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The massive egg recalls so dominate the news today that it’s hard to talk about anything else.

For one thing, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg took to the tube and appeared on three morning shows:

“We need greater abilities to trace back products to their source,” Hamburg told NBC’s “Today” show this morning. “We need better abilities and authorities to put in place these preventive controls and hold companies accountable.”

She pointed out that it is now one year after the peanut butter recall prompted calls for increased regulation, but the FDA still has limited authority to order recalls, among other things.

What she did not say, is that the Senate continues to tie the FDA’s hands by not passing S. 510.  Fortunately, other commentators (besides me) are making that point loud and clear:

With elections looming, Washington insiders saw little chance that the Senate would complete the bill this fall – until now. The recall of about a half-billion eggs in a salmonella scare may have given new life to the legislation….At the moment—even with salmonella eggs–the FDA can’t force a company to take its products off the market. (If an egg producer violates safety standards, the FDA does have authority to divert shell eggs to a pasteurization process, which egg producers would rather avoid).

In the meantime, the industry-sponsored  Egg Safety Center says:

Consumers are reminded that properly storing, handling and cooking eggs should help prevent food-borne illness. The Egg Safety Center and the Food and Drug Administration recommend that eggs should be fully cooked until both the yolks and the whites are firm, and consumers should not eat foods that may contain raw or undercooked eggs.

Wouldn’t it be nice if this group also said: “Producers are reminded that properly taking care of hens and diligently following food safety plans should help prevent food-borne illness. The Egg Safety Center urges egg producers to immediately implement the FDA’s new regulations for preventing Salmonella that went into effect on July 9.”

And here is USA Today’s take on it (I’m quoted).

Yesterday, the FDA announced yet another voluntary recall of eggs produced by Wright County Egg in Galt, Iowa.  The first announcement on August 13 covered 228 million eggs.  This one adds 152 million for a grand total of 380 million—so far.

In that first announcement, the Wright company said: “Our farm strives to provide our customers with safe, high-quality eggs – that is our responsibility and our commitment.”

That, however, is not how the New York Times sees it.  According to today’s account, Wright has a long history of “run-ins with regulators over poor or unsafe working conditions, environmental violations, the harassment of workers, and the hiring of illegal immigrants.”

OK, so where are we on safety regulation?  The FDA, after many, many years of trying, finally introduced safety regulations for shell eggs.  These supposedly went into effect on July 9.

I recount the history of FDA’s persistence in the chapter entitled “Eggs and the Salmonella problem” in What to Eat. Check out the table  listing the key events in this history from 1980 to 2005.  It’s not pretty.

Preventing Salmonella should not be difficult.  The rules require producers to take precautions to prevent transmission, control pests and rodents, test for Salmonella, clean and disinfect poultry houses that test positive, divert eggs from positive-testing flocks, refrigerate the eggs right away, and keep records.  These sound reasonable to me, but I care about not making people sick.

Problems with Wright County Eggs started in May before the FDA’s mandatory rules went into effect meaning that the procedures were still voluntary.  The recalls this month are after the fact.  Chances are that most of the recalled eggs have already been eaten.

The CDC is tracking this recall and has logged about 200 reports of illness associated with it so far.  It has plenty to say about Salmonella and its hazards.

According to FoodSafetyNews, the first lawsuits have been filed.

As for food safety legislation that would give the FDA the authority to handle these incidents more efficiently—and, let us hope, maybe even prevent them—it is still sitting in the Senate.  For S.510 watchers, Bill Marler has a helpful new analysis.

The recall, by the way, affects eggs sold under many different brands: Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph’s, Boomsma’s, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms, and Kemps in the first round, and now also James Farms, Glenview, and Pacific Coast.

The good news is that cooking kills Salmonella.  I’m buying eggs at farmers’ markets these days.

Addition: Tom Philpott of Grist on Wright County’s unsavory history.

On July 30, Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)—in collaboration with representatives of a long list of distinguished health and consumer organizations (see below)–wrote Martha Coven of the Domestic Policy Council and Ezekiel Emanuel of the Office of Management and Budget urging them to encourage the FDA to take more vigorous enforcement action against misleading health claims on food packages.

