The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has updated its guidelines on the documentation needed to support animal-raising labeling claims, which include “Raised Without Antibiotics,” “Organic,” “Grass-Fed,” “Free-Range” and “Raised with the use of hormones.” Among other things, the agency requires the following information to support such claims: (i) “a detailed written description explaining the controls used for ensuring that the raising claim is valid from birth to harvest or the period of raising being referenced by the claim”; (ii) “a signed and dated document describing how the animals are raised (e.g., vegetarian-fed, raised without antibiotics, grass-fed), to support that the specific claim made is truthful and not misleading”; (iii) “a written description of the product-tracing and segregation mechanism from time of slaughter or further processing through packaging and wholesale or retail distribution”; (iv) “a written description for the identification, control, and segregation of non-conforming animals…
Tag Archives hormone
A recent study reportedly claims that prenatal exposure to the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and its breakdown product dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) is associated with accelerated growth and elevated BMI in infants born to normal-weight mothers. Michelle Mendez, et al., “Prenatal Organochlorine Compound Exposure, Rapid Weight Gain and Overweight in Infancy,” Environmental Health Perspectives, October 2010. Researchers apparently used data from Spain’s ongoing INMA [Infancia y MedioAmbiente] study, which assayed blood from approximately 500 expectant mothers for persistent chlorinated pollutants such as DDT and DDE, hexachlorobenzene, beta-hexachlorohexane, and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls. The authors concluded that, when compared to infants born to women in the lowest quartile for DDE exposure, those born to normal-weight mothers in the first quartile were at “a two times increased risk of rapid growth.” In addition, “DDE was also associated with elevated BMI at 14 months.” The study suggested, however, that the association only appeared true for normal-weight, as…
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that parts of an Ohio law regulating the use of labeling on dairy products from cows not treated with growth hormones violate the First Amendment. Int’l Dairy Foods Ass’n v. Boggs, Nos. 09-3515/3526 (6th Cir., decided September 30, 2010). The court also upheld other provisions and remanded parts of the rule relating to antibiotics and pesticides for further proceedings. Thus, the court overturned, in part, a district court determination that upheld most of the rule’s provisions. The Ohio Director of Agriculture adopted a rule in May 2008 that (i) prohibited dairy producers from claiming their milk was hormone-free (a composition claim) and (ii) placed stringent restrictions on the use of the claim “this milk is from cows not supplemented with rbST [recombinant bovine somatotropin or recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH)]” (a production claim). Among other matters, the latter require verification, and contiguous…
Chinese health experts have reportedly estimated that “at least 30,000 children developed early maturity” in Shanghai alone, raising concerns about food additives and pesticides allegedly laden with sex hormones. According to an August 18, 2010, China Daily article, one doctor with the Beijing Maternal and Child Healthcare Hospital has suggested that “early maturity in Chinese children is as high as 1 percent, nearly 10 times the rate in most Western countries.” The physician apparently attributed the condition “to the rising amount of estrogen in the food chain as the result of pesticides being sprayed on fruit and vegetables.” Although China Daily noted the 2009 Food Safety Law and other attempts to regulate food additives, it also suggested that enforcement has been difficult if not “impossible.” As one researcher with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention purportedly said, “China has 200 million scattered rural households that produce food, and…
The Chinese Ministry of Health has apparently announced an investigation into claims linking infant formula manufactured by Synutra International, Inc., to early onset puberty. According to state-run media, the ministry has assembled a panel of nine experts to examine whether the formula caused three infants ages 4 to 15 months to develop prematurely. The group will work with local authorities in Hubei Province to test milk powder samples taken from the homes of the infants in question. See Xinhau News Agency, August 12, 2010. The decision came after China Daily reported that doctors identified excessive levels of two hormones, estradiol and prolactin, in the children, thus sparking public speculation about tainted formula. Synutra, however, has since joined its milk powder supplier, New Zealand based Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd., in denying the rumors, which have noted that both companies were caught up in a 2008 scandal over melamine-tainted dairy products. As Synutra…
Bolivian President Evo Morales attracted international media attention when he publicly linked “deviances in being men” on hormones once used to raise chickens. Speaking at the World People’s Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Morales reportedly claimed that “the chicken we eat is loaded with female hormones. So, when men eat those chickens, they experience deviances in being men.” According to an April 22, 2010, blog post in The Guardian, Morales added that these substances have also been associated with baldness. After the speech drew widespread criticism from both the press and human rights activists, who interpreted the remark as homophobic, the Bolivian Foreign Relations Ministry issued a statement defending the president’s position. “He made no mention of sexuality,” the ministry was quoted as saying. Rather, he said that eating chicken that has hormones changes our own bodies. This point of view has been confirmed by…
After the Congressional Research Service (CRS) questioned the validity of agency regulations that had not been submitted as required by law to Congress and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness wrote to House and Senate leaders asking Congress to advise the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that its endocrine disruptor screening program “is not in effect” until the required notice is provided. More information about the CRS report appears in issue 332 of this Update. According to a news source, EPA’s program, mandated under the Food Quality Protection Act, was designed to identify pesticides that might cause adverse effects on human health and the environment. The center, a business-backed think tank, cited the CRS report in making its case to nullify the program. An EPA spokesperson reportedly responded that its action describing the agency’s endocrine disruptor policies and procedures and announcing the list of chemicals to receive testing…
Scientists and others objecting to the use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) to stimulate milk production in dairy cows have reportedly resubmitted a petition to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) challenging the new animal drug application approval for an rBGH drug. FDA apparently failed to respond to the original petition, filed in 2007. The petition also requests that dairy products made from cows treated with rBGH be labeled with a health-hazard warning. The petitioners include Samuel Epstein, chair of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; Ronnie Cummins, national director, Organic Consumers Association; Arpad Pusztai, a consultant biologist from Scotland; and Jeffrey Smith, executive director, Institute for Responsible Technology. They claim that rBGH milk poses major cancer and other risks to the U.S. population and that the drug has toxic effects on cows. See World-Wire.com, January 15, 2010.
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 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.”
12
