Putative class claims have been filed in federal court in Illinois against Denny’s Corp., alleging that the company defrauded consumers by misrepresenting or omitting information about the “excessive amount of sodium—the deadliest ingredient in the food supply—present in its meals.” Ciszewski v. Denny’s Corp., No. 09-5355 (N.D. Ill, filed August 29, 2009). Information about similar litigation filed against the company in a New Jersey state court appears in issue 312 of this Update. The named plaintiff alleges that he has high blood pressure and takes medication for the condition. While he has apparently been advised to limit his salt consumption, he purportedly eats at Denny’s “from time to time and with frequency,” and eats the company’s “Moons Over My Hammy,” “SuperBird Sandwich,” and “Meat Lover’s Scramble,” which allegedly contain more than 3,200 mg, 2,600 mg and 5,600 mg of sodium, respectively. The plaintiff seeks to certify a nationwide class of…
Kentucky and Texas residents have filed a putative class action in federal court against SIGG Switzerland (USA), Inc. claiming that the company misrepresented that its aluminum reusable bottles were free of bisphenol A (BPA). Johnson v. SIGG Switzerland (USA), Inc., 09-669 (W.D. Ky., filed August 28, 2009). The complaint cites actions the company’s CEO took in recent years to counter claims that the bottle’s resin liner contained BPA, including issuing press releases asserting that the products had no BPA, while actually working to reformulate the liner to rid it of the chemical. Seeking to represent a nationwide class of consumers “who purchased SIGG bottles that contained BPA,” the named plaintiffs allege breach of contract, breach of express and implied warranties, and violation of the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act. They seek a class certification order; compensatory, punitive and statutory damages; restitution and disgorgement of profits; attorney’s fees and costs; prejudgment interest; and…
The Association of Cereal Food Manufacturers (ACFM) has reportedly asked the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) to delay a forthcoming public health initiative that warns of excessive salt content in cereals and other products. Slated for release next month, the TV and radio advertisements are part of an ongoing FSA effort to reduce the average adult’s salt consumption to 6 grams per day by 2010. According to the agency, the latest £3 million salvo in this campaign does not seek to explicitly “demonize” cereal manufacturers, but instead targets all food products that contain salt. FSA has since declined to pull the commercials, but has praised ACFM members for reducing the salt content of their products by 44 percent since 1998. The cereal trade group has also reiterated that cereals account for less than 5 percent of the total salt consumed by UK adults. “We don’t believe it’s appropriate, considering the…
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) is reportedly seeking comments on a proposal to include acrylamide on its hazardous chemicals list along with 14 additional “Substances of Very High Concern” (SVHC). Tendered by the European Environment Agency and several member states, the proposal would classify acrylamide, which forms in some foods during high-temperature cooking, as a category 2 carcinogen and a category 2 mutagen. If unanimously confirmed as an SVHC by ECHA’s Member State Committee, acrylamide would become eligible for the list of substances subject to authorization under EU’s REACH legislation. ECHA will accept comments focusing on the hazardous properties of acrylamide until October 15, 2009. See FoodProductionDaily. com and IHS News, September 2, 2009. In a related development, new consumer research has reportedly shown that a majority of U.S. consumers are unaware of acrylamide as a suspected carcinogen, even as governmental actions in North America have intensified to deal with…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced two public meetings to discuss the prevention of Salmonella enteritidis (SE) during the production, storage and transportation of shell eggs. Slated for September 30, 2009, in Chicago, Illinois, and November 5, 2009, in Atlanta, Georgia, the meetings will explain an FDA final rule that requires shell egg producers “to implement measures to prevent SE from contaminating eggs on the farm and from further growth during storage and transportation, and requires these producers to maintain records concerning their compliance.” The agency has anticipated that the rule will prevent 79,000 illnesses and 30 deaths attributed to SE, a leading bacterial cause of foodborne illness in the United States. See Federal Register, August 31, 2009.