The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reportedly created a special communications committee to address food safety concerns related to dioxin. According to a January 15, 2010, Inside EPA article, a forthcoming EPA reassessment is expected to identify dioxin “as highly toxic and bioaccumulative with most exposure occurring through the food supply.” The agency apparently undertook the reevaluation after a 2006 National Academy of Sciences report advised EPA to update its risk assessment of 2,3,7,8 Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-Dioxin (TCDD), a byproduct of combustions and other industrial processes. Inside EPA has anticipated that the pending EPA report will intensify public concerns “given existing data from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA),” which in 2009 reported that “over 95 percent of exposure arises from dietary intake of animal fats.” In addition, an EPA source has purportedly indicated that human body burdens are “probably” at levels higher than any reference dose recommended by the agency. Inside EPA…
Category Archives Legislation, Regulations and Standards
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a notice seeking public comments on a proposed set of self-regulatory guidelines submitted by i-SAFE, Inc. under the safe harbor provision of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule. Comments must be submitted by March 1, 2010. The organization that prepared the proposed guidelines is a non-profit that for some years has partnered with industry to provide educational programs for children about online safety issues. It recently determined that it would become involved in assisting and licensing online “operators” with children’s online privacy issues. Among other matters, the i-Safe guidelines would (i) provide notice to parents about the information collected from children by i-Safe licensees, (ii) require verifiable parental consent for the collection of personal information from children; and (iii) provide parents with an opportunity to view the information collected and prevent its further dissemination. See Federal Register, January 13, 2010. In recent years,…
The New York Times recently published an investigative report that questions the safety of beef processed with ammonia to kill E. coli and Salmonella. According to the article, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has exempted one company, Beef Products Inc. (BPI), from routine testing requirements since 2007 because the processor apparently claimed that its ammonia treatment destroyed pathogens “to an undetectable level.” A supplier for fast-food chains and the school lunch program, BPI also purportedly indicated that its ammoniated trimmings, when mixed with untreated meat, would sterilize ground beef. “Given the technology, we firmly believe that the two pathogens of major concern—E. coli O157:H7 and salmonella—are on the verge of elimination,” BPI founder Eldon Roth allegedly told USDA in 2001. “But government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens…
The 34-member Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) is scheduled to discuss 12 specific recommendations for protecting children from the marketing of unhealthy food and non-alcoholic beverages at the board’s upcoming 126th session slated for January 18-23, 2010, in Geneva. The proposed mechanisms for promoting “responsible” marketing of such fare are contained in the annex to a recent WHO report focusing on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases. According to the report’s annex, “many countries, including those with restrictions in place, are exposed to food marketing in their country from beyond their borders” and the “global nature of many marketing practices needs to be addressed.” Overall, the recommendations strive to provide a comprehensive approach for Member States to draft policies that lessen “the impact on children of marketing of foods high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, free sugars, or salt.” More specifically, they champion (i) Member State…
Following a December 16, 2009, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) “green” workshop, NIOSH Director John Howard wrote to the head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to indicate that “many of the chemicals and materials used as alternatives to diacetyl for imparting butter flavor to flavoring mixtures and food products are not known to be less hazardous.” Additional information about a NIOSH report on diacetyl substitutes appears in Issue 330 of this Update. Howard’s December 23 letter discusses potential diacetyl replacements, including (i) “starter mix,” which apparently contains “high concentrations of diacetyl itself”; (ii) acetoin, which has not been completely investigated, but “accompanies diacetyl in many of the workplaces where bronchiolitis obliterans occurs in workers who make or use flavorings”; and (iii) 2,3-pentanedione, currently being researched by NIOSH, and purportedly associated with “airway epithelial damage similar to that produced by diacetyl.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Food Safety and the Agricultural Marketing Service have announced a January 13, 2010, public meeting in Washington, D.C., to provide information and receive comments on draft U.S. positions to be discussed at the 9th Session of the Codex Committee on Milk and Milk Products (CCMMP) February 1-5 in Auckland, New Zealand. Agenda items include discussion of the draft amendment to the fermented milks standard, draft standard for processed cheese and purported inconsistencies in food additive provisions. See Federal Register, January 8, 2010.
Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) has responded to the recent recall of 248,000 pounds of blade-tenderized steaks by urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) “to require labeling that clearly identifies mechanically tenderized beef and pork products for all processing facilities, retailers and consumers.” USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued the Class I recall after concluding that beef products originating from an Owasso, Oklahoma, establishment might be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. Working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, FSIS apparently determined “that there is an association between non-intact steaks (blade tenderized prior to further processing) and illnesses in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota and Washington.” See FSIS Recall Notice, December 24, 2009. According to DeLauro, however, “USDA has been aware of the E. coli risks associated with mechanically tenderized steaks as early as 1999, but has refused to act.” She has also chided the Obama…
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it will take a series of actions on four chemicals that purportedly raise serious health or environmental concerns, including phthalates, which are plasticizers used in a wide array of consumer products. The agency will establish a “Chemicals of Concern” list under the Toxic Substances Control Act and intends to place on the list eight phthalates and a number of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), which are used as flame retardants. According to EPA, “[i]nclusion on the list publicly signals EPA’s strong concern about the risks that those chemicals pose and the agency’s intention to manage those risks. Once listed, chemical manufacturers can provide information to the agency if they want to demonstrate that their chemical does not pose an unreasonable risk.” The American Chemistry Council (ACC) reportedly responded by claiming that the first target chemicals “seem to have been selected based on little…
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has prepared a report for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that purportedly catalogs “some of the most egregious examples of false claims, ingredient obfuscations, and other labeling shenanigans” on the part of food manufacturers that make nutritional claims about their products. Titled “Food Labeling Chaos,” the report discusses health claims made by manufacturers of breakfast cereals, beverages, snacks, and baby food. CSPI praises FDA for taking more aggressive action under the Obama administration against food manufacturers that purportedly mislabel their products, but still calls for a significant overhaul of the nation’s food labeling regulations.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has entered a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Boston’s Northeastern University to “develop collaboration between the two parties in the areas of education, research, and outreach.” Focusing broadly on biotechnology and analytical chemistry, the MOU is intended to “provide opportunities for exchanging of graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, and personnel and for advanced training and outreach; stimulate cooperative research, and information exchange in biological product characterization and regulation with Northeastern University’s Barnett Institute of Chemical and Biological Analysis; and develop training programs for FDA and potentially other Government agencies and Industry.” Northeastern University is home to law professor and anti-tobacco activist Richard Daynard who also formed the Public Health Advocacy Institute to address food and obesity issues through legislation and litigation. The law school received a $2.7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute in 2009 to conduct a five-year research project, headed by Daynard,…
