U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has reportedly joined the California Poultry Federation (CPF) and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to reform labeling requirements for sodium-enhanced chicken. “Unfortunately, since 2003, chicken injected with sodium additives has been allowed to be misleadingly labeled as ‘100 percent all-natural,’” Boxer apparently stated at a February 24, 2010, press conference. “In these difficult times, our families should not have to pay $2 billion for saltwater that they don’t know about, they don’t want and they certainly don’t need.” Known as “plumping,” this practice purportedly involves injecting “saltwater, chicken stock, seaweed extract or some combination thereof into chicken to increase its weight and price, while simultaneously increasing sodium content by up to 700 [percent],” according to one CPF member’s internet campaign. Although USDA already requires poultry containing these ingredients to carry warning labels at…
Category Archives Legislation, Regulations and Standards
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently announced that it had sent warning letters to 11 companies that promote omega-3 fatty acid dietary supplements. The letters indicated that the companies should review their product labeling and packaging claims, as well as product advertising, to ensure that the claims are adequately substantiated. The commission’s issuance of these letters is significant because of the FTC’s action to regulate dietary supplement labeling claims, an area that has for nearly four decades been regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Commission Takes Aim at Ad Links Between Omega 3 and Children’s Visual and Mental Development According to a February 16, 2010, press release, [FN 1] the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices in January sent warning letters to 11 companies that promote supplement products containing omega-3 fatty acids intended for use by children ages 2 years and older. The letters reference an investigation the FTC conducted…
A federal court in Washington has reportedly denied a feedlot company’s request to invalidate or delay implementation of the country-of-origin labeling (COOL) regulations adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 2008. Easterday Ranches, Inc. v. USDA, No. __ (E.D. Wash., decided February 5, 2010). According to news sources, the company argued that the COOL regulations, which do not allow beef imported from Canada or Mexico and slaughtered in the United States to be labeled as a U.S. product, conflicted with U.S. Treasury Department rules, would raise its recordkeeping and operational costs, and deter packers from paying fair prices for Canadian cattle. The Treasury rules apparently provide that beef is deemed a U.S. product if it undergoes “substantial transformation,” e.g., slaughter, within this country. The court refused to postpone USDA’s rules and further declined to order the agency to create an exception to COOL allowing cattle imported from Canada and…
In response to requests by chemical industry interests, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has extended the deadline for comments on its proposal to apply a 10-fold (10X) safety factor to its pesticide risk assessments in relation to the exposure of agricultural workers and their children in agricultural fields. CropLife America and the American Chemistry Council made the request, noting that the proposal is related to several others, such as new labeling rules to control drift, that have not yet been finalized. Comments must now be received by April 12, 2010. The industry groups also pointed to studies the agency does not appear to have considered in drafting its policy paper, “Revised Risk Assessment Methods for Workers, Children of Workers in Agricultural Fields, and Pesticides with No Food Uses,” and expressed concerns that some supporting materials have not been made public. They urge EPA to consider a National Academy of Sciences…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published a notice seeking public comments on its proposed collection of information on foods derived from new plant varieties including those created through biotechnology. Comments must be submitted by April 19, 2010. The types of information that developers of new plant varieties would be required to provide to the agency include (i) a description of the applications or uses of the bioengineered food, (ii) information about the sources, identities and functions of the introduced genetic material, (iii) information about any known or suspected allergenicity and toxicity, and (iv) information relevant to the safety and nutritional assessment of the bioengineered food. Commenters are asked to address whether the proposed collection “is necessary for the proper performance of FDA’s functions,” the accuracy of the agency’s estimate of the burden of the proposed information collection, ways to improve the quality of the information to be collected,…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has submitted a proposed collection of information involving antimicrobial animal drugs to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance under the Paperwork Reduction Act. According to the Federal Register notice, a 2008 amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires that “the sponsor of each new animal drug that contains an antimicrobial agent submit an annual report to FDA on the amount of each antimicrobial active ingredient in the drug that is sold or distributed for use in food-producing animals.” The first report under the law will be due March 31, 2010, and must specify (i) “The amount of each antimicrobial active ingredient by container size, strength, and dosage form”; (ii) “quantities distributed domestically and quantities exported”; and (iii) “a listing of the target animals, indications, and production classes that are specified on the approved label of the…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have issued a joint statement to announce a collaborative effort to improve the safety and quality of fresh produce. As part of the announcement, the agencies report that USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service “is in the midst of evaluating a proposed marketing agreement for the leafy green industry,” while the FDA “is currently developing a proposed produce safety regulation.” The notice calls for feedback and comments from stakeholders, noting that FDA would establish “a docket to receive information about current practices and conditions for the production and packing of fresh produce and practical approaches to improving produce safety.” See FDA News & Events, February 18, 2010.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Agricultural Marketing Service has issued a final rule that amends National Organic Program (NOP) regulations to establish “a pasture practice standard for ruminant animals.” Seeking “to satisfy consumer expectations that ruminant livestock animals graze on pastures during the grazing season,” the final rule requires producers to (i) “provide year-round access for all animals to the outdoors”; (ii) “recognize pasture as a crop”; (iii) “establish a functioning management plan for pasture”; (iv) “incorporate the pasture management plan into their organic system plan (OSP)”; (v) “provide ruminants with pasture throughout the grazing season for their geographical location”; and (vi) “ensure ruminants derive not less than an average of 30 percent of their dry matter intake (DMI) requirement from pasture grazed over the course of the grazing season.” This rule takes effect June 17, 2010, for operations seeking organic certification by this date. Operations already certified as of…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced that it sent letters to 11 unnamed companies in late January 2010, warning that their promotions and product packaging for omega-3 fatty acid supplements may violate the law “by making baseless claims about how the supplements benefit children’s brain and vision function and development.” FTC apparently gave the companies until February 8 to respond and explain what they have done or will do to ensure they are complying with the law, that is, that their health-related claims “are substantiated.” FTC provides as an example of substantiation “well-conducted, clinical cause-and-effect studies demonstrating that the use of the combination of Omega-3 fatty acids provided in Product X, in the same dosage as provided by one serving of the product, improves or promotes brain function, cognitive function, attention span, intelligence, memory, learning ability, and visual acuity in normal children ages 2 years and older.” The agency…
This article discusses the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) renewed interest in revising its approach to food serving sizes as front-of-package labeling gains traction in the marketplace. According to Times writer William Neuman, “The push to re-evaluate serving size comes as the F.D.A. is considering ways to better convey nutrition facts to hurried consumers, in particular by posting key information on the front of packages. Officials say such labeling will be voluntary, but the agency must set rules to prevent companies from highlighting the good things about their products, like a lack of trans fats, while ignoring the bad, like a surfeit of unhealthy saturated fats.” Created in the 1990s to help shoppers “compare the nutritional values of different products,” serving sizes are based on eating habit surveys taken during the 1970s and 1980s. Neuman claims, however, that while many people “might eat two or three times” the serving size…
