Trust for America’s Health, with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has released its annual obesity report. Titled F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing America, the sixth annual edition finds, among other matters, that adult obesity rates continued to rise in nearly half the states and that the states with the highest rates of adult, child and adolescent obesity are in the South. The report, which charts obesity-related diseases, physical activity and income level by state, also tracks trends in state legislation addressing nutritional standards for school meals and vending machines as well as laws requiring BMI screenings for school age children, health education, and farm-to-school programs. The report acknowledges “the current economic crisis,” suggesting that it will increase the cost of nutritious food; overextend safety-net programs and services and increase levels of depression, anxiety and stress, “which often can be linked to obesity.” To combat…
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According to a news source, the Canadian Journal of Public Health has published research showing that folic-acid fortified foods often contain, on average, 50 percent more of the vitamin than listed on product labels. Some foods apparently contain 377 percent of the folic acid declared. The federal government reportedly adopted a folic-acid fortification program in the late 1990s affecting products ranging from breads, cookies, crackers, and pastas to desserts and ready-to-eat cereals. The incidence of certain birth defects in Canada has dropped by more than half since then, and the program is also credited with reducing heart defects and neuroblastoma, a type of childhood cancer. Some in Canada have reportedly called for adding folic acid to other foods, but caution has been urged in light of the new research because too much folic acid can mask vitamin B12 deficiency, a problem for seniors with anemia. Excess levels can also apparently interfere…
The Urban Institute and the University of Virginia have issued a report claiming that lawmakers should study anti-tobacco campaigns as they consider taxing fattening foods and sugary drinks to curb the nation’s obesity problem. Titled “Reducing Obesity: Policy Strategies from the Tobacco Wars,” the report asserts that increased education about smoking and taxing tobacco products brought the percentage of U.S. smokers down from 42.4 percent of the population in 1965 to less than 20 percent in 2007. Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, was quoted as saying that raising taxes “brings about the quickest, most measurable, and most pronounced decline in use.” Policies suggested in the report include (i) the adoption of excise or sales taxes on “fattening food,” such as ice cream, sugary drinks and candy; (ii) the placement of “clear and simple labels,” such as traffic-light signpost labels, “conveying the health risks of fattening foods”…
Whole Foods Market Inc. has reportedly announced a partnership with the Non-GMO Project to independently certify that its private label products do not contain genetically modified (GM) ingredients. A non-profit collaboration of manufacturers, retailers, processors, distributors, and consumers, the Non-GMO Project maintains a product verification program (PVP) “to scientifically test whether a product has met a set of defined standards for the presence of genetically engineered organisms,” according to a July 7, 2009, Whole Foods press release, which claims that “75 percent of processed foods in the United States may contain components from genetically modified crops.” Whole Foods products bearing the non-GMO seal must undergo a verification process involving “on-site facility audits, document-based review and DNA testing” for “any ingredient at high risk for genetic contamination,” such as corn or soy. “Since there is no regulation regarding disclosure on products manufactured with GMO ingredients, we are committed to helping our…
A Plainview, Minnesota, milk cooperative has reportedly recalled two years’ worth of food products, including instant non-fat dried milk, whey protein, and fruit stabilizers and gums for fear that they are contaminated with Salmonella. While no illnesses have apparently been linked to the products, which are sold to food manufacturers and distributors only, the recall has been further expanded to products containing these ingredients. Among the other recalled foods are instant oatmeal, hot chocolate mix, popcorn toppings and shake mixes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reportedly detected Salmonella in a milkshake powder in June, and Food and Drug Administration investigators found the bacteria in the Plainview Milk Products Cooperative plant. See UPI.com, June 29, 2009; USA Today, July 6, 2009; FDA Press Release, July 8, 2009.
According to news sources, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspectors have found E. coli in a package of cookie dough at Nestlé USA’s plant in Danville, Virginia. The strain did not, however, match the DNA fingerprint of the strain purportedly linked to the illnesses of some 72 people in 30 states. FDA’s David Acheson, assistant commissioner for food safety, commenting on the continuing mystery as to how the E. coli contaminated the cookie dough, was quoted as saying, “This will be one of those situations where we won’t definitely know what went wrong.” The agency’s findings could affect the product liability lawsuits already pending in several states. Investigators reportedly performed more than 1,000 tests on environmental and other samples from the plant, but found no evidence of the potentially deadly bacteria inside the facility or on any equipment. The company has apparently begun a “controlled production startup” after discarding all stockpiled…
Researchers with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have reportedly identified a strain of Reston ebolavirus (REBOV) in pigs for the first time, raising questions about the ability of the virus to mutate and cause illness in humans. First reported in the July 3, 2009, issue of Science, the results apparently showed that various REBOV strains have been circulating in the pig population of the Philippines, suggesting that swine there could have harbored REBOV before 1989, when the disease was discovered in a monkey exported to Reston, Virginia. REBOV can be transmitted to humans, but does not cause them to contract illnesses such as the Ebola hemorrhagic fever often associated with this family of viruses. “REBOV infection in domestic swine raises concern about the potential for emerging disease in humans and a wider range of livestock,” stated the researchers in Science. “There is a concern that its passage through…
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has scheduled a conference for public policymakers, health leaders and others to consider “progress in the prevention and control of obesity through policy and environmental strategies.” The inaugural “Weight of the Nation Conference” will be held July 27-29, 2009, in Washington, D.C.; an interactive discussion format for speakers and participants has been planned. CDC will use information developed for and during the conference to produce its “National Road Map for Obesity Prevention and Control” guidelines. Among those who have been invited to speak are Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), and Representatives James Oberstar (D-Minn.) and Zack Wamp (R-Tenn.). Other speakers include Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Food Center for Policy and Obesity at Yale University, and Margo Wootan, director of Nutrition Policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. School nutrition, federal legislation, the…
The French National Institute for Agronomic Research has released the results of a market survey reportedly suggesting that European consumers cannot distinguish between wines with 9 to 11 percent alcohol content by volume and those with 12 to 14 percent. Twelve scientific teams have apparently “demonstrated that producers could reduce the alcohol content by up to three percentage points without an ordinary drinker noticing,” according to a June 22, 2009, article in The London Times. “In blind tastings, the French consumers like quality wines with a reduced alcohol content as much as standard wines,” stated the institute’s report. The results have challenged traditional wine mores in Europe, which previously prohibited a method used in the United States and Australia to remove excess alcohol from finished products via osmosis. Wine producers, however, have asked the European Union to approve this process, known as de-alcoholization, in light of slumping wine sales and…
European farmers recently staged a demonstration outside a meeting of EU agriculture ministers in Luxembourg City, where protesters blocked traffic with tractors, burned a bale of hay and spilled milk in opposition to softening commodity prices. Led by Copa-Cogeca and the European Milk Board, the protesters called on “the heads of state and government to set clear political guidelines for addressing the crisis in the dairy sector,” according to a June 18, 2009, press release. “We want to draw the public’s attention to how serious the situation is,” stated Copa-Cogeca Secretary General Pekka Pesonen. “Having sustainable food production in Europe is at least as vital as having a strong banking sector.” The European Commission has reportedly reinstated export subsidies and purchasing quotas in an emergency effort to shore up dairy markets, but EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has also urged retailers to explain why plummeting wholesale milk prices have…
