The U.S. Senate recently confirmed Elisabeth Hagen as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) under secretary for food safety. President Barack Obama (D) used a “recess appointment” in August 2010 to install Hagen as USDA’s top food-safety official after the Senate had not yet confirmed her appointment since her nomination nearly a year earlier. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack was quoted as saying that Hagen’s background as USDA’s chief medical officer and senior executive within its Food Safety and Inspection Service will serve her well because “there is no higher priority at USDA than ensuring that Americans have access to a safe and healthy food supply.” See USDA Press Release, September 16, 2010.
Austin DeCoster, who owns the Iowa egg production facility at the center of a Salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds, reportedly testified during a U.S. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing that his company “was horrified to learn that our eggs may have made people sick.” DeCoster was also quoted as saying, “We apologize to everyone who may have been sickened by eating our eggs.” With evidence apparently mounting that DeCoster operations have been flouting worker, environmental and food safety regulations for years, it is reportedly becoming clearer to legislators that food safety “is a public health imperative” that should be addressed at the federal level. DeCoster egg farms on the East Coast were reportedly responsible in the 1980s for Salmonella outbreaks that killed a number of people and sickened hundreds more, leading several states to ban the sale of his eggs. During the hearing, Democratic Representative Edward Markey (Mass.)…
Concerned about certified-organic agricultural interests in his state and consumer confidence in the “organics” label, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has called on Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to “ensure that foreign imports, especially from China, meet the same high standards as domestically produced organic products.” In his September 20, 2010, letter, Schumer refers to media accounts questioning the validity of organic claims for Chinese agricultural exports and a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) audit that revealed “potential problems with oversight of Chinese-produced organic products.” Schumer urges the agency “to review its system of oversight for foreign certifiers, especially those operating in China,” to ensure that current practices comply with U.S. standards. Schumer states, “[G]iven China’s extremely poor track record on ensuring the safety and quality of its products, it is imperative that USDA thoroughly scrutinize its program to certify Chinese organic products to determine if it is managed and funded appropriately.”…
A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel has reportedly declined to take action or make any recommendations about the safety of genetically modified (GM) salmon at the conclusion of hearings that drew considerable media and public attention. A Massachusetts based company has been trying to bring its AquAvantage® salmon to the market for more than 10 years. If it succeeds, the fish, which reportedly grow to full size in half the time as conventional salmon, will be the first GM animal sold for human consumption. According to a news source, FDA’s Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee indicated that it lacked sufficient safety data to make a determination and suggested that the government undertake a more rigorous analysis of potential health effects and environmental impact. Agency documents made available before the hearing reportedly indicated that FDA was prepared to conclude that no biologically relevant differences between GM salmon and conventional salmon…
Writing in the New Scientist, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist recently discussed the latest research on the effect of “junk food,” or foods high in sugar, fat and salt, on animal and human brains and behavior. Bijal Trivedi reports, “Some say there is now enough data to warrant government regulation of the fast food industry and public health warnings on products that have harmful levels of sugar and fat.” According to Trivedi, studies have shown that some foods appear to have an addictive effect similar to cocaine addiction on rat brains and that two routes to “food addiction” could be linked to overactive and underactive dopamine systems: “one if you find food more rewarding than the average person, and another if it isn’t rewarding enough.” Trivedi discusses the consideration that tobacco activist John Banzhaf has been giving to “food addiction”; he apparently believes that sufficient evidence exists for the U.S. Office…
The Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has released a fall 2010 paper highlighting obesity prevention policies with “the potential for the greatest impact.” The center’s recommendations relate to preschools and schools, consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, marketing to children, weight bias, food deserts, and ongoing surveillance of these efforts. Among other guidelines, the paper urges legislators, regulators and other public health officials to (i) prohibit the sale of sugar-sweetened beverages and whole milk in preschools; (ii) restrict school sales of competitive foods to those which meet standards set by the Institute of Medicine, as opposed to the federal government; (iii) raise the cost of sugar-sweetened beverages by 10 to 20 percent; (iv) remove materials with branded foods from schools, preschools and all government properties frequented by children; and (v) require children’s meals to meet nutritional standards if they include incentives. According to the Rudd Center, “All of these strategies…
The National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA) and the U.S. Animal Health Association (USAHA) have prepared a white paper based on the Joint Strategy Forum on Animal Disease Traceability held August 30-31, 2010, in Denver, Colorado. Responding to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) “new, flexible framework for animal disease traceability,” the forum reportedly included attendees from 43 states, four tribes, 33 state health agencies, 38 industry organizations, eight universities, and 34 food producers and companies. It focused on the Traceability Regulation Working Group’s preliminary directions “in the areas of official identification, exemptions, performance standards, compliance components, recordkeeping requirements, and proposed timelines.” According to a September 10, 2010, press release, the paper specifically covers forum discussions related to (i) “the inclusion of identifying feeder cattle after a workable system is in place for adult cattle”; (ii) “the use and relevance of ‘Brite’ tags, back tags and brands”; (iii) “reasonable timelines…
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has released a report, “Driving the Fox from the Henhouse: Improving Oversight of Food Safety at the FDA and USDA,” that provides the results of a March 2010 survey of 8,000 food safety agency employees. Conducted at Iowa State University’s Center for Survey Statistics, the questionnaire solicited responses from 1,700 workers at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), who evidently reported that corporate and government interference “remains strong” in agency decision-making. The report highlights the 54 percent of respondents who reported “that the weight agencies give to political interests… is ‘too high,’” as well as the 34 percent who made similar statements about business interests. The findings also note that approximately one-quarter of respondents claimed to have “frequently or occasionally” experienced situations where either corporations or members of Congress “have forced the withdrawal or significant modification of [an…
A putative class action has apparently been filed in a federal court in Illinois by six named plaintiffs who allegedly became ill after consuming Salmonella-tainted eggs from Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms in Iowa. The plaintiffs’ attorney has reportedly been given permission to inspect the farms for evidence. According to a news source, the plaintiffs allege that the companies’ negligence is responsible for the outbreak and suggest that more than the known 1,500 individuals sickened by the contaminated eggs could be class members. In a related development, news sources report that Wright County Egg had dozens of positive results for Salmonella from swabs taken on conveyor belts and in other facility areas as early as 2008 and failed to notify local, state or federal officials. Animal safety experts reportedly called such contamination “surprising” and suggested that repeated positives indicate the company was not “getting to the root cause of what the…
POM Wonderful LLC has filed a complaint for declaratory relief in a D.C. federal court against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), alleging that it (i) exceeded its authority in requiring Food and Drug Administration (FDA) preapproval of health-related claims on food products, that is, those claims stating that a product treats, mitigates or prevents disease, and substantiation of non-disease-related claims with two “well-controlled” clinical studies; (ii) violated advertisers’ First and Fifth Amendment rights by requiring compliance with these new standards; and (iii) failed to comply with notice and comment rulemaking procedures in establishing the standards. POM Wonderful LLC v. FTC, No. 10-1539 (D.D.C., filed September 13, 2010). According to the complaint, FTC has advised POM Wonderful that it must comply with standards recently announced in consent orders against other companies and now apparently applicable to the food and dietary supplement industry as a whole. Additional information about one of those orders…
