A federal court in California has decided to stop all new planting of genetically modified (GM) sugar beets in light of its September 2009 ruling that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) violated environmental law when it deregulated the crop without conducting an appropriate environmental assessment. Ctr. for Food Safety v. Vilsack, No. 08-00484 (N.D. Cal., decided August 13, 2010). Additional information about the court’s prior ruling appears in Issue 320 of this Update. While the court granted the plaintiffs’ request to vacate APHIS’s deregulation decision, it denied their motion for a permanent injunction. The court determined that vacatur was justified because APHIS’s errors were serious. “Moreover,” the court observed, “APHIS’s apparent position that it is merely a matter of time before they reinstate the same deregulation decision, or a modified version of this decision, and thus apparent perception that conducting the requisite comprehensive…
Category Archives Legislation, Regulations and Standards
The U.K. Food Standards Agency (FSA) has announced that meat from a cloned cow’s offspring has evidently entered the food supply, sparking concerns about the country’s livestock registration and tracking requirements. The agency apparently traced four female and four male calves to a cloned Holstein cow from the United States. According to FSA, farmers have not sold any milk from the three surviving females but have slaughtered the bulls and sold three for human consumption. “While there is no evidence that consuming products from healthy clones, or their offspring, poses a food safety risk, meat and products from clones and their offspring are considered novel foods and would therefore need to be authorized before being placed on the market,” stated FSA in an August 11, 2010, news release, adding that food producers who purchased such animals or their offspring “will need to seek authorization under the Novel Food Regulations.” See…
Environment Canada has reportedly announced its intention to place bisphenol A (BPA) on the country’s list of toxic substances within eight to 10 weeks, thus ending a regulatory process started in April 2008 when the government first banned polycarbonate baby bottles. According to a recently released letter from Environment Minister Jim Prentice, the agency has formally rejected the American Chemistry Council’s July 15, 2009, request for a review board because the group purportedly did not supply “any new scientific data or information with respect to the nature and extent of the danger posed by bisphenol A.” Environment Canada will provide opportunities for further comment under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act “following the publication of instruments for the preventive or control action of bisphenol A, such as a proposed regulation.” See Postmedia News, August 17, 2010. The news came shortly after Statistics Canada released a study examining lead and BPA concentrations…
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and nearly two dozen Gulf Coast organizations have requested that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “strengthen the current protocols and data relied on to determine whether seafood is safe for consumption and when to re-open areas for fishing” after the massive oil spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. Now that some fisheries have reopened, NRDC is concerned that existing testing and assessment protocols are insufficient to protect human health and safety. The organizations call for the agencies to include chemical monitoring in their seafood analyses, contending that cadmium, copper, lead, and mercury have all been detected in crude oil studies. The August 17, 2010, letters request that the agencies (i) “ensure there is comprehensive monitoring of seafood contamination”; (ii) “ensure public disclosure of all seafood monitoring data and methods”; and (iii) “ensure that fishery…
Three elected San Francisco officials recently introduced legislation to amend the city’s health code by restricting restaurant toy giveaways to only those meals that meet stringent nutritional guidelines. The Healthy Food Incentives Ordinance (10196) would apply to all San Francisco restaurants, but mostly affect fast food establishments that offer toys linked to the purchase of meals targeted to children and high in calories, salt or fat. In April 2010, Santa Clara County, California, became the first local government to enact a similar measure, highlighted in Issue 347 of this Update. The proposed San Francisco measure would prohibit restaurants from offering an “incentive item” such as toys, trading cards or admission tickets with a single menu item containing more than 200 calories or 480 milligrams of sodium or an entire meal containing more than 600 calories or 640 milligrams of sodium. Another stipulation calls for toy giveaway meals to provide no…
The Chinese Ministry of Health has apparently announced an investigation into claims linking infant formula manufactured by Synutra International, Inc., to early onset puberty. According to state-run media, the ministry has assembled a panel of nine experts to examine whether the formula caused three infants ages 4 to 15 months to develop prematurely. The group will work with local authorities in Hubei Province to test milk powder samples taken from the homes of the infants in question. See Xinhau News Agency, August 12, 2010. The decision came after China Daily reported that doctors identified excessive levels of two hormones, estradiol and prolactin, in the children, thus sparking public speculation about tainted formula. Synutra, however, has since joined its milk powder supplier, New Zealand based Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd., in denying the rumors, which have noted that both companies were caught up in a 2008 scandal over melamine-tainted dairy products. As Synutra…
In advance of the August 30-September 3, 2010, session of the Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods, draft U.S. positions will be considered during a public meeting scheduled for August 16. Written comments may be presented during the meeting or forwarded to the U.S. delegate to the Codex session, Dr. Kevin Greenlees, who works in the Office of New Animal Drug Evaluation at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Among other issues on the upcoming Codex agenda are (i) draft maximum residue limits for veterinary drugs (at step seven of an eight-step Codex process), (ii) a discussion paper on methods of analysis for these residues in foods, (iii) a draft priority list of veterinary drugs requiring evaluation by a joint Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)/World Health Organization (WHO) expert committee on food additives, (iv) a discussion paper on veterinary drugs in honey production, and (v) a discussion…
Senators Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) have issued a report, “Summertime Blues,” in which they provide information about “100 stimulus projects that give taxpayers the blues.” Among the projects is a $521,000 grant to the University of Illinois to study whether taxes on soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages can affect the incidence of obesity. According to the senators, “While it is hard to disagree that soda and other sugary drinks are contributing factors to the national obesity epidemic, it is easy to disagree whether federal dollars should be used to study the relationship between taxes and obesity.” In a related development, the CEO of a nonprofit foundation writing in The Hill’s “Pundits Blog,” called the District of Columbia’s decision to take a “soda tax” off the table “an unfortunate mistake.” Kathy Kemper opines that the proposal “would take our capital city far in reducing sugar consumption among…
New York Governor David Paterson (D) has signed legislation (S. 3296-H/A. 6919-D) that prohibits the manufacture or sale of child care products such as baby bottles and sippy cups that contain bisphenol A (BPA) and are intended for children younger than age 3. The bill, which the Senate and Assembly passed in June 2010, is expected to take effect on December 1. Several other states, including Connecticut and Wisconsin, have enacted similar measures. “This law will ensure that a potentially harmful substance is no longer allowed in products used by our smallest and most vulnerable children,” Paterson said in a statement, which also claimed that “while BPA has not been conclusively proven to harm children or adults, a growing body of science indicates that infants and young children may be vulnerable to serious development problems as a result of exposure to BPA.” See Press Release of Governor David Paterson, July…
The Canadian Sodium Working Group (SWG) has released a report detailing a three-pronged strategy that aims to reduce the public’s salt consumption. After examining the issue for two years, the federally mandated group has established an interim sodium intake goal of a population average of 2,300 mg per day by 2016, with the ultimate goal of lowering “sodium intakes to a population mean whereby as many individuals as possible (greater than 95%) have a daily intake below the Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) of 2,300 mg per day.” To achieve these targets, the strategy contains six overarching and 27 specific recommendations focused on reducing sodium levels in processed food products and foods sold in restaurant and food service establishments; educating consumers, industry, health professionals, and other key stakeholders; and undertaking new research. In particular, the report urges (i) “published sodium reduction targets for foods”; (ii) “defined timelines”; (iii) “a mechanism…
