The FDA has just concluded two days of hearings on the safety and labeling of genetically modified (GM) salmon. I’ve been collecting comments about this and will add a few of my own.
USA Today:Let’s begin with Elizabeth Weise’s clear, insightful summary of what this is about. She summarizes the situation with GM salmon in a nifty Q and A format:
Q: What happens next?
A: Nothing soon. Before issuing a decision on the application, FDA will publish an Environmental Assessment of the salmon, followed by a required 30-day comment period. The agency would then determine whether it would file a Finding of No Significant Impact or an Environmental Impact Statemen….then use those findings to make a decision on whether or not to allow the sale of the salmon. The agency has said it has no set timeline for reaching a decision. Were the agency to decide to approve the sale of the salmon, it would take two years before the first crop was ready, company officials say.
Food Chemical News (September 20): reports that AquaBounty’s CEO has no intention of restricting GM salmon farms to Panama. At the FDA hearing, he “forecast a spread of transgenic salmon operations from a proposed site in Panama to other countries, including the United States.”
Oops. The FDA had to remind him that his company’s application is for Panama only, and any other sites would require supplemental applications from the firm.” The FDA said it was “not interested in AquaBounty’s future business plans.”
FoodNavigator.com reporter Caroline Scott-Thomas predicts that the hearings will lead to no recommendation.
The FDA’s Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee (VMAC) did not vote or make a recommendation at the end of the hearings, saying that it does not yet have sufficient data…After two days of hearings, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel has called for more research to decide whether genetically engineered salmon is safe for consumption.
The New York Timessays that the advisory group favored approval of the GM salmon, but that this could take ages.
Food Chemical News (September 21) says that most speakers at the hearing on GM labeling did not want it to be mandatory. It quotes Greg Jaffe, the director of biotechnology at Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), as opposing mandatory labeling. Apparently, Jaffe:
urged AquaBounty to require its customers to provide “real” voluntary labeling on food products, such as “AquaBounty salmon,” “fast-growing salmon” or “environmentally friendly salmon”….He agreed that “no ingredients from a genetically engineered source” would be acceptable language provided there’s a comparable GE product in the marketplace.
Why would a representative of a consumer organization oppose mandatory labeling? For that, go to
Jill Richardson’s lengthy analysis of FDA’s actions, written for Grist. She lays out some of the more complicated issues, and takes a tough look at the biases of the committee members.
Washington Post: Lindsey Layton writes about the debates over labeling (I’m quoted).
AWashington Post poll found 78% of respondents to be worried about the health and safety risks of GM salmon.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the new government has stopped a scheduled public dialogue about GM foods. That’s one way to handle it. All those pesky consumers don’t want it? Too bad for them.
My interpretation: of course the public does not trust genetically modified foods. The foods are not labeled. If the biotech industry and the FDA want the public to trust them, they need to label the GM salmon and all the other GM foods in the marketplace.
The public wants the right to choose. The public should have the right to choose.
The issue of GM foods cannot just be about safety.
My mantra on this one: Even if genetically modified foods are safe, they are not necessarily acceptable.
I was a member of the FDA’s Food Advisory Committee in 1993 when, under pressure from Monsanto, the agency rejected labeling of GM foods. I wish the FDA had listened to me and the other consumer representatives on the committee, all of us convinced that labeling is essential for promoting trust, and giving the public a choice. And, we said, it’s the right thing to do.
The FDA now has a chance to redeem it’s bad decision. I hope they take this opportunity and decide to require labeling.
Footnote: I wrote about all this in my book, Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety, just published in a new edition in July. In preparing the second edition seven years later, I was surprised by how little about food biotechnology had changed. The issues have not changed. The field is stuck. Labeling is one way to break the stalemate. Let the public have a choice. I’ll bet doing that will solve a lot of problems.
I can’t resist dealing with the questions just asked by Elliot and Johannes. From Elliot:
A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease or cardiovascular disease (see: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, January 13, 2010)…[but] in his book, Good Calories Bad Calories, Gary Taubes clearly attributes most of our chronic disease problems — including heart disease — to carbohydrates (see page 454). In contrast, Colin Campbell in his book The China Study (pages 113-133) forcefully argues that animal proteins contribute to CVD. Yet, Dr. David Katz in his book Nutrition in Clinical Practice (pages 130, 133) asserts that to prevent heart disease, “saturated and trans fat should be restricted to below 7% (or even 5%) of total calories . . . .” Who’s right? We badly need your unbiased wisdom on this topic.
Joannes says that according to the Weston A Price Foundation,
it seems as if (naturally-occurring) saturated fats are almost better for you than the unsaturated fats we get fed these days, which mainly consist of rancid oils which more than anything contribute to heart disease, whereas many saturated fats are actually quite beneficial.
