The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reportedly created a special communications committee to address food safety concerns related to dioxin. According to a January 15, 2010, Inside EPA article, a forthcoming EPA reassessment is expected to identify dioxin “as highly toxic and bioaccumulative with most exposure occurring through the food supply.” The agency apparently undertook the reevaluation after a 2006 National Academy of Sciences report advised EPA to update its risk assessment of 2,3,7,8 Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-Dioxin (TCDD), a byproduct of combustions and other industrial processes. Inside EPA has anticipated that the pending EPA report will intensify public concerns “given existing data from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA),” which in 2009 reported that “over 95 percent of exposure arises from dietary intake of animal fats.” In addition, an EPA source has purportedly indicated that human body burdens are “probably” at levels higher than any reference dose recommended by the agency. Inside EPA…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a notice seeking public comments on a proposed set of self-regulatory guidelines submitted by i-SAFE, Inc. under the safe harbor provision of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule. Comments must be submitted by March 1, 2010. The organization that prepared the proposed guidelines is a non-profit that for some years has partnered with industry to provide educational programs for children about online safety issues. It recently determined that it would become involved in assisting and licensing online “operators” with children’s online privacy issues. Among other matters, the i-Safe guidelines would (i) provide notice to parents about the information collected from children by i-Safe licensees, (ii) require verifiable parental consent for the collection of personal information from children; and (iii) provide parents with an opportunity to view the information collected and prevent its further dissemination. See Federal Register, January 13, 2010. In recent years,…
A recent study has reportedly questioned the current availability of scientific literature establishing evidence for physical sugar addiction in humans. David Benton, “The plausibility of sugar addiction and its role in obesity and eating disorders,” Clinical Nutrition, January 2010. David Benton, a psychology professor with the University of Swansea in Wales, apparently reviewed previous research on the role of sugar addiction in obesity and eating disorders. Noting a lack of scientific consensus on the term “addiction,” he construed sugar addiction to involve physical craving, tolerance and withdrawal symptoms, meaning that “Fasting should increase food cravings, predominantly for sweet items; cravings should occur after an overnight fast; the obese should find sweetness particularly attractive; a high-sugar consumption should predispose to obesity.” Using this definition, Benton apparently found “no support from the human literature for the hypothesis that sucrose may be physically addictive or that addiction to sugar plays a role in…
French researchers with the Committee of Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN), the University of Rouen and the University of Caen have published a paper allegedly linking genetically modified (GM) corn varieties to “new side effects” in mammals. Joël Spiroux de Vendômois, et al., “A Comparison of the Effects of Three GM Corn Varieties on Mammalian Health,” International Journal of Biological Science, December 2009. “[A] comparative analysis of blood and organ system data” from industry-sponsored studies, the paper claims that GM corn-fed rats exhibited “sex- and often dose-dependent” side effects “mostly associated with the kidney and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs,” as well as the “heart, adrenal glands, spleen and hematopoietic system.” The authors concluded that “these data highlight signs of hepatorenal toxicity, possibly due to the new pesticides specific to each GM corn,” adding that “unintended direct or indirect metabolic consequences of the genetic modification cannot be excluded.” See…
A forthcoming study has reportedly concluded that, in terms of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) lost, “the overall health burden of obesity among U.S. adults has increased consistently since 1993” and now rivals the overall health burden of smoking. Haomiao Jia and Erica Lubetkin, “Trends in Quality-Adjusted Life Years Lost Contributed by Smoking and Obesity: Does the Burden of Obesity Overweight [sic] the Burden of Smoking?,” American Journal of Preventative Medicine, February 2010. Researchers examined “the trend of the health burden of smoking and obesity for U.S. adults from 1993 to 2008 using currently available population-based data” obtained from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which has interviewed more than 3.5 million individuals. Designed to quantify the years gained by a health intervention while adjusting for quality of life, QALYs apparently use “preference-based measurements of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) to provide an assessment of the overall burden of diseases associated…
In the fifth and final installment of a series about genetically modified (GM) crops, energy and environmental writer Paul Voosen discusses the growing ranks of organic proponents who have begun to embrace GM crops to achieve “sustainable agricultures that can feed the world.” Voosen describes a plant scientist who manipulates rice in the lab and is married to an organic farmer. Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak apparently co-authored a book, recently released in paperback, titled Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food.” They contend that current and future generations of GM crops, responsibly managed, would provide for the world’s hungry from lands already degraded. According to Voosen, their work has inspired others, such as Steward Brand, the passionate environmentalist who founded the Whole Earth Catalog and is now apparently “full-throated in his defense of GM crops.” Brand is quoted as saying, “I daresay the environmental movement has…
The American Lawyer has named Shook, Hardy & Bacon as a finalist in the Product Liability category of its Litigation Department of the Year Awards. The firm was recognized “for the breadth of its work, from wins in traditional one-off cases for clients like Kia Motors America, Inc., to its role in managing the massive Engle tobacco litigation in Florida for Altria Group, Inc.” The legal magazine, which invites the largest U.S. firms to participate in its biannual competition, also cited the firm’s pharmaceutical defense work and its attraction of clients through the use of alternative fee arrangements. See The American Lawyer, January 1, 2010. Meanwhile, Law360 has recognized Shook, Hardy & Bacon as a Product Liability Defense Firm of the Year. The publication cited medical device and pharmaceutical victories that the firm secured for its clients and quoted firm chair John Murphy, who attributes its success to the “Midwestern work…
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has issued a report that claims state health departments completed fewer foodborne outbreak investigations in 2007 than in the previous decade. The consumer watchdog found that states reported 33 percent fewer fully investigated outbreaks to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2007 than in 2002. Of the nearly 1,100 outbreaks reported in 2007, only 378 cases identified both a food and the pathogen, the mark of a complete investigation. “The decline in fully-investigated outbreaks could reflect a serious gap in state public health spending,” Caroline Smith DeWaal, the group’s food safety director, was quoted as saying in a December 23, 2009, press release. CSPI analyzed a total of 4,638 illness outbreaks linked to specific foods involving 117,136 individual illnesses between 1998 and 2007. The 10-year data analysis showed that eggs dropped out of the top five causes of outbreaks, which…
The Cancer Prevention Coalition (CPC) is praising a recent policy statement issued by the American Public Health Association’s Governing Council, opposing the continued sale and use of genetically engineered hormonal rBGH milk and meat adulterated with sex hormones. CPC is a Chicago-based, non-profit, public-health advocacy organization. Samuel Epstein, CPC chair and professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health, claims recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone is injected into about 20 percent of U.S. dairy cows to increase milk production. “While industry claims that the hormone is safe for cows, and the milk is safe for consumers, this is blatantly false,” Epstein wrote on December 23, 2009. He also claims that “beef produced in the United States is heavily contaminated with natural or synthetic sex hormones, which are associated with an increased risk of reproductive and childhood cancers.”
The New York Times recently published an investigative report that questions the safety of beef processed with ammonia to kill E. coli and Salmonella. According to the article, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has exempted one company, Beef Products Inc. (BPI), from routine testing requirements since 2007 because the processor apparently claimed that its ammonia treatment destroyed pathogens “to an undetectable level.” A supplier for fast-food chains and the school lunch program, BPI also purportedly indicated that its ammoniated trimmings, when mixed with untreated meat, would sterilize ground beef. “Given the technology, we firmly believe that the two pathogens of major concern—E. coli O157:H7 and salmonella—are on the verge of elimination,” BPI founder Eldon Roth allegedly told USDA in 2001. “But government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens…