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reportedly declined to send an objection letter to Arizona-based Wisdom Natural Brands™ concerning its request for generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status for its stevia sweetener, SweetLeaf®. Considered the gold standard in GRAS rulings, the lack of an FDA objection has confirmed earlier determinations by two independent scientific panels that reviewed SweetLeaf’s® GRAS status in March 2008. The company first lodged a notification of GRAS status with FDA for a “general purpose sweetener in various food categories” in March 2009. See FoodNavigator-USA.com, September 2, 2009. In a related matter, a Los Angeles Times article titled “Sweet stuffed: We eat lots (and lots of kinds) of sweeteners. What’s in them?” offers a primer of common and not-so-common sweeteners such as sucrose, glucose, fructose, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, lactose, honey, and agave syrup. “America’s sweet tooth is growing,” writes Wendy Hansen. “Like many other…
The Cornucopia Institute, which represents the interests of small organic agricultural operations, has called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to investigate charges that Aurora Dairy’s High Plains facility is operating in violation of National Organic Program (NOP) standards. In its August 31, 2009, letter, the institute refers to a similar complaint it filed about Aurora Dairy in 2007. According to the letter, the agency assured the institute that the 2007 complaint “would be incorporated into the probation that Aurora Dairy was operating under, pursuant to a consent agreement signed with the Department. Based on freedom of information documents, obtained by The Cornucopia Institute, no scrutiny of this facility ever took place and the allegations we communicated in 2007 were never investigated.” The letter outlines how Aurora Dairy has allegedly fallen short of NOP requirements and specifically points to the planting of an annual forage crop in the animals’…
A recent study has reportedly suggested that multiple viruses are responsible for the increase of colony collapse disorder (CCD) among global honeybee populations. Reed M. Johnson, et al., “Changes in transcript abundance relating to colony collapse disorder in honey bees (Apis mellifera),” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 2009. According to researchers, “Microarray analysis revealed unusual ribosomal RNA [rRNA] fragments that were conspicuously more abundant in the guts of CCD bees,” which also carried more viruses and other pathogens than their healthy counterparts. The study posits that fragmented rRNA “may be a possible consequence of picorna-like viral infection, including deformed wing virus and Israeli acute paralysis virus.” These viruses are known to “hijack the ribosome” of bees to produce viral proteins instead of the ones needed for survival, explained lead study author May Berenbaum, who noted that the viral overload leaves CCD bees vulnerable to pesticides, disease and other…
According to researchers with the University of Pittsburgh and UCLA Schools of Medicine, brain scans of 94 elderly individuals showed that “obese subjects with a high BMI (BMI>30) showed atrophy of the frontal lobes [planning and memory functions], anterior cingulate gyrus [attention and executive functions], hippocampus [long-term memory], and thalamus [sensory information processing and relay] compared with individuals with a normal BMI (18.5-25).” Cyrus Raji, et al., “Brain Structure and Obesity,” Human Brain Mapping, August 6, 2009. They also apparently found that higher BMI was associated with lower brain volumes in overweight and obese elderly subjects. The scientists conclude, “Obesity is therefore associated with detectable brain volume deficits in cognitively normal elderly subjects.” Senior author Paul Thompson, UCLA professor of neurology, was quoted as saying, “That’s a big loss of tissue and it depletes your cognitive reserves, putting you at much greater risk of Alzheimer’s and other diseases that attack…
This article discusses a four-month Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel investigation into the initiatives allegedly undertaken by the plastics industry to forestall the proliferation of local, statewide and national restrictions on the use of bisphenol A (BPA) in food and beverage product packaging. According to the authors, “The industry has launched an unprecedented public relations blitz that uses many of the same tactics—and people—the tobacco industry used in its decades-long fight against regulation. This time, the industry’s arsenal includes state-of-the-art technology. Their modern-day Trojan horses: blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and YouTube.” The reporters apparently relied on IRS reports, disclosure forms and e-mails exchanged by lobbyists and government officials, in addition to the industry’s public relations documents and materials. They contend, “The documents offer a rare glimpse of the hardball politics of chemical regulation, where judgments about safety are made not necessarily on the merits of science but because of the clout of lobbyists working…