Their petition responds to comments by the FDA’s Michael Taylor (discussed in a previous post) in a July 19 article for the Atlantic Food Channel, titled “How the FDA is picking its food battles.”   In explaining why the FDA is backing off from doing anything about unsubstantiated health claims on food products, Taylor said:

FDA must pick its battles—and set its priorities—in a way that will best benefit the public health….We have no pre-market review authority over such claims, and, under prevailing legal doctrines concerning “commercial free speech,” the evidentiary requirements placed on FDA to prove that such claims are misleading are significant and costly to meet. Moreover, meeting them requires tapping the same team of nutritionists, labeling experts, and lawyers who are working on our other nutrition initiatives.

We’re also conscious of the cleverness of marketing folks, who, once we prove today’s claim is misleading, can readily come up with another one tomorrow. Going after them one-by-one with the legal and resource restraints we work under is a little like playing Whac-a-Mole, with one hand tied behind your back.

So, we must make choices….especially considering the other high-priority nutrition and food safety initiatives that compete for FDA’s finite resources. We’ll consider all possibilities, but, in the meantime, we call on the food industry to exercise restraint, and we welcome the scrutiny CSPI and the media give to this issue.

Clearly, I was not the only one dismayed by this statement, which appears to be an open invitation to food companies to do whatever they like with health claims.  Indeed, Taylor’s statement reminded me of the Bush Administration’s FDA which, in 2003, announced that it had lost so many first amendment  health claims cases in court that it no longer intended to fight them.

But Taylor’s statement is also an open invitation to food advocates to get busy, as CSPI and the other signers of this letter have now done. The letter, dated July 30, 2010, is a follow up to a June 11 meeting on FDA/USDA Food Labeling Reform Efforts:

At Zeke’s suggestion, we are attaching a Priority List/Timetable Chart that provides an overview of the recommendations we made at our meeting and delineates how those recommendations intersect. As we discussed:

• We commend the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for increasing the number of enforcement actions it has taken against misleading food labeling, and we urge the agency to increase those efforts. We also commend the FDA’s initiative to develop a system for disclosing key nutrition information on the fronts of food labels. However, we emphasize that the existing Nutrition Facts panel must also be modernized. In particular, nutrition information must be based on up-to-date serving sizes, a Daily Value for added sugars must be established and added to the existing Nutrition Facts panel, and “Calories per serving” must be displayed more prominently. Revisions to the Nutrition Facts panel and the development of a front-of-pack disclosure system are closely intertwined and should be developed concurrently.

• We urge the Domestic Policy Council to ask the FDA to ensure that any front-of-pack labeling scheme is not undercut by deceptive health-related claims on the fronts of food packages. Such claims, if unabated, will divert attention from any front-of-pack scheme the FDA develops. Since our meeting, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a consent order prohibiting claims that a food product could strengthen immunity because the claim lacked sufficient clinical evidence. Such claims are called “structure/function” claims by the FDA. The FDA should take a consistent position regarding the use of those claims. In addition, the FDA should address claims exaggerating the presence of healthy ingredients stressed in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines such as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. For example, failure to remedy claims such as “Made with real fruit” on products that contain little fruit will detract from a declaration of sugar content that the FDA may specify in a front-of-pack labeling scheme, thus frustrating the Administration’s attempts to reduce childhood obesity.

• One way to remedy exaggerated claims for healthy ingredients (other than prohibiting them completely) is for the FDA to revise the ingredient list to require that the percentage of key ingredients such as fruit be disclosed in a clear, easily readable manner. FDA could also require that ingredient lists group all sources of added sugars to provide consumers with a clearer indication of the amount of added sugar in a product. The First Lady has recognized that ingredient labeling reform is an integral part of the Administration’s broader efforts to combat childhood obesity. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is already working on new formats for ingredient labeling. We support those efforts and request the Council to encourage the FDA to follow USDA’s approach.

