Researchers studying 31 different types of food purchased from supermarkets in Dallas, Texas, have apparently found a range of persistent organic pollutants, including organochlorine pesticides, at varying levels, although none exceeded Environmental Protection Agency reference doses or EU maximum residue levels for pesticide residues in food. Arnold Schecter, et al., “Perfluorinated Compounds, Polychlorinated Biphenyl, and Orgnaochlorine Pesticide Contamination in Composite Food Samples from Dallas, Texas,” Environmental Health Perspectives, February 10, 2010. Noting that a number of the pollutants tested have been banned for some time in the United States, the researchers nonetheless found them in meat products, fish, dairy, vegetable-based foods, and eggs. While uncertain whether some of the chemicals may have migrated from food packaging, the researchers conclude that “US food is contaminated with a wide range of chemicals, including pesticides, PFCs, and PCBs and that expanding the current monitoring beyond pesticides to include emerging pollutants is warranted.” The…
“Chalk it up to the lack of willpower, sway of culture, or love of the processed carb, but humans aren’t always rational eaters,” argues Sarah Elizabeth Richards in this February 16, 2010, Slate article that questions the effectiveness of efforts to make calorie counts more visible on menus and food packaging. Citing numerous recent studies that cast doubt on these labeling practices, Richards maintains that not only are “calorie counts irrelevant for consumers who don’t know how many calories they’re supposed to be eating in a day,” but “[it] can also be hard to take the counts seriously when you’re not even sure they’re accurate.” For Richards, although menu labeling and federal initiatives to realign product serving sizes are laudable, it remains difficult for most consumers to implement these tools as part of a sensible diet plan. She particularly focuses on a study published in the February 2010 edition of…
“In their critics’ eyes, producers of sugar-sweetened drinks are acting a lot like the tobacco industry of old: marketing heavily to children, claiming their products are healthy or at worst benign, and lobbying to prevent change,” begins New York Times columnist Mark Bittman in this article questioning whether aggressive public health initiatives, like those deployed to discourage smoking, could similarly curb soda consumption. Noting that Americans drink “roughly 50 gallons per person per year,” Bittman contests the value of industry claims that “in moderate quantities soda isn’t harmful, nor is it addictive.” His article goes on to summarize the arguments made by policy makers and advocates in favor of “a special tax on soda, similar to those on tobacco, gasoline and alcoholic beverages.” In particular, he cites the Rudd Center’s director, Kelly Brownell, who maintains that, “Unless food marketing changes, it’s hard to believe that anything else can work.” “In the…
This article claims that recent efforts to monitor and regulate marketing to children has had “an interesting side effect,” that is, a shift away from traditional tactics to “games, contests and events where the advertiser has only a subtle presence— exactly the opposite of what some of the advocacy groups were aiming for.” According to New York Times journalist Stephanie Clifford, children’s publications have increasingly sought to integrate corporate sponsorships with contests and features that emphasize their content. “Instead of just a straight selling of product, it’s all about how we tell the message in the magazine and how we engage with the kids,” stated one spokesperson for National Geographic Kids, which reported a decline in ad revenue “largely because of the economy but in part because of heightened concern about food advertising.” “But these kinds of strategies, created in part to sidestep advocates’ criticisms, are upsetting them all the…
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has announced a March 9, 2010, webinar to discuss “the rationale, relevant science, and economic and policy considerations of soft drink taxes.” The conference will reportedly update participants about the latest developments in state and local policies since July 2009, when director Kelly Brownell presented the center’s first webinar on this topic. The Rudd Center has consistently supported taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages to “improve public health and generate considerable revenue for states, cities, and the nation,” according to its website.
Anne Landman, who once had the tobacco industry in her sights and now posts for Center for Media and Democracy’s PRWatch.org, has reported that Washington, D.C.-based industry lobbyist Rick Berman and his Center for Consumer Freedom have launched a website “to harass” the Humane Society of the United States. Landman states that Berman “sets up his front groups as 501(c)4 organizations and then carries out his attacks through these groups to avoid disclosing his donors, so we have no way of knowing which industries or companies are funding Berman’s attack on the Humane Society. We can probably get a good idea though. Just determine which businesses profit most from animal cruelty, and you’ll likely find the funders among them.” Further discussion about Berman and his appearance on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC program appears in issues 321 and 322 of this Update. See PRWatch.org, February 17, 2010.
“Children are being paid up to £25 a week to promote sugary soft drinks and other products through social networking sites and playground chat,” claims a February 15, 2010, report published in the Daily Mail. Titled “Child ‘Mini-Marketers’ Paid by Junk Food Firms to Secretly Push Products Among Their Friends,” the article focuses on an advertising website, Dubit Insider, that offers vouchers worth £25 and free samples to children who sign on to become “brand ambassadors.” The Daily Mail alleges that this website recruits children ages 7 to 24 to “promote brands, products and services” among their peer group, suggesting that Dubit members can use their experience to enhance their college applications. “Companies are not just stalking kids online,” one consumer advocate was quoted as saying. “Close on half a million young people in the UK alone have been enlisted by big youth brands, and that’s the figure from just one…
According to legal commentators interviewed for an article in Law 360, consumer perceptions about the safety of food-packaging chemical bisphenol A (BPA), as well as increasing attention to the chemical in state legislatures, could result in a morass of litigation for years to come. While a $1 billion lawsuit is already pending in multidistrict litigation court against companies producing products, such as baby bottles, containing BPA, some say that manufacturers rushing to reformulate their packaging or products could inadvertently replace the substance with questionable alternatives. The article explores the scientific uncertainties currently informing the debate before the courts and policy makers and suggests that if the Food and Drug Administration ultimately concluded that BPA poses risks to human health, consumer fears would only be exacerbated. See Law 360, February 16, 2010. In a related development, the 95-2 vote in Wisconsin’s Assembly on February 16 has moved a BPA ban closer…
A court in Carcassonne, France, has reportedly found French winemakers and traders guilty of deliberately and repeatedly mislabeling wine as a more expensive grape variety to get a better price from E. & J. Gallo under its Red Bicyclette® brand. French customs officials apparently discovered the swindle when they found that the amount of “pinot noir” sold to Gallo far exceeded what the region produced. According to a news source, the scam more than doubled the miscreants’ profits, which totaled some €7 million for 18 million bottles. The fines imposed ranged from US$2,050 to US$247,050, and the suspended jail sentences ranged from one to six months. The judge was quoted as saying, “The scale of the fraud caused severe damage for the wines of the Languedoc for which the United States is an important outlet.” A defense attorney reportedly said that no American customers complained about the fraud. See BBC News,…
A federal court in Washington has reportedly denied a feedlot company’s request to invalidate or delay implementation of the country-of-origin labeling (COOL) regulations adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 2008. Easterday Ranches, Inc. v. USDA, No. __ (E.D. Wash., decided February 5, 2010). According to news sources, the company argued that the COOL regulations, which do not allow beef imported from Canada or Mexico and slaughtered in the United States to be labeled as a U.S. product, conflicted with U.S. Treasury Department rules, would raise its recordkeeping and operational costs, and deter packers from paying fair prices for Canadian cattle. The Treasury rules apparently provide that beef is deemed a U.S. product if it undergoes “substantial transformation,” e.g., slaughter, within this country. The court refused to postpone USDA’s rules and further declined to order the agency to create an exception to COOL allowing cattle imported from Canada and…
