A recent study purportedly ties compounds in nonstick cookware and waterproof fabrics to higher cholesterol levels in children. Stephanie Frisbee, et al., “Perfluorooctanoic Acid, Perfluorooctanesulfonate, and Serum Lipids in Children and Adolescents,” Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, September 2010. Researchers from West Virginia University evaluated 12,476 children and teens in the mid-Ohio River Valley to determine possible connections between their cholesterol levels and the compounds perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS). According to the abstract, researchers determined that the compounds were “significantly associated” with increased total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL). Results also apparently indicated that the children with the highest levels of PFOA had total cholesterol levels 4.6 points higher and LDL levels 3.8 points higher than those with the lowest levels. See Reuters, September 6, 2010.
Where science has left a void, politics and marketing have rushed in,” writes Denise Grady in this New York Times article detailing the contentious scientific debate over bisphenol A (BPA) and its potential human health effects, including “cancer, obesity, infertility, and behavior problems.” Because researchers have not yet reached a consensus, the issue of BPA’s safety has become “highly partisan,” according to Grady. On the one hand, Democrats and environmental groups have urged regulators to adopt a precautionary, “better-safe than-sorry approach” similar to the one favored by the European Union. On the other hand, “Republicans, anti-regulation activists and the food-packaging and chemical industries” have insisted that BPA is harmless and “all but indispensable to keeping canned food safe.” Grady attributes much of this rancor to the challenge of reproducing and reconciling study results, which often rely on different methodologies and data sets with varying degrees of integrity. “Animal strains, doses,…
The American Bar Association Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section’s Animal Law Committee will convene a teleconference on September 28, 2010, to discuss farmed animal welfare and related labeling issues. Temple Grandin, a Colorado State University professor well-known for her work in animal science, will be among the panel of experts to discuss (i) “commercial speech and the role of liability for false advertising under federal and state law in the labeling of food products”; (ii) “the movement to promote more detailed labeling regarding animal welfare and to create verifiable compliance”; (iii) “what, if any, legal meanings are ascribed to terms such as ‘humane,’ ‘cage-free,’ ‘free-range,’ ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ and how are they used in practice vis a vis animal welfare”; and (iv) “the rapidly shifting world of scientific awareness and consumer perceptions regarding what constitutes satisfactory animal welfare, and its impact on producers’ ability to provide accurate labeling.”
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s (IATP’s) Food and Society Fellows and Healthy Food Action project have announced a September 16, 2010, webinar titled “Superbugs, Super Problems: Agricultural Antibiotics and Emerging Infections.” Three presenters who recently testified before Congress will address “[t]he new scientific consensus . . . that routine, unnecessary use of antibiotics in livestock and poultry contributes significantly to a costly epidemic of antibiotic resistance” in diseases such as Salmonella, E. coli, and MRSA. Speakers will include University of Minnesota Professor of Medicine James Johnson; Gail Hensen, a senior officer of the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industry Farming; and Maryn McKenna, author of Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA. To register for the program, please click here. Meanwhile, a coalition of agricultural and consumer groups has reportedly hand-delivered 180,000 letters to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in response to the agency’s call for comments…
Consumer groups recently released a report urging the U.S. Senate to pass its version of a food safety bill (S. 510) in light of a recent egg recall linked to foodborne illness. Published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and the Consumer Federation of America, the report examines “85 recalls that have taken place in the year since food safety reform moved to the U.S. Senate.” The U.S. House of Representatives passed its food reform bill (H.R. 2749) on July 30, 2009. “The recalls involved tons of foods, including many name-brand products from more than 150 companies,” according to the report, which purportedly found that a majority of the recalls involved Salmonella and Listeria. “While most of the recalls were not connected to outbreaks, illnesses were associated with nine recalls that together were associated with 1,850 reported illnesses.” “Recalls and…
For the second time in less than a month, Heartland Sweeteners has apparently been told by an advertising industry self-regulatory body that the company should not promote its Nevella with Probiotics® artificial sweetener with immune system and digestive health claims unless it can support them with “competent and reliable evidence.” Information about action taken against the company in August 2010 by the appellate arm of the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus appears in Issue 362 of this Update. NAD apparently took its latest action in response to a challenge filed by Heartland rival McNeil Nutritionals, LLC, which makes Splenda®. Among Heartland’s claims were that its product “Provides digestive and immune system health benefits in every packet,” “Promotes digestive health” and “Supports a healthy immune system.” According to NAD, the company based its claims on studies about the benefits of individual ingredients. “[W]hen the substantiation…
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has reportedly filed lawsuits in Colorado and Nebraska federal courts against a meatpacking company that allegedly “created a hostile work environment for its Somali and Muslim employees due to their race, national origin, and religion.” According to the EEOC, the workers’ supervisors and co-workers “threw blood, meat, and bones at the Muslim employees and called them offensive names,” placed offensive graffiti on restroom walls and made other offensive comments. The company also allegedly failed to accommodate the Muslim employees “by refusing to allow them to pray according to their religious tenets.” The complaints further apparently allege retaliation, claiming that the employees were fired when “they requested that their evening break be moved so that they could break their fast and pray at sundown during the month of Ramadan.” See EEOC Press Release, August 31, 2010.
Federal officials have indicted executives of a German import company, a Chinese national and a number of companies, charging them with importing honey from China into the United States by illegal means that avoided the payment of duties and allowed product adulterated with antibiotics to enter the country. U.S. v. Wolff, No. 08-417 (N.D. Ill., filed August 31, 2010). The honey was purportedly shipped through other countries, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, India, the Philippines, Indonesia and Russia, mislabeled and then shipped to the United States, thus avoiding some $78 million in anti-dumping duties applicable to Chinese-origin honey. The conspiracy allegedly began in early 2002 and ended in early 2009. The indictment includes 44 counts of illegal activity, including falsifying documents and placing into interstate commerce food with unsafe additives, specifically, the antibiotics norfloxacin and ciprofloxacin. Meanwhile, a coalition of honey producers has reportedly called on the industry to…
On behalf of a putative nationwide class of indirect potato purchasers, a San Francisco restaurateur has sued a number of potato industry participants, including co-operatives, growers, packers, and distributors, alleging that they have conspired since 2006 to control and reduce the supply of potatoes in an effort to keep crop prices high. Florez v. Idahoan Foods, LLC, No. 10-3984 (N.D. Cal., filed September 3, 2010). The complaint refers to specific meetings of “cartel” members and discusses newspaper articles comparing the cooperative venture to OPEC, the oil-producing country organization that controls output and pricing in that industry. Member growers purportedly reduced their acreage, in some instances plowing under crops already grown, and submitted to audits to confirm that they were complying with production limits. Alleging that class members were harmed by paying “supracompetitive prices for potato products during the class period, higher than that which they would have paid in the…
After the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it had begun issuing permits to sugar beet seed producers to plant genetically modified (GM) crops this fall, the Center for Food Safety and a number of other groups filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the action. When Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the agency’s “next steps” as to Roundup Ready® sugar beets, he acknowledged the August 2010 federal court ruling that returned GM sugar beets to regulated status until the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) can complete an environmental impact statement (EIS) about the effects of deregulating the crop. According to APHIS, producers who have applied for the permits will be allowed to plant GM seedlings immediately but must not allow them to flower, and the agency will make decisions about interim regulatory measures by the end of the year on the seed producer’s request to partially deregulate…
