Based on documents obtained from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) under the Freedom of Information Act, Food & Water Watch has urged the agency not to expand its pilot HACCP-based inspection project, contending that inspections conducted by poultry processing plant employees miss many defects. While USDA hopes to expand the program, claiming it will save the federal government $90 million and eliminate more than 800 inspector positions over three years, Food & Water Watch asserts that consumer health would be compromised by any such expansion. According to the consumer watchdog, USDA’s pilot project, launched in 1998 and involving two dozen slaughter facilities, relies on untrained plant employees to inspect carcasses for food safety and other consumer protection issues. Many of the pilot plants have apparently been granted line speed waivers and have sped up their lines to 200 birds per minute. In plants where USDA inspectors still conduct conventional…
Category Archives Other Developments
After the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) informed Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Margaret Hamburg that laboratory analyses of soft drinks revealed high levels of 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI) in certain caramel colored beverages, the major soft drink manufacturers reported that they were changing the way they manufacture the caramel coloring to address the issue. California added 4-MEI to its list of chemicals known to the state to cause cancer (Prop. 65), and the companies had already apparently reformulated products sold there to avoid the need for a Prop. 65 cancer exposure warning. The changes will be expanded throughout the national market even though an FDA spokesperson reportedly indicated in response to CSPI’s claims that a person would have drink in excess of 1,000 cans of soda a day to achieve the levels to which rats were exposed in studies purportedly showing an association with cancer. The American…
A recent Food Policy article titled “Implications of nanotechnology growth in food and agriculture in OECD countries” describes how nanomaterials and ingredients are currently being used in foods, food packaging and agriculture in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and outlines potential challenges that could affect the industry’s growth, health and safety issues and public acceptance. In Canada, commercially available nano products include diet and nutritional supplements, energy drinks and food storage containers. Israeli companies are using nanotechnology to produce canola oil and calcium- and vitamin D- fortified milk. South Korean consumers can purchase their food in nano-silver food containers and can also find nanomaterials used in baby bottles, cutting boards, frying pans, salad bowls, water purifiers, and produce cleaners. In the United States, nanoparticles can be found in fortified fruit juice, diet beverages, food storage, health supplements, bottles, and water purifiers. Nano-herbicides, nano-pesticides and “nonporous zeolites to slow…
Several consumer organizations have called on President Barack Obama (D) to appeal a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling that favored Canada and Mexico in a dispute over U.S. country-of-origin-labeling (COOL) requirements for beef and pork products. In their February 24, 2012, letter, Consumers Union, Food & Water Watch, Public Citizen, and the Consumer Federation of America contend that the WTO panel issued a “conflicted ruling” by affirming this country’s right to require COOL for meat products, but finding that specific requirements were less favorable to Canada and Mexico. Details about the WTO ruling appear in Issue 419 of this Update. According to the letter, COOL “is wildly popular in the U.S., as poll after poll show overwhelming support for labeling. Indeed, nations around the world are implementing variants of such laws.”
The American Heart Association, Center for Science in the Public Interest and Environmental Working Group (EWG) have issued a February 23, 2012, letter to the Food and Drug Administration, requesting that the agency compel food labels to denote “added sugars” separately on ingredient lists. Signed by 11 additional organizations, the letter cites national survey data suggesting “that the usual intake of added sugars for Americans is 22.2 teaspoons per day, which is the equivalent of 355 calories, despite the recommended daily limit that women get only 100 daily calories and men only 150 from added sugars.” It therefore claims that breaking out added sugars “like high fructose corn syrup, sucrose and corn sweetener” on food labels will help consumers better evaluate their purchases. Under the coalition’s proposal, food labels would consider the term “added sugars” “as a single food ingredient with a parenthetical list [by descending weight] of the specific…
Researchers presenting at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2012 Annual Meeting in Vancouver, B.C., have announced two new ways to produce synthetic meat, significantly upping the ante in what AAAS describes as a potentially lucrative industry. The first approach pioneered by Stanford University biochemist Patrick Brown reportedly uses plant material to create meat substitutes and may also serve as dairy products. Noting that grazing requires extensive land and energy use, Brown explained to AAAS attendees that “yields from the world’s four major food plant crops—corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans—already provide more than enough protein and amino acids for the world population.” Meanwhile, a Dutch team led by Maastricht University Professor Mark Post has taken a different tack, “gradually transforming” cow stem cells “into tissues that resemble the skeletal muscle that makes up steak or hamburger.” The scientists apparently aim to produce the first lab-grown hamburger by…
Environmental health activists in Maine are reportedly campaigning to extend the state’s current ban on bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles, sippy cups and reusable food containers to all food containers within three years. Spearheaded by the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine, the effort follows a chemical analysis funded by the group that detected BPA in baby and toddler foods. According to the activists, 15 food containers were sent to a San Francisco independent lab to test for BPA, a packaging chemical used as an epoxy liner inside metal food cans and metal lids of glass jars, that has allegedly “been linked to cancer, obesity, learning disabilities, male infertility, and early puberty in girls.” Test results found BPA in 11 of 12 baby food containers manufactured by BeechNut, Gerber, Earth’s Best Organic, and Shaw’s Wild Harvest Brand and in all three canned foods featuring Campbell’s Original Disney Princess…
A university lecturer in global health politics at the University of Oxford has called for the World Health Organization (WHO) to use a “vastly underused” mechanism, a legally binding framework convention requiring just a two-thirds vote, to address the health burdens and mortality purportedly attributed to alcohol consumption. In the February 16, 2012, issue of Nature journal, Devi Sridhar, D.Phil., points to WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control as one of just two such treaties adopted in more than 60 years. These conventions impose legal requirements on member states, which commit to applying the agreement through national legislation and must report their progress to WHO. According to Sridhar, “2.5 million deaths a years, almost 4% of all deaths worldwide, are attributed to alcohol—more than the number of deaths caused by HIV/ AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria. Alcohol consumption is the world’s third-largest risk factor for health burden; in middle-income countries, which…
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has announced“a national advocacy conference to motivate and strengthen national, state, and local initiatives, both public and private, to reduce sugary-drink consumption in the United States.” Scheduled for June 7-8, 2012, in Washington, D.C., the meeting is apparently designed for “researchers, government officials, state and local legislators, health professionals, low-income and minority advocates, youth activists, consumer groups, faith-based organizations, health insurers, and business leaders” to “strategize to improve public health” and “add momentum to a growing public health movement.”
The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) has released its annual report on the global status of genetically modified (GM) crops, claiming that in 2011 “a record of 16.7 million farmers, up 1.3 million or 8 percent from 2010, grew biotech crops.” According to ISAAA, these gains reflected increased plantings by developing countries, which apparently grew “close to 50 percent” of all global biotech crops, and among “small resource-poor farmers,” who constituted 90 percent or 15 million of those planting GM crops. “Developing countries… for the first time are expected to exceed industrial countries hectarage in 2012,” notes the report. “[T]his is contrary to the prediction of critics who, prior to the commercialization of the technology in 1996, prematurely declared that biotech crops were only for industrial countries and would never be accepted and adopted by developing countries.” Meanwhile, Food & Water Watch (FWW) Europe has issued…
