The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced its intention to issue compulsory process orders to 48 food and beverage manufacturers, distributors, marketers, and quick service restaurant companies for information on their marketing activities and expenditures targeted toward children and adolescents. FTC also seeks nutritional information about the companies’ food and beverage products marketed to children and adolescents in calendar years 2006 and 2009 “to evaluate possible changes in the nutritional content and variety of youth-marketed foods.” The plan follows FTC’s July 2008 report that analyzed expenditures and promotional activities related to food and food products targeted toward children and adolescents in 2006. FTC wants to use the new data to study how industry allocates promotional activities and expenditures among various media and for different food products and to evaluate the impact of self-regulatory efforts on the nutritional profiles of foods marketed to children and adolescents. Based on the calendar year…
Category Archives U.S. Government and Regulatory Agencies
The Center for Digital Democracy and the Berkeley Media Studies Group have released a report, “Alcohol Marketing in the Digital Age,” that discusses some of the specific ways that alcohol beverage companies are conducting contemporary advertising campaigns using digital media, data collection, behavioral targeting, social media, and online gaming and video that allegedly appeal to underage youth. The report, which was reportedly submitted to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), calls on that agency, as well as the state attorneys general, to “investigate the data collection, online profiling, and targeting practices of alcohol beverage companies online, including social media data-mining technologies. The FTC and other regulators need to determine whether alcohol beverage ad targeting is reaching specific young people and their networks.” While the report notes that beer and alcohol companies have “a self-regulatory code of ethics that includes provisions for limiting exposure to marketing messages to underage youth,” its authors…
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) this week published a consensus report titled Evaluation of Biomarkers and Surrogate Endpoints in Chronic Disease, which urges the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to apply “the same degree of scientific rigor for evaluating biomarker use across regulatory areas, including drugs, medical devices, biologics, foods, and dietary supplements.” IOM describes biomarkers, such as blood cholesterol levels, as “biological yardsticks” used to predict health effects when it is difficult to measure the actual incidence of disease or death. According to a May 12, 2010, press release, “FDA has been hampered in its ability to assess the proliferation of health claims being made by food and supplement manufacturers in part because it lacks a process broadly accepted across the regulatory, food, and medical communities to evaluate biomarkers as valid and appropriate measurements to substitute for clinical outcomes.” Commissioned by FDA, the report proposes a three-part framework for…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued industry guidance to advise food manufacturers on appropriate protocol for dealing with a boil-water advisory. The guidance is also “intended to assist food manufacturers in evaluating food that already was produced with water subject to the advisory.” According to FDA, once a boil-water advisory has been issued, food manufacturers “should stop using the water subject to the advisory until the water again meets the applicable Federal and State drinking water quality standards.” The guidance offers assistance to affected manufacturers in evaluating water used in heated foods, ice, bottled water, ready-to-eat foods, and water used for cleaning and hand-washing. The agency issued the guidance in response to the recent boil-water advisory that affected some two million residents of metropolitan Boston. Comments are requested at any time. See Federal Register, May 13, 2010.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has issued a new set of performance standards to reduce the incidence of Salmonella and Campylobacter bacteria in young chickens and turkeys. The new standards hold poultry slaughterhouses more accountable by decreasing the number of samples allowed to test positive for the pathogens. After two years under the new standards, USDA predicts that 39,000 illnesses due to Campylobacter will be avoided each year as will 26,000 fewer illnesses attributable to Salmonella. Although Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) Food Safety Director Caroline Smith DeWaal generally welcomed the standards, she lamented the fact that “USDA still lacks authority to enforce these standards by closing failing plants. For consumers to fully realize the benefits of the improved standards, Congress should reinstate USDA’s authority to enforce its performance standards.” In a related move, FSIS has issued the third edition of a…
While the president’s Task Force on Childhood Obesity released its action plan with 70 specific recommendations to significant praise and fanfare this week, nutrition professor and author Marion Nestle questioned whether the ideas will actually work given their reliance on voluntary collaboration and participation. She said in her blog, “Voluntary, as evidence demonstrates, does not work for the food industry. Much leadership will be needed to make this plan work. But these recommendations should give advocates plenty of inspiration to continue working on these issues.” First lady Michelle Obama joined several task force members when the report was issued and said, “For the first time, the nation will have goals, benchmarks, and measurable outcomes that will help us tackle the childhood obesity epidemic one child, one family, and one community at a time. We want to marshal every resource—public and private sector, mayors and governors, parents and educators, business owners…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has announced plans to publicize enforcement actions taken in response to violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). Starting in June 2010, APHIS will issue monthly press releases that disclose (i) people and businesses charged with AWA violations, and (ii) information about closed enforcement cases and penalties levied. The agency has reportedly revived the practice, which was discontinued in 2002, as part of its crackdown on AWA offenses. “It is clear that certain repeat offenders are not taking issues of animal welfare and humane treatment seriously enough. In turn, APHIS will not only be moving more swiftly to take enforcement action, but we will be making information about those enforcement actions available to the public on our Website,” APHIS Administrator Cindy Smith was quoted as saying.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has announced three public meetings for stakeholders to offer input on a new framework for animal disease traceability. Specific details for a proposed animal disease traceability rule will be discussed on May 11, 2010, in Kansas City, Missouri, May 13 in Riverdale, Maryland, and May 17 in Denver, Colorado. Written comments will be accepted until May 31. Additional meetings will be announced in a future Federal Register notice. See Federal Register, May 5, 2010.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) under the Sanitary Food Transportation Act of 2005 that establishes guidance on reducing the risk of food contamination during transport. The ANPRM is the first step in creating new federal regulations to govern sanitary practices by shippers, carriers by motor or rail vehicles, receivers, and others engaged in the transportation of food products for human and animal consumption. FDA has requested input from the food and transportation industries, consumer organizations and other parties on topics, including (i) whether and how information is shared among those involved, (ii) whether trucks used for transporting food should also be used for “nonfood products,” (iii) what reasons might waive “any and all” foreseeable rules intended to prevent contamination, and (iv) data on the risk of foodborne illness associated with the transportation of food. After evaluating responses to the notice,…
Featuring colorful graphics purporting to hawk products ranging from sugar-sweetened cereals and acne medication to sporting goods and meals sold at fast-food restaurants, a new website created by the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) Bureau of Consumer Protection seeks to provide children with the tools they need to properly understand and assess commercial speech. Designed for children in grades four through six, the interactive game with accompanying classroom materials urges children to keep three questions in mind whenever and wherever they are exposed to advertising: Who is responsible for the ad? What is the ad really saying? What does the ad want me to do? FTC announced the website’s launch in late April 2010, and bureau director David Vladeck said that its goal is “to help kids start to understand the commercial world they live in and to be alert to, and think critically, of advertising.” Vladeck reportedly confessed that he…
