According to a Citizens for Health alert, certain food companies are engaging in what the advocacy organization characterizes as “pinkwashing,” that is, supporting breast cancer action and initiatives while making and selling products purportedly posing cancer risks. The alert is based on an article recently appearing in Marie Claire. Titled “The Big Business of Breast Cancer,” the article contends, “Breast cancer has made a lot of people very wealthy.” While the article focuses on charities that may spend more on overhead and salaries than for breast cancer research or support for patients, it also suggests avoiding “pink-ribbon merchandise.” Among the questions the article proposes asking before contributing to or purchasing a “pink” branded product is whether the product itself is “contributing to the breast cancer epidemic.
Category Archives Other Developments
The Center for Food Safety (CFS) has filed a legal petition on behalf of the “Just Label It” campaign with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), “demanding that the agency require the labeling of all food produced using genetic engineering [GE].” Representing health-care, consumer, agricultural, and environmental organizations, the campaign has urged the public to submit comments on the petition to FDA and to question why GE foods are patented for novelty but remain unlabeled. The petition specifically calls on FDA to rescind its 1992 Statement of Policy: Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties, which evidently determined that GE foods do not require special labeling because they “are substantially equivalent to foods produced through conventional methods.” Instead, the petitioners want FDA to issue “a new policy declaring that a production process is ‘material’ under FFDCA [the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act] section 201(n) if it results in a change…
The consumer group Citizens for Health has launched a website, FoodIdentityTheft.com, change of High Fructose Corn Syrup” and urges readers to contact federal agencies to oppose relabeling the ingredient “corn sugar.” The site also targets tomato sauces advertised as using “only the finest tomatoes” and blueberry-flavored products that allegedly contain “absolutely no blueberries.” “Many consumers believe that the U.S. government will protect us from false advertising or stop corporations from making unproven claims about their products,” said the site’s senior editor Linda Bonvie in a September 27, 2011, Citizens for Health press release. “But the truth is, corporations and their lobbyists have a huge influence in Washington. We as consumers have to protect ourselves, stay informed, and tell our legislators and government agencies that we won’t accept being lied to.” Dedicated to the “natural health consumer,” Citizens for Health has also organized a march from New York City to the…
Two nutritionists have published commentary in the September 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association that calls for the federal government to revisit a ban on using food stamps to purchase sugar-sweetened beverages. Authored by Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity Director Kelly Brownell and Harvard School of Public Health Professor David Ludwig, the article responds to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) rejection of a New York City proposed pilot program that would have prohibited soda purchases under the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Additional details about USDA’s decision appear in Issue 407 of this Update. The article notes that opposition to the proposal came from industry groups like the American Beverage Association but also “prominent antihunger groups,” some of which felt the ban would stigmatize SNAP recipients “and make them less likely to want to participate in the program.” To meet this…
A new Food & Water Watch report claims that the “genetic engineering [GE] of crops and animals for human consumption is not the silver bullet approach for feeding a growing population that the agribusiness and biotechnology industries claim it is. Conversely, studies find that GE plants and animals do not perform better than their traditional counterparts and raise a slew of health, environmental and ethical concerns.” According to the consumer watchdog, potential GE food risks include “increased food allergies and unknown long term health effects in humans; the rise of superweeds that have become resistant to GE-affiliated herbicides; the ethical and economic concerns involved with the patenting of life and corporate consolidation of the seed supply; and the contamination of organic and non-GE crops and livestock through cross-pollination and seed dispersal.” Food & Water Watch recommends that U.S. regulators (i) “enact a moratorium on new U.S. approvals of genetically engineered…
Cara Wilking, a Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) staff attorney, has authored an issue brief intended to provide a legal foundation for consumer protection lawsuits against food companies that advertise “unhealthy food and beverage products” to children in a manner that she describes as “pester power” marketing. She explains that such marketing “targets children who, unable to purchase products for themselves, nag, pester and beleaguer their parents into purchasing unhealthy food products for them.” Wilking’s premise is that “[p]ester power marketing tactics are similar to oppressive and unscrupulous ‘high pressure’ sales tactics,” and that parents, for a number of reasons, are unable to say “no” when their children beg for these products in public. According to Wilking, two primary legal theories can support private litigant claims and are also “applicable to actions initiated by state attorneys general to protect the public interest.” Those theories are (i) “pester power marketing as…
The Public Health Law Center at William Mitchell College of Law has announced the launch of a series of free webinars that will address issues relating to tobacco control, obesity prevention, worksite wellness, active living, and public health legislation. Scheduled for October 5, 2011, the first webinar will feature staff attorneys presenting on “Drafting Effective Public Health Policies.” A number of the health center’s staff attorneys focus on tobacco-control issues and projects; listed as a consulting attorney is Mark Perstchuk, who is the past president and executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights.
The Breast Cancer Fund (BCF) recently issued a report alleging that six canned meal products marketed to children contain bisphenol A (BPA) at levels averaging 49 parts per billion (ppb). Researchers reportedly sent 12 items total to an independent laboratory, which pureed the can contents in “BPA-free materials” and assessed BPA levels using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry. According to the results, the sampled soups averaged 77.5 ppb of BPA and the meals 21 ppb, with one canned soup purportedly registering a BPA level of 148 ppb. “The levels of BPA we found in these canned foods marketed to children are of great concern,” states BFC in its report. “While a child-sized serving (about two-thirds of an adult-sized serving, according to Kaiser Permanente’s serving size estimates for children) may result in BPA exposure at a level of concern, an adult-sized serving given to a child would result in even higher BPA exposure.”…
The California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) has released a September 21, 2011, report claiming that federal agricultural subsidies are largely allocated to commodity crops such as soybeans and corn instead of fresh produce. Titled “Apples to Twinkies: Comparing Federal Subsidies of Fresh Produce and Junk Food,” the report alleges that, of the $260 billion spent on agriculture between 1995 and 2010, $16.9 billion subsidized “four common food additives—corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, and soy oils (which are frequently processed further into hydrogenated vegetable oils),” while only $262 million went to apple crops, “the only significant federal subsidy of fresh fruits or vegetables.” According to CALPIRG, these allocations are the equivalent of giving individual taxpayers enough to buy 19 Twinkies® each year “but less than a quarter of one Red Delicious apple apiece.” “This wasteful spending not only squanders taxpayer dollars: by fueling the crisis of childhood…
The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) has issued a report claiming that “almost 1 out of 11 radio ads for alcoholic beverages in 75 markets across the nation in 2009 failed to comply with the alcohol industry’s voluntary standard for the placement of advertising.” According to CAMY, “Approximately 9 percent of all alcohol product advertisements aired on programming with underage audiences in violation of the industry’s 30 percent standard,” thus accounting for 18 percent of youth exposure to alcohol advertising. The report also alleges that (i) 32 percent of advertising placements “occurred when proportionately more youth were listening than adults age 21 and above”; (ii) “these overexposing ads generated more than half of youth exposure to radio advertising for alcohol in 2009”; and (iii) “in 2009, girls ages 12 to 20 were more likely than boys in the same age group to be exposed to alcohol advertising for alcopops,…
