A Cleveland judge has reportedly decided that an obese third grader who was removed from his mother’s custody after she was apparently unable to control his weight can now be removed from foster care. County child welfare officials had convinced the court in October 2011 that the 218-pound child was in imminent danger; they had been working with the family for more than a year after the boy was taken to a hospital with breathing problems. According to a news source, the court found that the boy had lost about 25 pounds during his two months in foster care. He ordered the honor student to live with his uncle following a hearing that took place on the child’s ninth birthday. See The Slatest, November 29, 2011; msnbc.com, December 14, 2011.
Category Archives Other Developments
A recent report funded by the Pew Environment Group has suggested that many seafood products bearing eco-labels are “not much better than conventional farmed seafood options when it comes to protecting the ocean environment.” Titled “How Green is Your Eco-label? A Comparison of the Environmental Benefits of Marine Aquaculture Standards,” the study evidently relied on the 2010 Global Aquaculture Performance Index “to determine numerical scores of environmental performance for 20 different eco-labels for farmed marine finfish, such as salmon, cod, turbot and grouper.” Researchers then ranked voluntary organic, retailer and industry standards in terms of both absolute and value-added performance based on 10 environmental impact measures, including antibiotic and parasiticide use, the ecological impact of escaped pen fish, and the sustainability of feed fish. Intended as “a kind of Michelin guide for standards,” the report did not assess individual farms but instead asked “how poorly a farm could perform and…
George Washington University Law Professor John Banzhaf has issued a press release highlighting recent action the Food and Drug Administration took against a food company that purportedly misbrands one of its products by declaring it “All Natural” while making the product with a synthetic chemical preservative ingredient. According to Banzhaf, the agency’s warning letter is “likely to lend support to and encourage an ever-growing number of major class action law suits being filed on these grounds, says the public interest law professor whose earlier movement to use legal action as a weapon against obesity apparently inspired these new legal actions.” He claims that The American Lawyer recognized how he started this litigation movement, noting in an article that he used the courts to address obesity, “just as he had earlier done in leading the use of legal action as a weapon against smoking.” Banzhaf further states, “The movement which Banzhaf started…
The nonprofit group As You Sow has issued a report calling on the food industry to evaluate the safety of nanomaterials used in food packaging. Titled “Sourcing Framework for Food and Food Packaging Products Containing Nanomaterials,” the report claims that better communication is needed between food companies and their suppliers to “protect themselves from financial and reputation risk.” According to the report, toxicity risks related to “nanofoods, nano food packaging and nano agrochemicals” are “very poorly understood” because of lack of federal regulations. To stay ahead of regulations, the report calls on the food industry to (i) “[f]ind out if your company has nanomaterials in its products and supply chain, (ii) “[p]ut a policy in place that suppliers must disclose if their products contain or were manufactured with the use of nanomaterials,” (iii) require “that their supply chain disclose any use of nanomaterials and all related safety testing data and safety…
McDonald’s Corp. has reportedly responded to a San Francisco ban on giving away toys with its Happy Meals® by allowing parents to purchase the toys with a 10-cent charitable contribution when they buy a Happy Meal®. While the toy purchase is purportedly a separate transaction that complies with the new ordinance, it will still require a Happy Meal® purchase because toys cannot not be obtained by those who do not purchase the meal for their children. Previously, the toys could be purchased without buying a Happy Meal®. According to the company, the donations will help build a new Ronald McDonald House where parents of sick children at a University of California, San Francisco, hospital currently under construction will be able to stay. At least one public health advocate, evidently unhappy with the company’s action, was quoted as saying that McDonald’s “has developed a response to the law that allows them…
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) recently issued a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to update the agency on its findings about mycoprotein, a meat-substitute marketed under the brand name Quorn. Following up on a 2002 campaign, the latest initiative claims that the RNA-reduced mold Fusarium venenatum used to produce Quorn is not safe, with consumers reporting reactions such as vomiting and diarrhea, hives, and anaphylaxis. “CSPI has now received about 500 reports of adverse reactions from Americans, as well as about 1,200 from the United Kingdom, other European countries, Scandinavia, and Australia,” writes CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson. Believing that small-print allergen warnings are not enough in this case, the group has asked FDA to compel Quorn to display “a prominent and candid front-label disclosure” alerting consumers to the alleged side effects. CSPI has also requested a revocation of mycoprotein’s generally recognized as…
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has issued a December 2011 report claiming that many popular cereal brands marketed to children contain “just as much sugar as a dessert—or more.” After reviewing 84 popular brands, the report’s authors alleged that three out of four cereals failed “to meet the federal government’s proposed voluntary guidelines for food nutritious enough to be marketed to children,” with 21 cereals exceeding the sugar limit “recommended by the industry’s own nutrition initiative.” In particular, EWG purportedly found that (i) 56 cereals contained “more than 24 to 26 percent sugar by weight”; (ii) 71 cereals exceeded 140 milligrams of sodium and 10 exceeded 210 milligrams; (iii) seven cereals exceeded 1 gram of saturated fat; and (iv) “at least 26 cereals are not predominantly whole-grain.” The group also criticized cereal companies for opposing the 2016 nutrition guidelines suggested by the federal Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Food Marketed…
A World Trade Organization (WTO) panel has issued a ruling against the United States in a dispute with Mexico and Canada over country-of-origin labeling (COOL) regulations for beef and pork products. According to the November 18, 2011, panel report, Canada and Mexico filed complaints arguing that U.S. COOL regulations enacted in 2008 afford “imported livestock treatment less favorable than that accorded to like domestic livestock.” In addition to labeling requirements, the regulations evidently required the segregation of imported livestock before processing, as well as ear tags certifying that the cattle are free of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Although the WTO panel reportedly affirmed the right of the United States to enact COOL regulations, it found that the specific requirements provided less favorable treatment to Canadian and Mexican livestock. “Additionally, the panel determined that the U.S. COOL requirements fail to fulfill their consumer information objective because the information included on the labels…
A November 7, 2011, Food Safety News report has questioned the practice of filtering honey to remove pollen, alleging that “more than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn’t exactly what the bees produce.” According to investigative reporter Andrew Schneider, the ultrafiltering process “is a spin-off of a technique refined by the Chinese” that makes it impossible to determine the honey’s source. As a result, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not consider ultra-filtered products to be “honey,” although it does not check domestic honey for pollen. Food Safety News sent 60 honey samples bought in 10 states and Washington, D.C., to Texas A&M melissopalynologist Vaughn Bryant for pollen analysis. The results purportedly showed that 76 percent of samples bought at groceries stores had all the pollen removed, while 100 percent of samples from drugstores and 100 percent of individually packaged samples for restaurants contained no…
Walter Willett, Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, and David Ludwig, Department of Medicine, Children’s Hospital (Boston), have co-authored a perspective piece in The New England Journal of Medicine titled “The 2010 Dietary Guidelines—The Best Recipe for Health?” While noting that some of the dietary guideline changes represent positive progress, they express concerns about “several components” lacking in “scientific foundation,” such as burying a recommendation to limit sugar-sweetened beverages “deep in the guidelines” and continuing to recommend “three daily servings of dairy products, despite a lack of evidence that dairy intake protects against bone fractures and probable or possible links to prostate or ovarian cancers.” Among other matters, the authors suggest that stronger, clear, scientifically sound guidelines require (i) removing primary responsibility for their development from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has “conflicts of interest . . . arising from its institutional mission to promote commodities,” to the…