OK. Here’s my “unbiased wisdom” (if such a thing exists). I like to ask: What do saturated fats, sugars, and animal proteins have in common as factors in the development of heart disease? Answer: They are all single nutrients.
Recall that nutrition research is difficult to do because diets contain many foods, foods contain many nutrients and other chemicals that affect health, and other behavioral, socioeconomic, and genetic factors influence heart disease. Studies of single nutrients take these chemicals out of their food, dietary, caloric, and lifestyle contexts and are, therefore, reductive.
Such studies tend to produce ambiguous results that demonstrate small differences, if any. Small differences create situations ripe for interpretation. Interpretation depends on the viewpoint of the interpreter. That is why it helps to know who is doing the interpreting and who sponsored the studies.
Short of that, you would have to read every study cited by these authors and come to your own decision about how to interpret them – a daunting task.
My approach to conflicting research? I look for points of agreement. The authors cited here do not disagree about the basic principles of healthful diets: variety in food intake, moderation in calories, largely plant-based (although not necessarily exclusively), and minimally processed. Eat according to those principles and you do not have to worry about nutritional details.
All of that boils down to the advice I propose in What to Eat: eat less, move more, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and don’t eat too much junk food.
Let the scientists and their interpreters fight it out over single nutrients. Eat food and enjoy your dinner.
This page is somewhat disorganized in that I now put occasional print, audio, and video interviews, which used to be separated, together by year. The section at the very end is called Controversies; it is where I post letters from critics. Scroll down to find whatever you are looking for. Media interviews and reviews for specific books are on the pages for that book. For old podcasts and videos of presentations, look under Appearances and scroll down for Past Appearances; in recent years, I’ve been putting them in the chronological list here.
Interviews, media appearances, and lectures (the ones for which I have links)
Jan 17 Podcast interview with Kathlyn Carney, Connecting the Dots. Lisen on Spotify or Apple Podcast
Jan 16 LA Times guide to Japanese subscription snack boxes (Video Part I). Part II is Jan 23 (same clip?)
Jan 14 The Franklin Institute’s Ben Franklin Birthday celebration. My talk comes first. Others are from Eric Oberhalter and honoree Wendell Berry. Use passcode $H81iALu
Jan 15 Two short answers to questions at FAO’s Regional Office in Santiago, Chile. Video 1: on what governments can do about childhood obesity. Video 2: on food choices in an unhealthy food environment.
July 5 Goldberg R. Food Citizenship: Food System Advocates in an Era of Distrust. Oxford University Press. Chapter 1. Health and Nutrition: Interview with Marion Nestle:1-13. Video online
July Carter J. Interview with Marion Nestle. In: Food for Thought: Feeding the People, Protecting the Planet. Aspenia [Aspen Institute Italia] 2015;67:101-105.
July Carter J. Intervista a Marion Nestle. Come cambiano le politiche alimentary. In: Fame Zero: Rinascimento agricolo. Aspenia [Revista di Aspen Institute Italia] 2015;69:198-202.
January 10 Video interview on Star Talk, co-hosts Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Eugene Mirman, with Anthony Bourdain, about the science of cooking (sort of).
May 21 Print interview with Revital Federbush for an Israeli women’s magazine, mostly about dairy foods I’m told (it’s in Hebrew, which I cannot read, alas).
November 19 Interview with Al Jazeera for a Fault Line program on “Fast food, fat profits: obesity in America (my 10 seconds starts at about minute 15).
September 16 Speech at Columbia University conference on Global Food Systems: Their Impact on Nutrition and Health for All on panel on Advanced Technologies, Food Safety and the Role of Local and Organic Food Production (video)
November 12 Panel discussion on the farm bill, Wagner School of Public Service, Puck Building (Lafayette at Houston), 2nd floor. Here is Wild Green Yonder’s take on it.
February 6, 2008 Biologique Foods radio, two podcast interviews with TJ Harrington in Bloomington, MN, one on food politics and the other on what’s in your food.
Interview with Laura Flinders (and Arun Gupta and Peter Hoffman), Grit TV. It’s on how to eat well without going broke, and starts with a Monty Python clip on Spam 11/26/08
September 5, 2007 Scientific American Podcast with Steve Mirsky. Because I am a Paulette Goddard professor at NYU, he sends along an article he wrote about Einstein’s experience with the gorgeous movie star.
