views of member state experts consulted through the Scientific Network for the Risk Assessment of GMOs. The agency has cautioned, however, that testing individual chemicals in animal models “may result in adverse effects caused by dietary imbalance rather than any potential toxicity of the whole food itself,” urging researchers to carefully design studies to avoid this outcome and to use a larger number of animals when conducting whole food studies. “[I]t is essential that scientists implementing its guiding principles should define clear and specific objectives before starting a two-year…
Category Archives Legislation, Regulations and Standards
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has proposed adequate intake (AI) levels for fluoride and molybdenum as part of its effort to provide dietary reference values (DRVs) for micronutrients, including vitamin C, folate, iron, zinc, calcium, and iodine. Finalized by EFSA’s Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA Panel) after a public consultation, the proposed AI for fluoride is 0.05 mg/kg body weight per day “for children aged 7 months to 17 years as well as adults, including pregnant and lactating women,” and the proposed AI for molybdenum is 65 micrograms per day for all adults and 10-65 micrograms per day for infants, children and adolescents. According to EFSA, the NDA Panel has already proposed DRVs for energy, macronutrients—protein, fats and carbohydrates—dietary fiber, and water. In turn, such DRVs are used “to establish reference values for nutrition labeling, for the assessment and planning of diets and for developing food-based…
According to a news source, restaurant chain T.G.I. Friday’s has agreed to make leave-policy changes affecting the employees working at its 272 company-owned facilities. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division apparently discovered violations of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act during an investigation of a company restaurant in Shreveport, Louisiana. The company had reportedly failed to reinstate an employee who took a legal leave under the law to the same or an equivalent position at the same pay and benefits, and had not allowed the employee to return immediately. The Labor Department determined that the restaurant owed the employee three weeks of lost wages. See The Kansas City Star, August 7, 2013.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released a report indicating that obesity rates among preschoolers decreased in 19 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands between 2008 and 2011. Analyzing weight and height information from nearly 12 million children aged 2 to 4 years who participated in CDC’s Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System, the report showed that Florida, Georgia, Missouri, New Jersey, South Dakota, and the U.S. Virgin Islands saw at least a one percentage point decrease in obesity rates. According to CDC research, approximately one out of eight preschoolers in the United States is obese. “Although obesity remains epidemic, the tide has begun to turn for some kids in some states,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden. “While the changes are small, for the first time in a generation they are going in the right direction. Obesity in early childhood increases the risk of serious health problems for life.” One area…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Office of Inspector General (OIG) has released a July 2013 audit report examining how the Agricultural Marketing Service’s (AMS’s) National Organic Program (NOP) established the “access to pasture” rule for organic dairy cattle. Although OIG generally found that the new rules for organic milk production were “successfully implemented,” it nevertheless recommended that AMS clarify guidance for certifying agents “to ensure that all dairy producers are being treated consistently.” To this end, the audit noted that NOP (i) “had not clearly defined how producers should demarcate herds of organic milk-producing cattle, which meant that some certifying agents allowed producers to add cattle to organic herds,” and (ii) “needs to include organic feed brokers within the NOP-certification process to ensure that organic feed is not commingled or contaminated.” OIG also reported that certifying agents failed to take consistent enforcement actions “when their inspectors or reviewers identified…
University of Illinois Associate Professor of Agricultural Law A. Bryan Endres has co-authored a recently published update of the law suggesting that federal government action on a variety of agriculture- and food-related topics, moribund in the months preceding the 2012 presidential election, could increase during the next few years in light of increasing public interest in food production and safety issues. “United States Food Law Update: Shrouded by Election-Year Politics, State Initiatives and Private Lawsuits Fill in the Gaps Created by Congressional and Agency Ossification,” Journal of Food Law & Policy, Spring 2013. Funded in part by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the article covers a range of topics including (i) consumer fraud suits challenging the “all natural” promotions for processed food products, (ii) efforts by animal rights organizations to require the humane handling of food animals, (iii) country-of-origin and genetic modification labeling initiatives,…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has filed a motion for reconsideration or stay of a court order establishing rulemaking deadlines under the Food Safety Modernization Act. Ctr. for Food Safety v. Hamburg, No. 12-4529 (N.D. Cal., Oakland Div., motion filed July 19, 2013). More information about the litigation appears in Issues 481, 487 and 489 of this Update. Scheduled to be heard on August 28, 2013, the motion contends that two of the seven rulemakings at issue, the sanitary transport rule and the intentional adulteration rule, pose challenges that preclude their issuance by the court’s deadline. Requesting that the court reconsider its order largely on the basis of arguments already rejected, the agency also asks the court to stay the order pending the Solicitor General’s determination whether to authorize an appeal and, if an appeal is authorized, while the appeal is pending.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has concluded that the sweetener advantame is safe for human consumption. Derived from aspartame and vanillin, advantame is reportedly 37,000 times sweeter than sugar and 100 times sweeter than aspartame and can be used to enhance flavors such as fruit, citrus and mint and to extend the sweetness duration in chewing gum. The agency has established an acceptable daily intake of 5 mg per kilogram of body weight per day. See ajinomoto.com.
Japan has reportedly announced that it will resume purchasing U.S. white wheat, ending a two-month suspension that was implemented after genetically engineered crops were found on an Oregon farm in April 2013. According to a news source, Japan imports nearly five million tons of wheat per year—60 percent of which comes from the United States—but does not allow genetically modified wheat. Purchases of western white wheat reportedly resumed on August 1, while purchases of soft white wheat for livestock feed will resume August 7. See japantoday.com, August 2, 2013.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued a draft assessment of consumer exposure to bisphenol A (BPA), provisionally concluding that “for all population groups diet is the major source of exposure to [BPA] and exposure is lower than previously estimated.” According to a July 25, 2013, news release, EFSA used exposure modeling and new human biomonitoring data to refine its estimate of dietary BPA exposure levels for infants and toddlers (375 nanograms per kilogram of body weight per day) as well as the general population above age 18 (132 ng/kg bw/day). In addition, the agency found that dietary BPA exposure was highest among children ages 3 to 10, “explainable by their higher food consumption on a body weight basis.” “By comparison, these estimates are less than 1% of the current Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) for BPA (0.05 milligrams/kg bw/day) established by EFSA in 2006,” stated EFSA, which identified canned food and non-canned meat and meat…
