A federal magistrate judge in Illinois has stayed a putative class action, the fourth of five brought against The Quaker Oats Co., alleging that the company deceives consumers by representing that its granola and oatmeal products are “heart healthy,” “wholesome,” and a “smart choice made easy,” when they actually contain trans fat. Askin v. The Quaker Oats Co., No. 11-111 (N.D. Ill., order entered February 15, 2012). The named plaintiff, a New York resident, filed his complaint on behalf of a putative nationwide class after other similar suits were filed in California, where they are proceeding as one consolidated action. He unsuccessfully sought to consolidate all of the action in Illinois before a multidistrict litigation court. Quaker and the intervening plaintiffs, who filed the California actions, asked the court to dismiss the Illinois action under the first-to-file rule, and the court denied the request despite finding that the suits are…
California EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has extended the comment period for several chemicals, including benzophenone, a chemical used in plastic packaging as a UV blocker, that the agency is considering adding to the list of chemicals known to the state to cause cancer (Prop. 65) under the Labor Code mechanism. Public comments are now requested by March 22, 2012. According to OEHHA, “[b]ecause these are ministerial listings, comments should be limited to whether the International Agency for Research on Cancer has identified the specific chemical or substance as a known or potential human or animal carcinogen.”
A meeting of World Health Organization (WHO) health experts has reportedly reached a consensus on whether to proceed with controversial avian influenza research despite potential security risks. WHO apparently convened the consultation after officials expressed concern about H5N1 strains modified in U.S. and Dutch laboratories to spread more easily among mammals. In particular, panelists discussed recommendations to redact two studies on the new viruses and implement “a mechanism for providing the restricted information to legitimate recipients.” “Given the high death rate associated with this virus—60 percent of all humans who have been infected have died—all participants at the meeting emphasized the high level of concern with this flu virus in the scientific community and the need to understand it better with additional research,” said WHO Assistant Director-General of Health Security and Environment Keiji Fukuda in a February 17, 2012, press release. “The results of this new research have made it…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued updated industry guidance “pertaining to the establishment and maintenance of records by persons who manufacture, process, pack, transport, distribute, receive, hold, or import food.” Although this fifth edition is effective immediately, FDA welcomes comments at any time. Requiring records that identify “immediate previous sources and the immediate subsequent recipients of food” along the food-distribution chain, FDA has been given expanded authority by the Food Safety and Modernization Act of 2011 to “access records relating to foods that may cause serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.” Although the guidance incorporates these statutory changes, it has not deviated much from the fourth edition released in September 2006, FDA said. Rather, it provides practical information on such topics as records requirements, retention and availability, and “the consequences of failing to establish and maintain required records or failing to make required records…
According to Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has agreed to investigate the safety and legality of AeroShot®, which allows consumers to inhale a powder delivering 100 mg of caffeine to the body. Created by a Harvard professor and a company led by Harvard graduate Tom Hadfield, the product was apparently launched in January 2012 in New York and Boston markets. Its sale is not limited by any age restrictions nor has the product been reviewed by any agency. Still, Hadfield has reportedly indicated that the FDA review “will conclude that AeroShot is a safe, effective product that complies with FDA regulations.” Schumer called for the FDA review in a December 2011 letter raising concerns about the use of caffeine by children and adolescents. He also noted that a company marketing video “flashes through a variety of settings, including a dance party, a club scene, and…
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued its non-cancer dioxin reassessment 27 years after the ubiquitous chemical was last assessed and has established a consumption limit of 0.7 picogram of dioxin per kilogram of body weight per day. The agency has found that, while low-dose exposures persist, primarily from the consumption of meat, fish and other animal products, and ultra-low levels of exposure can pose health risks, “current exposure to dioxins does not pose a significant health risk” over a lifetime, given significant reductions in industrial dioxin emissions. According to EPA, air emissions of the chemical from industrial processes have been reduced 90 percent since the 1980s, but it breaks down slowly and remains in the water and soil to be consumed by fish and livestock feeding on contaminated plants. Most ambient dioxin today is apparently a result of backyard trash burning. The non-cancer health effects examined in this…
U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) has sent a letter to more than 60 food producers and retailers, “asking them to disclose their policies on antibiotic use in meat and poultry production.” Citing “decades of research,” the February 16, 2012, letter claims that agricultural antibiotic applications have contributed to drug-resistant disease in humans and seeks to clarify “the extent to which the fast food industry sources its meat and poultry from companies that routinely use antibiotics to raise livestock.” Slaughter, the only microbiologist in Congress, is soliciting information from retailers about their meat and poultry purchasing practices, as well as any efforts to educate consumers about the antibiotics used during food production. In particular, the letter directs recipients to provide details about whether their beef, pork and poultry supplies were produced (i) “without any antibiotics”; (ii) “in a manner that includes antibiotics only for disease treatment”; (iii) “in a manner that…
A recent study has claimed that bisphenol A (BPA) exposure causes pancreatic cells to secrete increased amounts of insulin, thereby raising questions about the substance’s effect on insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and obesity. Sergi Soriano, “Rapid Insulinotropic Action of Low Doses of Bisphenol-A on Mouse and Human Islets of Langerhans: Role of Estrogen Receptor β,” PLoS One, February 2012. Researchers evidently used pancreatic β-cells, which produce insulin, as well as whole islets of Langerhans from human donors to demonstrate that “environmentally relevant doses of BPA (1 nM) stimulated glucose-induced insulin secretion in human islets, giving a response which is almost twice the insulin release elicited by a stimulatory glucose concentration, 8 mM.” According to media sources, the study pinpoints the mechanism by which BPA is thought to influence insulin production in pancreatic cells. “When you eat something with BPA, it’s like telling your organs that you are eating more…
Environmental health activists in Maine are reportedly campaigning to extend the state’s current ban on bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles, sippy cups and reusable food containers to all food containers within three years. Spearheaded by the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine, the effort follows a chemical analysis funded by the group that detected BPA in baby and toddler foods. According to the activists, 15 food containers were sent to a San Francisco independent lab to test for BPA, a packaging chemical used as an epoxy liner inside metal food cans and metal lids of glass jars, that has allegedly “been linked to cancer, obesity, learning disabilities, male infertility, and early puberty in girls.” Test results found BPA in 11 of 12 baby food containers manufactured by BeechNut, Gerber, Earth’s Best Organic, and Shaw’s Wild Harvest Brand and in all three canned foods featuring Campbell’s Original Disney Princess…
A university lecturer in global health politics at the University of Oxford has called for the World Health Organization (WHO) to use a “vastly underused” mechanism, a legally binding framework convention requiring just a two-thirds vote, to address the health burdens and mortality purportedly attributed to alcohol consumption. In the February 16, 2012, issue of Nature journal, Devi Sridhar, D.Phil., points to WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control as one of just two such treaties adopted in more than 60 years. These conventions impose legal requirements on member states, which commit to applying the agreement through national legislation and must report their progress to WHO. According to Sridhar, “2.5 million deaths a years, almost 4% of all deaths worldwide, are attributed to alcohol—more than the number of deaths caused by HIV/ AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria. Alcohol consumption is the world’s third-largest risk factor for health burden; in middle-income countries, which…