NPR Science Friday, panel on the farm bill with Michael Pollan and Sandor Ellix Katz 8/10/07
Are you responsible for your own weight? Balko R. Pro: Absolutely. Government has no business interfering with what you eat. Brownell K, Nestle M. Con: Not if Blaming the Victim Is Just an Excuse to Let Industry off the Hook. Time June 7, 2004:113.
The government must have announced the members of the committee that will develop the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, because the American Society of Nutrition (I am a member) has issued a press release congratulating the nine (of 13) appointees who are ASN members. Who are the other four? We will find out next week when the committee starts meeting. Stephen Clapp interviewed me about the Guidelines for Food Chemical News (October 27). Here’s my part of his article, subtitled, “Keep it simple, stupid!”
“Not everyone is happy with the 2005 guidelines. Marion Nestle, a high-profile nutritionist who teaches at New York University, favors scrapping the current advice in favor of something much simpler. She served on the 1995 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, an experience she described in her book Food Politics. She hasn’t been invited back.
“I would hope for an enormous reversal of the last set of guidelines,” she told FCN. “They’re unteachable and incomprehensible. Buried in the 41 recommendations is the basic advice: eat less, move more, eat more fruits and vegetables and whole grains, and don’t eat too much junk food.
“The idea that this document is for policymakers is ridiculous,” she continued. “You could boil it down to a single recommendation: ‘Drink fewer sodas and juice drinks.'”
Nestle said in 1995 the advisory committee was told to interpret nutrition science for the public. In 2005 the panel was told to make “science-based” recommendations, she said, which she interprets as code for “We won’t let you say anything unless the science is incontrovertible.”
Basing the guidelines on Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) is a “huge mistake,” Nestle says, because the DRIs are “incomprehensible” and set too high for calcium and potassium, resulting in a recommendation to eat two or three servings of dairy products daily. “If the Dietary Guidelines have to be based on the DRIs, it’s too much food,” she says.
Nestle says nutrition science is unusually subject to interpretation and bias because it’s difficult to link specific nutrients to chronic diseases. “My biases are open,” she says. “Everyone else has biases, too, but they may not want to disclose them. The public is deeply confused — you should just give the best advice you can. Just take into consideration all the research available and don’t worry about the impact on one industry or another.”
Now wouldn’t it be useful if they took my advice? I will be following this story with great interest.
I’m getting lots of e-mails about Coca-Cola’s co-sponsorship of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Instutite’s HeartTruth Red Dress campaign to increase women’s awareness of their risk for heart disease. You can find out more about Diet Coke’s sponsorship on the Coca-Cola website. Here’s my favorite line in the news release: “Participation by Coca-Cola does not imply endorsement by DHHS/NIH/NHLBI.” Really? I’ll bet Coke hopes people will think it does.
But that’s not all. The American Dietetic Association (ADA) is partnering with Pepsi. Pepsi, it says, “will work with ADA to develop consumer and professional education programs, and tackle nutrition research questions.” How’s that for unbiased?
I thought we were done with food additives as a cause of hyperactivity in kids years ago, but here it comes again. A new and well controlled study in The Lancet, funded by the British Food Standards Agency (which presumably has no axe to grind), reports higher average levels of hyperactivity in young children drinking a mix of sodium benzoate (a preservative) and food colors. For why these results surprise me, take a look at the Wikipedia entry for the Feingold Diet, the additive-free diet developed decades ago to prevent hyperactivity in kids. The first Wikipedia paragraph says it all:
“The Feingold diet is a food elimination program developed by Ben F. Feingold, MD to treat hyperactivity. It eliminates a number of artificial colors and artificial flavors, aspartame, three petroleum-based preservatives, and (at least initially) certain salicylates. There has been much debate about the efficacy of this program. Some mainstream medical practitioners deny that it is of any value, while other medical practitioners, as well as many people living with ADHD and parents of children with ADHD, claim that it is effective in the management of ADHD as well as a number of other behavioral, physical and neurological conditions. The debate has continued for more than 30 years, involving not only consumers and physicians, but scientists, politicians, and the pharmaceutical and food industries.”
After this excellent beginning, the article gets so muddled that the editors warn: “The neutrality of this article is disputed.” Indeed. Until now, my reading of the science was that the more carefully the studies were done, the less benefit they showed. Even the best studies showed wide individual differences–most kids were unaffected by removing additives but a small percentage seemed to get better. This made the studies especially subject to biased interpretation.
This new study seems well done but again shows large individual differences, so expect the debates to continue. In the meantime, it’s good to remember that color additives go into processed foods to cover up flaws and make them look attractive. Kids don’t need to be eating highly processed foods. The study is another good reason to feed kids plenty of fruits, vegetables, and other minimally processed foods.
Here’s what today’s New York Times has to say about the study.