U.S. Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have reportedly joined the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network and a coalition of federal, state and local public health organizations in urging U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin to investigate the alleged association between sugar-sweetened drinks and rising obesity rates. According to a September 12, 2012, letter, the senators have asked Benjamin to conduct a study that would determine “the impact of sugary drinks on rates of American obesity and whether public health proposals that target sugary beverages will positively impact public health.” “As America’s waistline has expanded, so too has our access to sugary drinks,” states the letter. “Beverages like soda, sports drinks, lemonade, juice drinks, and sweetened teas are cheap and available everywhere. Doctors and public health experts recommend limiting and reducing the consumption of sugary drinks, especially in children, but kids and adults drink twice…
Researchers using data for nearly 500,000 men and women participating in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study have purportedly found that coffee consumption is “inversely associated with colon cancer, particularly proximal tumors.” Rashmi Sinha, “Caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee and tea intakes and risks of colorectal cancer in a large prospective study,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, June 13, 2012. Ninety percent of the cohort drank coffee, and 16 percent consumed more than four cups per day. “Compared with nondrinkers, heavy coffee drinkers (≥6 cups/d) were more likely to be men, current smokers, and physically inactive and consumed more red meat and alcohol but less fruit and vegetables.” Heavy coffee drinkers also apparently consumed predominantly caffeinated coffee. According to the researchers, “there was an inverse association between individuals who drank 4-5 cups coffee/d compared with nondrinkers with colon cancer (HR: 0.85; 95%, CI: 0.75, 0.96), and the association was even stronger…
Relying on data provided by a study of more than 60,000 Norwegian women from 1999 to 2008, Swedish and Norwegian researchers have found that a “high intake of both AS [artificially sweetened] and SS [sugar-sweetened] beverages is associated with an increased risk of preterm delivery.” Linda Englund-Ögge, et al., “Association between intake of artificially sweetened and sugar-sweetened beverages and preterm delivery: a large prospective cohort study,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, August 2, 2012. The women were asked about servings of carbonated soft drinks and non-carbonated beverages, both AS and SS, per day, week and month, and a serving was defined as 250 mL for all beverages. The groups were divided into AS and SS groups and further divided into intake categories. For women consuming more than one serving per day of AS beverages, the adjusted odds ratio for preterm delivery was 1.11. Consumption of more than one serving of…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reportedly approved the use by Ohio State University (OSU) investigators of brain pacemakers as an obesity treatment. Deep-brain stimulation has apparently been approved for use in the treatment of disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, tremor, dystonia, and severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, and OSU researchers and clinicians evidently made the case for use of the therapy to treat obesity in an article recently published in Neurosurgery. According to OSU Professor of Neurological Surgery Ali Rezai, the goal will be to stimulate the region of the brain linked to addictive behavior to improve its function, regulation and control. “Research shows that many of the complexities of obesity are traced to faulty signals in the brain. Considering the heightened health risks in obese individuals and the problems that some patients have after bariatric surgery, it is reasonable to consider deep-brain stimulation as a treatment,” he said. See…
The American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics will sponsor a conference in Atlanta, Georgia, October 10-12, 2012, that will focus in part on food-related issues. The “Public Health law Conference 2012: Practical Approaches to Critical Challenges,” event will include concurrent sessions titled (i) “If Sugar Is Addictive, What Does It Mean for the Law?,” including panelist Ashley Gearhardt, who has written on this topic with the Rudd Center’s Kelly Brownell in Biological Psychiatry; (ii) “Hot Topics in Preemption—From Fast Food to Fire Sprinklers to Safety Nets,” including panelist Mark Pertschuk, who actively promoted nonsmokers’ rights from 1987-2007; and (iii) “Enhancing the Safety of What We Eat: FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act,” including panelist Bruce Clark, an attorney with the Marler Clark firm which focuses its practice on food-contamination lawsuits.
According to a news source, a Brazilian court has determined that Nestlé’s strawberry-flavored Bono Cookies® contain genetically modified (GM) soybeans at levels in excess of a 1 percent limit and that the company must thus place a yellow triangle with a “T” in the middle along with the word “transgenic” on its product labels. Failure to do so will apparently result in a fine of nearly $2,500 USD per product found in the market to contravene the order. The European Union and Japan also reportedly require GM foods to be labeled, and California voters will vote on a GM labeling referendum this fall. See Food World News, August 27, 2012.
The manufacturer that sells the Bosch®, Thermador® and Gaggenau® brands of home appliances has sued the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts seeking a declaration that it has not infringed the defendant’s trademarks and copyrights or the publicity rights related to the late Julia Child. BSH Home Appliances Corp. v. The Julia Child Found. for Gastronomy & the Culinary Arts, No. 12-11590 (D. Mass, filed August 24, 2012). According to the complaint, Julia Child used the plaintiff’s Thermador® oven for many years both on the set of The French Chef TV program and in her personal kitchen, which, after she died, was donated to and appears in the Smithsonian Institution. The oven maker claims that it has used images of Julia Child “and references to the well-known historical fact of her use of Thermador products in various media, including on its website and on its social media web…
The Center for Food Safety and Center for Environmental Health have filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alleging that the agency has unlawfully delayed adopting implementing regulations under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Ctr. for Food Safety v. Hamburg, No. 12-4529 (N.D. Cal., filed August 29, 2012). According to the complaint, FDA has missed seven statutory deadlines thus “failing to implement FSMA’s major food safety regulations.” Characterizing the failure as “an abdication of the agency’s fundamental responsibilities,” the plaintiffs claim that this delay “is putting millions of lives at risk from contracting foodborne illnesses.” They also sued the Office of Management and Budget, claiming that it has also missed statutory deadlines in failing to approve the implementing regulations that FDA has submitted for its review. The complaint recites Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in six Americans…
A federal court in California has granted in part the motion to dismiss filed by the defendant in a putative class action alleging that it falsely misrepresents its smoothie kits as “All Natural” when they actually contain “unnaturally processed, synthetic and/or non-natural ingredients,” such as ascorbic acid, citric acid, xanthan gum, and steviol glycosides.” Anderson v. Jamba Juice Co., No. 12-1213 (N.D. Cal., order entered August 25, 2012). Additional information about the case appears in Issue 432 of this Update. The court agreed with Jamba Juice that the plaintiff had failed to state a warranty claim under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, because “the statement ‘All Natural’ is a general product description rather than a promise that a product is defect free.” Still, the court dismissed the plaintiff’s claim for breach of express warranty under the Act with leave to amend “to the extent some other basis may exist for this…
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that a Steak 'n Shake franchisee in Illinois was entitled to a preliminary injunction to stop the implementation of a new Steak 'n Shake policy for menu pricing and promotions. Stuller, Inc. v. Steak N Shake Enters., Inc., No. 11-2656 (7th Cir., decided August 24, 2012). The franchisee, in operation for more than 70 years, owns five restaurants and is the oldest Steak 'n Shake franchisee in the country. While Steak 'n Shake controls many aspects of restaurant management, some aspects are left to individual franchisees. Plaintiff Stuller, Inc. has had the ability to set menu prices throughout its history, but in June 2010, Steak 'n Shake demanded that all franchisees follow its menu pricing and promotions. Stuller brought a declaratory judgment action against Steak 'n Shake after the franchisor threatened to terminate Stuller’s franchises for refusing to implement the new policy. The…
