The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has responded to the House report on levels of heavy metals in baby food with the promise of additional action. The FDA statement notes, "First, today we issued a letter to industry reminding manufacturers of these types of foods of their existing responsibilities related to these efforts. Secondly, the agency is announcing that we’ll soon be putting into action a plan aimed at reducing toxic elements in foods for babies and young children to levels as low as is reasonably achievable." The industry letter asserts that the agency will take action to remove foods from the market "when the levels of toxic elements or other chemicals in foods do pose a health risk," citing as an example a consent decree the agency obtained in January 2021 to stop Valley Processing Inc. from selling adulterated juice. The agency's plan includes finalizing an action level…
Category Archives Legislation, Regulations and Standards
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) inspector general will reportedly review how the agency handled inspections during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Washington Post. The probe will review how the Food Safety and Inspection Service spent $33 million in extra funding provided by Congress in March 2020, including what precautions were taken to protect the health of inspectors. The probe comes amid elevated scrutiny on how meatpacking plants have handled the pandemic, including lawsuits targeting meat companies. A Nebraska court dismissed a lawsuit brought by former employees of a Noah's Ark Processors plant alleging the company failed to implement proper precautions to stop the spread of the virus, holding that the employees lacked standing because they no longer work at the plant. Alma v. Noah's Ark Processors LLC, No. 20-3141 (D. Neb., entered March 1, 2021).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have issued a joint statement stating that "there is no credible evidence of food or food packaging associated with or as a likely source of viral transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus causing COVID-19." The statement was issued one week after the World Health Organization reportedly stated that the virus could be transmitted on frozen food packaging. "The USDA and the FDA are sharing this update based upon the best available information from scientific bodies across the globe, including a continued international consensus that the risk is exceedingly low for transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans via food and food packaging. For example, a recent opinion from the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods (ICMSF), stated: 'Despite the billions of meals and food packages handled since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, to…
The U.S. Senate has voted 92-7 to confirm Tom Vilsack as head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Vilsack, who served in the position under former President Barack Obama, stated that his priorities include addressing "the pandemic, racial justice and equity and climate change."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a constituent update responding to the Senate's report on elevated levels of heavy metals in baby foods. "While the report released on February 4, 2021 by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy raises important questions on what more can be done to reduce toxic elements in baby foods, the FDA has been actively working on this issue using a risk-based approach to prioritize and target the agency’s efforts," the update states. "Firms and individuals who manufacture or sell food have a legal responsibility under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to ensure the safety of their products. The FDA reviews information and takes action on a case-by-case basis. If the FDA finds that a product violates the law, the agency takes steps to stop the product from being imported, takes…
The European Food Safety Authority has issued scientific guidance on the inclusion of smoke flavoring in food products. The guidance includes notes on the characterization of the flavoring, proposed uses, exposure assessments and safety data. Smoke flavoring has increasingly been a target of putative class actions in the United States, including lawsuits targeting smoked gouda and smoked provolone.
A staff report from a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Reform has found that several baby foods contain high levels of heavy metals, including inorganic arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury. The report argues that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "has failed to confront the risks of toxic heavy metals in baby food" and has "designed these limits to be protective of industry." "In one category of baby food for which FDA has finalized a standard—infant rice cereal—it set the maximum inorganic arsenic content at the dangerous level of 100 ppb. Why did FDA set its level so high? Because in developing the limit, FDA was focused on the level of inorganic arsenic that would cause cancer. FDA disregarded the risk of neurological damage, which happens at a much lower level," the report asserts. The report notes the trust that consumers place in…
A coalition of advocacy groups has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asserting that Smithfield Foods misleadingly markets its pork products as "produced in an environmentally responsible and sustainable way" despite the company's production methods allegedly falling "far below the level of environmental sustainability that a reasonable consumer would expect based on the company’s representations." The complaint further argues that "Smithfield touts its use of anaerobic digesters to produce methane from its pollution-laden waste as a sustainable innovation and solution to Smithfield’s climate damaging production practices—a falsehood that capitalizes on an issue of growing importance to consumers." The petitioners include Food & Water Watch, Socially Responsible Agriculture Project and organizations from Iowa, Missouri and Pennsylvania.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released its final rule governing the cultivation of hemp, which will take effect March 22, 2021. The draft rule would have required hemp to be shown to contain less than 0.3% tetrahydrocannibanol (THC) on testing conducted within 15 days of harvest, a proposal that drew criticism from several parties. The final rule reduces some of the requirements, such as allowing 30 days to test and raising the negligence threshold to 1% rather than 0.5%. The rule also allows some flexibility for states to develop testing methods that take into account variables such as regional environmental factors.
The U.K. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has opened a consultation on the regulation of genetic technologies in food. "It mainly focuses on the regulation of gene edited (GE) organisms possessing genetic changes which could have been introduced by traditional breeding," the consultation states. "[W]e are using this opportunity to engage separately and start gathering views on the wider regulatory framework governing genetically modified organisms (GMOs)." "EU legislation controlling the use of GMOs was retained in the UK at the end of the transition period (after 31 December 2020). This retained legislation requires that all GE organisms are classified as GMOs irrespective of whether they could be produced by traditional breeding methods[1]. Defra’s view is that organisms produced by GE or by other genetic technologies should not be regulated as GMOs if they could have been produced by traditional breeding methods. Leaving the EU provides an opportunity…