• In regard to a timetable, the recommendations we have made are closely intertwined with efforts already ongoing at the FDA. In some cases, they are necessary to ensure that those ongoing efforts by FDA succeed. We, therefore, urge the Council to recommend that the FDA expand its food labeling reform initiatives to include these additional issues and address them concurrently. Additional efforts that complement existing FDA labeling reform initiatives should commence as soon as the first set of initiatives is published in the Federal Register. All initiatives should be finalized by October 2012. This request is based on the fact that the FDA implemented the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 in two years. The reform efforts we request are more limited than the requirements of the 1990 Act, and the FDA should be able to accomplish them by 2012 based on the agency’s previous performance on such matters.

• Rep. DeLauro, Chair of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, asked the FDA how many FTEs the agency would need to issue regulations to revise the Nutrition Facts panel, increase the prominence of calories per serving, require caffeine labeling, and establish a daily value for added sugars, as well as other issues. The FDA stated that approximately “10-12” additional FTE’s would be necessary to address such concerns. Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations for 2005: Hearings Before a Subcomm. of the House Comm. on Appropriations, 108th Cong. 2d Sess. 323 (2004). While the FDA’s response at the time involved some issues not covered by our current requests, we believe that the FDA’s estimate is still reasonable, and we urge the Council and the Office of Management and Budget to work with the FDA to ensure that the FDA devotes additional resources to this effort.

We welcome the opportunity to assist the Administration and look forward to continuing our dialogue.

The letter is signed by Bruce Silverglade, Director of Legal Affairs, CSPI and representatives of Consumers Union, American Public Health Association, American Medical Association,  American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association,  American Society of Bariatric Physicians, American Diabetes Association,  American Dietetic Association, Alliance for Retired Americans, Society for Nutrition Education, American Institute for Cancer Research, and Directors of Health Promotion and Education.

Let’s hope the FDA pays attention and gets busy on these issues.

Nanotechnology involves the ability to control matter at the scale of a nanometer—one billionth of a meter. The world market for products that contain nanomaterials is expected to reach $2.6 trillion by 2015.

So says a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO): Nanotechnology: Nanomaterials Are Widely Used in Commerce, but EPA Faces Challenges in Regulating Risk. GAO-10-549, May 25, 2010.

GAO identified a variety of products that currently incorporate nanomaterials already available in commerce…[in] food and agriculture….The extent to which nanomaterials present a risk to human health and the environment depends on a combination of the toxicity of specific nanomaterials and the route and level of exposure to these materials. Although the body of research related to nanomaterials is growing, the current understanding of the risks posed by these materials is limited.

The effects of nanotechnology on the environment are regulated by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), which is why this report targets recommendations to EPA.

Shouldn’t some of those recommendations be directed toward FDA, the agency that regulates food safety?  Maybe GAO needs to do another report?

In the meantime, the European Food Safety Authority is preoccupied with issues related to the safety of food nanotechnology.

The risk assessment framework for nanotechnology in Europe – like so much else connected to the technology – appears to be in its infancy but developing at a rapid pace…. Nano knowledge gaps have led some to call for a ban on the use of nanomaterials in food products until their safety has been fully established. One area of concern is whether nanoparticles can migrate from packaging materials into foods.

In seeking to assess nanomaterials, the food safety body repeatedly used phrases such as “specific uncertainties”, “limited knowledge” and…“difficult to characterise, detect and measure” in relation to toxicokinetics and toxicology in food. Likely usage and exposure levels are also largely a mystery.

The European Food Safety Authority says that lack of knowledge means that risk assessment of risk assessments must be done on a “cautious case-by-case approach.”

Last April, the European Parliament’s environment committee said nanotech products should be withdrawn from the market until more is known about their safety.  In June, that committee added that nanotech foods should be assessed for safety before they are approved for use and labeled.

Doesn’t that sound reasonable?  Let’s hope it’s not too late to put such constraints in place, and in the U.S. too.

Food Safety: FDA Has Begun to Take Action to Address Weaknesses in Food Safety Research, but Gaps Remain. GAO-10-182R, April 23, 2010 (23 pages).

