According to NowPublic.com, a self-proclaimed participatory online news network, the food industry, facing legislative initiatives that would require posting calorie and other nutritional information on restaurant menu boards, is fighting back with state-level preemption laws. Ohio recently approved legislation (H.B. 217) giving the state’s Director of Agriculture the sole authority to regulate how and whether food service operations must provide food nutrition information to the public, thus putting an end to the disclosure movement that was apparently gaining momentum at the local level there. Legislation adopted in Georgia (H.B. 1303) would prevent political subdivisions from adopting similar local laws. NowPublic notes that the restaurant industry lost its federal preemption argument when mounting a challenge in court to a menu disclosure law that took effect in New York City. The industry then apparently “changed its strategy” by seeking legislation in Congress that would create federal preemption of calorie posting laws and in…
Category Archives Other Developments
According to a news source, the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division, at the request of Dannon, has asked General Mills Inc. to change the way it advertises the purported digestive health benefits of its Yoplait Yo-Plus® yogurt. Dannon apparently contended that General Mills’ claims about its ingredients helping to “regulate digestive health naturally” were not scientifically sound, and the division agreed, saying the studies that General Mills submitted “are not sufficient to support a health-related product performance claim.” A General Mills spokesperson apparently responded that the company disagreed with the division’s findings, “but we respect the process and will take these recommendations into account.” See Product Liability Law 360, December 9, 2008.
The American Soybean Association (ASA) has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of the Inspector General to investigate the administration of the federally mandated soy checkoff program that is responsible for industry-wide marketing and promotion efforts. “Serious ethical, legal and financial allegations have been raised about how farmer checkoff funds and program activities are being conducted,” stated ASA President John Hoffman in a press release that levied several charges against the United Soybean Board (USB) and the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USECC) for their oversight of checkoff resources. The association’s allegations include “the improper and wasteful expenditure of both checkoff and federal funds; potential evasion of mandated salary and administrative spending caps by USB; conflicts of interest at USB; use of checkoff funds for prohibited purposes by USB; and wasteful and excessive spending by USB.” In addition, ASA cited concerns about “improper USB oversight and tolerance of actions that…
The City University of New York Campaign Against Diabetes and the Public Health Association of New York City (PHANYC) have published a report, titled Reversing Obesity in New York City: An Action Plan for Reducing the Promotion and Accessibility of Unhealthy Food, that aims to educate policy makers, advocates and health professionals about food policy issues. Focused on lowering obesity rates in New York City, the report asks local government to: (i) “create local healthy food zones” in schools, churches, health centers, and other public institutions; (ii) “use zoning laws to reduce density of unhealthy food outlets”; (iii) “strengthen oversight of deceptive health claims in food advertising”; (iv) “discourage racial/ethnic targeting of unhealthy food advertisements”; (v) “tax unhealthy food such as sweetened soda and other beverages”; (vi) “support counter-advertising campaigns against unhealthy foods”; and (vii) “restrict advertising and promotion of unhealthy food.” In addition, CUNY Campaign Against Diabetes and PHANYC…
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has issued its annual Outbreak Alert! report, which claims that “a pound of fish and shellfish is 29 times more likely to cause illness than the safest food category, a pound of dairy foods.” According to CSPI, their database has tracked 1,140 foodborne illness outbreaks linked to fin fish, mollusks, and shrimp and lobsters. The group has attributed “a plurality of seafood outbreaks” to naturally occurring toxins such as scombrotoxin and ciguatoxin, but noted the impact of Vibrio bacteria and noroviruses. “Because foodborne illness is drastically underreported, because much foodborne illness does not occur in outbreaks, and because it is so difficult to prove which food caused an outbreak, CSPI’s data represents [sic] just the tip of the iceberg,” stated the watchdog in a November 25, 2008, press release. See FoodNavigator-USA.com, November 26, 2008.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has published new data on the levels of sodium in processed foods. CSPI apparently found that of the more than 500 products tested in 2005 and retested for this report, “[t]he average sodium content of 528 has remained essentially constant, increasing by a slight 0.6 percent. About as many products (109) increased by more than five percent as decreased (114) by that percentage. And there were almost twice as many (29) products that increased by 30 percent or more as decreased by that percentage (18).” CSPI calls on restaurateurs and food processors to “lower the sodium content of their foods for the sake of their customers’ health and to avoid unflattering publicity.” The advocacy group also calls on the federal government to set sodium limits for processed foods and for the Food and Drug Administration to change salt’s regulatory status from “Generally…
The UK Soil Association has reportedly urged veterinarians to limit their penicillin use after health officials found that cows from one unidentified English farm are carriers of extended-spectrum betalactamase (ESBL) E. coli, a rare antibiotic-resistant strain of the disease. Although the organic watchdog noted that the government has asked the farmer and his family to follow strict hygiene procedures, regulators have not placed any restrictions on the movement or sale of the infected herd. “The government often calls on doctors to prescribe antibiotics less often. But similar advice needs to be given to veterinary surgeons and farms,” stated a policy advisor for the Soil Association, which, as of 2009, will also no longer certify organic farms that treat their livestock with a class of antibiotics known as cephalosporins. See FoodProductionDaily.com, November 19, 2008.
In a continuing series on the purported health effects of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical widely used in plastic food storage containers and metal food cans, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported that all of the 10 “microwave safe” containers tested at the newspaper’s request leached BPA when heated in a microwave or conventional oven. While food companies advise worried parents to avoid microwaving food in plastic containers with the recycling number 7 stamped on the bottom, researchers apparently found that even those stamped with 2 and 5 leached the chemical. The highest bisphenol A levels reportedly leached from a can of liquid infant formula and a plastic food-storage container. Food company officials apparently responded to the findings by claiming that the low levels leached are insignificant. According to the Journal Sentinel, several peer-reviewed studies show harm to animals at levels similar to those detected in the newspaper’s tests, which…
The Produce Safety Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts has issued a report following its review of the government response to this summer’s Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak that affected thousands of consumers in many states and was never definitively linked to a source, although tomatoes and jalapeno peppers were alternately blamed. Citing specific examples of confusing, uncoordinated and poorly planned communiqués from multiple government agencies, the report calls for more post-mortem study of the government’s response to clarify its shortcomings and inform future efforts. Noting that federal agencies pointed to tomatoes as the cause of the outbreak, but that no contaminated tomato was ever found, the Pew report suggests that the error not only failed to adequately protect consumers but also cost the agricultural industry millions in losses and could have long-term impacts as consumers lose confidence in the safety of “fresh produce in general and fresh tomatoes in particular.” The…
The public interest group Food & Water Watch has urged consumers to contact the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) to oppose the use of the “USDA Organic” label for farmed fish. Food & Water Watch has accused industrial fish farmers of attempting to “greenwash” aquaculture practices that, according to the group, disrupt ocean ecosystems “by wiping out the fish on the bottom of the food chain” and increase “the amount of dangerous pollutants like mercury and PCBs” that wind up in farmed fish products. The organization warns consumers that feeding wild fish to farm-bred fish in deep-water open pens is not “consistent with [the] organic principles that you have come to trust and that require minimal impact on the environment, control of input and outputs, and animals to be raised on organically-raised feed.” Food & Water Watch recently initiated several action calls to counteract the final directives of the Bush…
