California EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has issued a notice of intent to list styrene as a chemical known to the state to cause cancer under Proposition 65 (Prop. 65), citing the National Toxicology Program’s (NTP’s) finding that styrene is “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.” Comments are requested by February 4, 2013. According to the notice, the proposed listing “meets the standard set out in the recent Court of Appeal decision in the Styrene Information and Research Council v. Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (3rd District, Nov. 15, 2012) case because the NTP conclusion is based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals.” Often used in food packaging materials, styrene occurs naturally at low levels in certain shrubs and trees. California consumers must be provided with warnings about those chemicals included on the Prop. 65 list. See OEHHA Notice of Intent, January 4, 2013.
According to a news source, the United Kingdom’s Community Trade Mark Office has determined that the shape of a KitKat® bar, which Nestlé registered as a community trademark in 2006, is valid, thus barring any other confectioners from selling products with a similar shape in the European Union. Nestlé competitor Cadbury makes a similar product and sought to invalidate the mark shortly after it was registered, claiming that the trait was too general to be protected. Cadbury is reportedly considering whether to appeal the ruling. See Huffington Post, January 3, 2013.
New Canadian regulations that took effect January 1, 2013, have reclassified energy drinks as food instead of natural health products and capped their caffeine content at 180 mg per serving. First proposed in 2011, the regulations aim to address concerns that consumers imbibing such beverages could exceed the maximum caffeine intake levels recommended by Health Canada. “Therefore, Health Canada conducted a scientific assessment of the potential hazards and exposure associated with the common ingredients found in these caffeinated beverages (including caffeine, vitamins, minerals, taurine etc.),” stated the agency, which ultimately reported that children and adolescents were “most at risk of exceeding Health Canada’s Recommended Maximum Daily Intakes (RMDI) for caffeine because of the volumes potentially consumed and the lower RMDI established for these populations, in comparison to adults.” In particular, the new regulations establish “an initial maximum limit for total caffeine of 400 mg per liter with a maximum amount…
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has launched a public consultation on its “first full risk assessment” of the artificial sweetener aspartame. According to a January 8, 2013, news release, EFSA’s Scientific Panel on Food Additive and Nutrient Sources Added to Food (ANS Panel) has issued a draft scientific opinion on the safety of aspartame that entailed “an in-depth review of peer-reviewed scientific and other literature on aspartame and its breakdown products, including new human studies.” Based on this information, the ANS Panel has concluded that aspartame and its breakdown products “pose no toxicity concern for consumers at current levels of exposure. The current Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) is considered to be safe for the general population and consumer exposure to aspartame is below this ADI.” “The ANS Panel’s draft opinion has benefitted from the latest scientific thinking and methodological approaches,” concludes EFSA, which has requested comments on the draft…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently drawn criticism over the delayed release of documents evaluating the environmental impact of genetically engineered (GE) salmon. Created by Massachusetts-based AquaBounty Technologies, the GE salmon in question evidently contain genes from Chinook salmon as well as ocean pout that allow the company to bring the fish to market in half the normal time. After a publicly contentious review process, FDA released the May 4, 2012, draft assessment and a preliminary finding of no significant impact in late December, raising questions among groups such as the Genetic Literacy Project (GLP) about whether the agency froze the application to avoid political turmoil during the election season. “The delay, sources within the government say, came after meeting with the White House, which was debating the political implications of approving the [GE] salmon, a move likely to infuriate a portion of its base,” GLP Executive Director…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is seeking comments and other information, including data, to help determine whether the agency can establish regulatory thresholds for major food allergens such as milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, and soybeans. In a recent notice, FDA states that although “[We have] used several risk management strategies to reduce the risk from unlabeled major food allergens, such as targeted inspections or discussions with industry organizations, we have not established regulatory thresholds or action levels for major food allergens. The establishment of regulatory thresholds or action levels for major food allergens would help us determine whether, or what type of, enforcement action is appropriate when specific problems are identified and also help us establish a clear standard… Regulatory thresholds also would help industry to conduct allergen hazard analyses and develop standards for evaluating the effectiveness of allergen preventive controls.” In particular, FDA…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed two new food safety rules addressing foodborne illness prevention and produce safety under the Food Safety Modernization Act. According to FDA, the first rule would require both foreign and domestic food manufacturers “to develop a formal plan for preventing their food products from causing foodborne illness” and to establish plans “for correcting any problems that arise.” The second rule proposes “enforceable safety standards for the production and harvesting of produce on farms,” including “science- and risk-based standards for the safe production and harvesting of fruits and vegetables.” Before drafting the rules, FDA apparently conducted “extensive outreach” involving the produce industry, consumers, other government agencies, and the international community. It will accept comments on both rules until May 16, 2013, and plans to issue further proposals addressing the safety and oversight of imported foods. “We know one-size-fits-all rules won’t work,” said FDA Deputy…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently adopted final amendments to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) that aim to “strengthen kids’ privacy protections and give parents greater control over the personal information that websites and online services may collect from children under 13.” Based on the findings of a review initiated in 2010, these amendments (i) “modify the list of ‘personal information’ that cannot be collected without parental notice and consent, clarifying that this category includes geolocation information, photographs, and videos”; (ii) “offer companies a streamlined, voluntary and transparent approval process for new ways of getting parental consent”; (iii) “close a loophole that allowed kid-directed apps and websites to permit third parties to collect personal information from children through plug-ins without parental notice and consent”; (iv) “extend coverage in some of those cases so that the third parties doing the additional collection also have to comply with COPPA”; (v)…
A recent World Health Organization-commissioned meta-analysis has reportedly concluded that diets lower in fat can reduce relative body weight by 1.6 kg, BMI by 0.56kg/m2 and waist circumference by 0.5 cm. Lee Hooper, et al., “Effect of reducing total fat intake on body weight: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials and cohort studies,” BMJ, December 2012. After analyzing results from 33 randomized control trials involving 73,589 participants and 10 cohort studies, researchers apparently found “high quality, consistent evidence that reduction of total fat intake has been achieved in large numbers of both healthy and at risk participants over many years.” In particular, the meta-analysis suggested that each 1 percent reduction in energy from total fat “resulted in a 0.19 kg reduction in body weight, compared with not altering total fat intake, in populations with 23-43% of energy from total fat, and in studies of six months to over…
A recent article has speculated that cheese consumption is behind the epidemiological phenomenon known as the “French paradox,” that is, “the low rates of cardiovascular mortality which have existed in France for decades despite high saturated fat consumption.” Ivan Petyaev and Yurig Bashmakov, “Could cheese be the missing piece in the French paradox puzzle,” Medical Hypotheses, December 2012. Although previous studies have attempted to link red wine consumption to reduced cardiovascular mortality, the article argues that the “French paradox” “seems to be a multifactorial phenomenon and not due solely to red wine intake.” The authors hypothesize that many cheeses—and particularly molded cheese—contain unique peptides “inhibiting the inflammatory cascade and angiotension-converting enzyme [that] may provide a pharmacological basis for this phenomenon.” They also note that in addition to bacteria-ripened varieties, such as Cheddar and Gouda, blue-veined cheeses including Roquefort contain “some important secondary metabolites” produced by Penicillium roqueforti, Penicillium camemberti or other…