Imported food makes up a substantial and growing portion of the U.S. food supply, with 60 percent of fresh fruits and vegetables and 80 percent of seafood coming from across our borders….In January 2007 GAO designated federal oversight of food safety as a high-risk area needing urgent attention and transformation because of the federal government’s fragmented oversight of food safety. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for ensuring the safety of roughly 80 percent of the U.S. food supply–virtually all domestic and imported foods except for meat, poultry, and processed egg products–valued at a total of $466 billion annually, as of June 2008.

Food Safety: FDA Could Strengthen Oversight of Imported Food by Improving Enforcement and Seeking Additional Authorities.  GAO-10-699T, May 6, 2010 (20 pages).

In 2008, FDA inspected 153 foreign food facilities out of an estimated 189,000 such facilities registered with FDA…. FDA estimated that it would conduct 200 inspections in 2009 and 600 in 2010. GAO previously identified several gaps in enforcement that could allow food products that violate safety laws to enter U.S. commerce. For example, FDA has limited authority to assess penalties on importers who introduce such food products, and the lack of a unique identifier for firms exporting food products may allow contaminated food to evade FDA’s review.

As it has been saying for years, GAO wants FDA to ask Congress to give it statutory authority to:

• Recall products identified as unsafe
• Require companies to demonstrate that food ingredients are safe before using them
• Require preventive controls (e.g. HACCP) by firms producing foods that have been associated with repeated instances of serious health problems or death.

Note that the FDA does not have this authority now and must seek it from Congress.  The food safety bill now before Congress does some of this, which is one reason why it should be passed.  Note: the House passed the bill last August.  Eleven months later, the Senate is still sitting on it.  Not helpful.

Addition: Consumers Union has produced a video—starring Eric Schlosser—on why the Senate must pass the food safety bill, and right away.

Update, July 8: President Obama states support of the Senate’s food safety bill.

I keep complaining about the health claims on Enfagrow toddler formula, a sugary product aimed at children from ages one to three:

These claims, for the uninitiated, are a special kind called structure-function.  Congress authorized such claims when it passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) in 1994.

Structure-function claims do not say that the product can prevent or treat disease. They merely suggest that the product can help in some unspecified way with some structure or function of the body.

When Congress passed DSHEA, it meant the claims to apply to dietary supplements, not foods. Enfagrow is marketed as a food, not a supplement.  It displays a Nutrition Facts label, not a Supplement Facts label.

Over the years, the FDA has issued cease-and-desist warnings about foods that bear structure-function claims.  In recent years, it has simply stated that manufacturers are responsible for ensuring that the claims are “truthful and not misleading.”

One reason for the shift is what the Courts have ruled.  The Courts say that structure-function claims are protected by First Amendment guarantees of free speech.  The most recent case is Alliance for Natural Health USA v. Sebelius. As described in Food Chemical News (June 7), a D.C. District Court judge ruled that the FDA cannot deny health claims that link selenium supplements to reduced risk of several diseases, or require those claims to be qualified, just because the claims lack adequate scientific substantiation.

In other words, supplement makers can say anything they want to about the benefits of their products—on the grounds of free commercial speech—whether or not science backs up the claim.

Recently, the FDA issued a warning letter to Nestlé, the maker of a Juicy Juice product aimed at toddlers, which displays a claim that its content of added omega-3 DHA improves brain development.  The FDA did not take on the claim, even though research seems unlikely to find that such drinks have any special benefits for brain development.  Instead, the FDA focused on a technicality:

The product makes claims such as “no sugar added,” which are not allowed on products intended for children under 2 yrs of age because appropriate dietary levels have not been established for children in this age range.

I’m guessing—this is speculation—that the FDA is reluctant to take on Enfagrow’s brain or immunity claims because Mead-Johnson has deep pockets and might well be willing to fight this one in court as a First Amendment case.

I am not a lawyer but I thought that intent mattered in legal cases.  Surely, the intent of the founding fathers in creating the First Amendment was to protect the right of individual citizens to speak freely about their political and religious beliefs.  Surely, their intent had nothing to do with protecting the rights of supplement, food, and drug corporations to claim benefits for unproven remedies, or to promote sales of sugary foods to babies.

