Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has reportedly launched an investigation into chemical and packaging lobbyists who allegedly sought to thwart regulation banning the use of bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles, infant food jars and other products. Blumenthal is seeking details about a series of joint trade association meetings held in April and May 2009, during which industry officials purportedly discussed a public relations strategy to counter efforts to regulate BPA. According to Blumenthal, this “apparent campaign” aimed to use “fear tactics, political manipulation, and misleading marketing” to stymie BPA legislation pending in several state and local governments, including Connecticut. The attorney general has also called on the North American Metal Packaging Alliance (NAMPA) and other key stakeholders to denounce these efforts. “Colluding in a campaign of confusion and concealment – potentially endangering children and pregnant women – is appalling and possibly illegal,” Blumenthal was quoted as saying. “We are…
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) and the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) have published a joint report on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), concluding that “food-producing animals such as pigs, veal calves and broiler chickens often carry without symptoms a specific strain of MRSA called CC398.” The report apparently warns that farm workers, veterinarians and their families face the greatest risk of contracting CC398, which has been “associated, albeit rarely, with serious skin and soft tissue infections, pneumonia and blood poisoning in humans.” EFSA has noted, however, that even if food becomes tainted with MRSA, “there is currently no evidence that eating or handling contaminated food can lead to an increased risk for humans.” The agencies have also stated that “as animal movement and contact between live animals and humans are likely to be important factors in the transmission of MRSA, the most…
According to a report from the organization that launched the concept of a voluntary consensus standard for sustainable agriculture, nearly 50 committee members met in late May 2009 in Illinois to address issues raised by task forces considering various aspects of the proposed standard. The Leonardo Academy initiated the effort with a draft “trial-use” standard, intended to be implemented while under development, that would have imposed organic requirements and employment practices, such as union organizing and collective bargaining, on every aspect of agriculture in the United States from farm to store. Operating under the American National Standards Institute consensus and transparency principles, a number of industry interests are now involved in the process, which has apparently resulted in a change of focus. The standard will initially be limited to crop production and will be extended incrementally to eventually include post-farm gate activities and other agricultural production, including livestock. While sustainability…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have agreed to recognize each other’s organic certifications. As of June 30, 2009, Canada will have national organic standards in place that have been determined to be the equivalent of U.S. National Organic Program requirements. Thus, products meeting U.S. standards can be sold as organic in Canada, and vice versa. The only exception is for products from fields in the United States treated with sodium nitrate; such crops cannot be sold in Canada as organic. The agreement, however, does away with the need for a three-year transition period from sodium nitrate use. According to USDA, “more than 80 percent of Canada’s organic consumption comes from imports, and approximately 75 percent of those imports come from the United States.” The value of the total market for organic products in Canada apparently ranges from $2.1 to $2.6 billion. U.S. Trade…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that emergency processing is underway for the draft guidance titled “Questions and Answers Regarding the Reportable Food Registry as Established by the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007.” When finalized, the guidance will assist industry in complying with the Reportable Food Registry requirements prescribed by the Act, which required FDA to establish within one year of enactment an electronic portal to facilitate reporting of adulterated foods. FDA has delayed until September 8, 2009, implementation of the registry to consider comments and to allow further testing of the electronic portal for reportable foods. Written comments are requested by July 16, 2009. FDA has requested approval of the emergency processing by August 17, 2009. See Federal Register, June 16, 2009.
An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deputy administrator reportedly told a House science oversight subcommittee that the agency plans to rely more often on independent peer review panels when seeking scientific advice or conflict resolution. According to a news source, this could potentially speed external review of EPA studies and cut agency costs. Such review would reportedly reverse a policy under the Bush administration of automatically referring problematic scientific risk studies to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for peer review. EPA Assistant Deputy Administrator for Science Kevin Teichman reportedly testified during a June 11, 2009, hearing, that the agency “very carefully consider[s] the complexity of the given assessment as to which form of peer review that we would use. More times than not, we’ll convene a peer review panel, which would have a face-to-face meeting, that might go through a contractor choosing the panelists, or it might be our own…
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has written to Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) requesting that the federal government “levy a tax on non-diet soft drinks to recoup some of the costs incurred by the government from the consumption of these drinks, as well as to reduce consumption.” Others signing the June 17, 2009, letter are the American Public Health Association, Consumers Union, Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine, Kelly Brownell of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, and Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health. Claiming that “soft drinks are the only food or beverage shown to have a direct link to obesity,” CSPI contends that “a new federal excise tax of one penny per 12-ounce soda could generate more than $1.5 billion per year” and that even higher taxes “could raise roughly $16 billion a year— an…
Greek scientists have published a study in the International Journal of Clinical Practice that reportedly examines six cases of cola-induced potassium deficiency (hypokalemia) involving muscle weakness and paralysis in adults. V. Tsimihodimos, et al., “Cola-induced hypokalemia: pathophysiological mechanisms and clinical implications,” The International Journal of Clinical Practice, June 2009. Researchers with the University of Ioannina, Greece, have identified six reported occurrences since 1994 of hypokalemia in adults who consumed several liters of soda per day. “Fortunately,” stated the lead author, “all patients had a rapid and complete recovery after the discontinuation of cola ingestion and the oral or intravenous supplementation of potassium.” According to a companion editorial by Associate Professor of Medicine C.D. Packer of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, the study authors “make a compelling argument that potassium depletion should be added to the long list of soft drink-related health problems.” The editorial encourages internists to start…
An animal study has reportedly claimed that dioxin “has a profound effect on breast tissue by causing mammary glands to stop their natural cycle of proliferation as early as six days into pregnancy, and lasting through mid-pregnancy.” Betina J. Lew, et al., “Activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) during different critical windows in pregnancy alters mammary epithelial cell proliferation and differentiation,” Toxicological Sciences, June 5, 2009. Researchers with the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) apparently found that in mice, dioxin exposure “caused a 50 percent decrease in new epithelial cells,” in addition to altering “the induction of milk-producing genes” and decreasing “the number of ductal branches and mature lobules in the mammary tissue.” These results built on earlier research led by corresponding author B. Paige Lawrence, who first discovered that when dioxin activates a transcription factor known as aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), it impairs AhR’s ability to fight…
This article examines the global food-security goals of Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust and “intellectual father” of the Svalbard Seed Vault, which opened in February 2008 as a bomb-proof concrete bunker deep inside the sandstone of a remote Norwegian mountain north of the Arctic Circle. The vault, the authors write, was designed to store “copies of seeds currently housed in the more than 1,400 gene banks worldwide, so that should calamity strike any of those gene banks, Svalbard’s seeds would save the collections – and thus humanity – from the jaws of famine.” But Fowler’s Rome-based Diversity Trust has an equally important project aimed at global food security, the authors write. They explain that because many national and international seed banks are vulnerable to floods, fires, earthquakes, and other natural hazards, as well as war, civil strife and “plain old poor maintenance,” the Diversity Trust has…
