The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued its proposed menu-labeling rule for chain restaurants and calorie-labeling rule for food in vending machines. According to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, “These proposals will ensure that consumers have more information when they make their own food choices. Giving consumers clear nutritional information makes it easier for them to choose healthier options that can help fight obesity and make us all healthier.” Comments on the proposals, which were mandated under the Affordable Care Act, must be submitted by June 6, 2011, for the menu-labeling rule and by July 5 for the vending machine rule. Excluded from the menu-labeling rule are “[m]ovie theaters, airplanes, bowling alleys, and other establishments whose primary purpose is not to sell food,” and FDA is requesting comments “on whether additional types of food establishments should or should not be covered by the new rule.”…
Category Archives Legislation, Regulations and Standards
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has reached a settlement with Dean Foods Co. over antitrust concerns about its acquisition of the Foremost Farms USA Coop. Under the agreement, which will be published in the Federal Register for comment and must undergo court approval, Dean will “divest a significant milk processing plant in Waukesha, Wis., and related assets . . . including the Golden Guernsey brand name.” The agreement also apparently requires Dean to “notify the department before it makes any future acquisition of milk processing plants for which the purchase price is more than $3 million.” According to DOJ, the divestiture will “restore competition in the sale of milk to schools, grocery stores, convenience stores and other retailers in Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.” See Department of Justice Press Release, March 29, 2011.
Representatives of the European Parliament and Council of the European Union (EU) have reportedly failed to reach an agreement on legislation that would have prohibited the sale of food produced from cloned animals. The impasse means the EU’s 1997 law remains in effect; it requires government approval to sell milk and meat from cloned animals but does not ban cloning or importing food from cloned animals. Lawmakers have been in agreement with EU consumers in wanting to ban cloned foods, but the recent clash centered over the labeling of food products from the descendants of cloned animals. Parliament proposed mandatory labeling of such products, but council members wanted labels on fresh beef only. “We made a huge effort to compromise but we were not willing to betray consumers on their right to know whether food comes from animals bred using clones,” Parliament members Gianni Pittella and Kartika Liotard said in…
The Senate Judiciary Committee has sent to the Senate a food safety crime bill (S. 216). Designed to “strengthen criminal penalties for companies that knowingly violate food safety standards and place tainted food products on the market,” the legislation would increase offenses from a misdemeanor to a felony, establish fines and give law enforcement the ability to seek prison sentences of up to 10 years. “The fines and recalls that usually result from criminal violations under current law fall short in protecting the public from harmful products,” Leahy said in a statement. Details of the Food Safety Accountability Act, first proposed in summer 2010 by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and reintroduced in January, appear in Issue 380 of this Update. See Press Release of Senator Patrick Leahy, March 31, 2011.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have issued a joint March 30, 2011, statement confirming traces of radiation in domestic cow’s milk, which the agencies have been monitoring since an earthquake and tsunami in Japan compromised the Fukushima prefecture’s nuclear power plant. A screening sample taken near Spokane, Washington, apparently contained 0.8 pCi/L of iodine-131, an amount “more than 5,000 times lower than the Derived Intervention Level set by FDA.” Based “on very conservative assumptions,” this level defines the threshold at which “protective measures would be recommended to ensure that no one receives a significant dose.” “Iodine-131 has a short half-life of approximately eight days,” said the agencies. “These types of findings are to be expected in the coming days and are far below levels of public health concern, including for infants and children.” See FDA’s Radiation Safety: New and Updated Information, March 29,…
The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Food Advisory Committee has reportedly rejected a proposal to require warning labels for artificial food dyes, thereby confirming its earlier position that “a causal relationship between exposure to color additives and hyperactivity in children in the general population has not been established.” The committee addressed the issue at a March 30-31, 2011, meeting, where it heard testimony from experts, consumers and advocacy groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which has long urged FDA to follow Europe’s example in encouraging companies to switch to non-synthetic alternatives. “It is to the great shame of many U.S.-based food companies that they are marketing safer, naturally colored products in Europe but not the United States,” opined CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson in a March 30, 2011, statement. See The New York Times, March 29, 2011; NPR, March 30, 2011. In particular, the advisory…
The Center for Food Safety, Earthjustice and a number of other public interest groups have sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), challenging its decision to deregulate genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa. Ctr. for Food Safety v. Vilsack, No. 11-1310 (N.D. Cal., filed March 18, 2011). Other plaintiffs include the Cornucopia Institute, Geertson Seed Farms, which successfully challenged a previous agency decision to deregulate GE alfalfa, the Sierra Club, and organizations representing the interests of organic and family farmers. The complaint alleges that the environmental impact statement (EIS) that USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) prepared to support its deregulation decision violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Plant Protection Act (PPA) and Administrative Procedure Act. The plaintiffs note that the court-ordered EIS “is the first (and only) EIS APHIS has ever completed for any GE crop, in over fifteen years of approving GE crops for commercial use.” Seeking…
Leaders of Edgewater Elementary School in Edgewater, Florida, are reportedly planning to meet with parents disgruntled over the school’s accommodation of a 6-year-old girl with severe peanut allergies. Noting that the girl’s allergies are life-threatening and considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Volusia County School District spokesperson Nancy Wait said the meeting will help dispel inaccurate rumors that other students’ mouths were being wiped with disinfectant to protect the first-grader’s health. Wait said the girl’s fellow classmates are required to wash their hands before entering the classroom in the morning and after lunch, and rinse their mouths. A peanut-sniffing dog has also apparently visited the school. In answer to some parents’ suggestion that the girl be removed from the classroom and homeschooled, Wait said that was not an option because it violated the federal law. See MSNBC.com, March 22, 2011.
Canada has begun publishing the names of companies in violation of the country’s food, animal and plant-supply regulations. Reportedly aimed at improving accountability and transparency, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA’s) website initiative now publishes such information as the (i) “food imports that have been refused entry into Canada”; (ii) “federally registered food establishments whose licenses have been suspended, cancelled or reinstated”; and (iii) “notices of violations with warning and penalties, including identifying repeat offenders of animal transport regulations.” See CFIA Press Release, March 16, 2011.
Canada and the European Union (EU) have signed a memorandum of understanding that tentatively settles a long trade dispute over hormone-treated cattle. According to the March 17, 2011, memorandum, European nations will expand market access to Canadian beef while Canada will suspend trade sanctions on $11 million worth of EU imports. Effective since the early 1980s, EU’s “non-discriminatory” ban on hormone-treated beef was challenged by Canada and the United States at the World Trade Organization (WTO) starting in 1996, according to the European Commission (EC), the oversight body for EU legislation. In 1999, Canada and the United States were given WTO permission to impose retaliatory sanctions on a number of EU exports. Canada’s sanctions applied to a variety of meat products “in the form of 100% duties.” “The memorandum foresees that Canada suspends these sanctions and the EU would extend its duty-free tariff-rate quota of high quality beef by an…