I think it is time to give these First Amendment issues some serious thought.  How about:

• FDA: Fire those lawyers and hire some who will protect the FDA’s ability to use science in its decisions.
• FTC: Take a look a the immunity claim on the Enfagrow Vanilla toddler formula, now that the Chocolate is off the market.
• Legal scholars: Surely there are ways to protect real First Amendment rights while restricting unsubstantiated health claims?

Other ideas are most welcome.  Your thoughts?

Mead Johnson announced yesterday that it was withdrawing its Enfagrow Chocolate Toddler Formula–just the Chocolate version–from the market:

Like all our Enfagrow Premium products, the recently introduced chocolate-flavored version has a superior nutritional profile to many other beverages typically consumed by toddlers — including apple juice, grape juice, and similarly flavored dairy drinks. Unfortunately, there has been some misunderstanding and mischaracterization regarding the intended consumer for this product and the proper role it can play in a child’s balanced diet. The resulting debate has distracted attention from the overall benefits of the brand, so we have decided to discontinue production of Enfagrow Premium chocolate toddler drink and phase it out over the coming weeks.

I can’t resist quoting the Chicago Tribune’s explanation of the origin of the debate caused by “misunderstanding and mischaracterization:”

Introduced in February, the chocolate-flavored formula was widely criticized in the blogosphere after Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, wrote that the drink would lead children to crave sugary beverages on her influential blog, www.foodpolitics.com.

Influential?  Maybe, but it seems that my comments on this formula did not go nearly far enough.  Mead-Johnson may be withdrawing the Chocolate version, but it is keeping the Vanilla (as explained by Susan James on ABCNews.com, which also quotes me).

What’s the difference?  The Vanilla has exactly one gram less sugar than the Chocolate, 18 grams per 6-ounce serving, rather than 19 grams.  In contrast, the milk in my refrigerator has 9 grams of sugar (natural, not added) in 6 ounces.

Clearly, Mead-Johnson doesn’t get that it’s the sugars, stupid.

Why do I think this is a PR stunt?  Three reasons:

• The Vanilla doubles the sugars in regular milk.
• The Vanilla has the same health claims as the Chocolate: growth, brain development, and immunity.
• Mead-Johnson’s stock went up after the announcement.

One more time: Where are the FDA and FTC on this product?  This Immunity claim is no different from the one on Kellogg’s Krispies cereals that the FTC went after a couple of days ago.

Tomorrow: Some speculation on why the FDA is reluctant to take on things like this.

Addition, June 11: Here is Melanie Warner’s take on this on her BNet Food Industry blog site (she quotes my post).

The FTC has imposed new advertising restrictions on Kellogg because of the Immunity claim on Rice Krispies.  The company is not to make claims about “any health benefit of any food  unless the claims are backed by scientific evidence and not misleading.”

Under a previous order dealing with Frosted Mini-Wheats, Kellogg was not supposed to make claims about benefits to cognition on any of its cereals or snack foods unless the company could prove that the claims were backed by real science. This new decision extends that ruling to include any claim at all.

OK, but I’m confused about several aspects of this decision:

• How come the FTC is doing this and not the FDA?  At some point years ago, regulatory responsibility was split between FDA and FTC.  Since then, the FDA regulates claims on food package labels, whereas the FTC regulates advertising claims.  I realize that food labels are a form of advertising, but it’s unusual and surprising for the FTC to get involved in FDA-regulated matters.
• As FoodNavigator also wonders, why didn’t the FTC fine the company and, instead, write a harsh letter? [see update below]
• Why is the FTC doing this?  Kellogg agreed months ago to withdraw its Immunity claim ( see my November 5 post about the withdrawal).  The Immunity boxes gradually disappeared from supermarket shelves and I haven’t seen one for a long time.

So what’s going on here?  Is the FTC getting serious about regulation (and about time, too)?  Or is FDA sitting back and letting the FTC do its enforcement work?

Could this be why the FDA hasn’t sent a warning letter to Mead-Johnson, the maker of the chocolate toddler formula with three health claims aimed at kids ages 1 to 3.  I posted about this product on April 26, but haven’t heard whether the FDA is doing anything about it.  Can the FTC be on this case but waiting for investigations to be completed before taking action?

Kellogg, it seems, is under fire on all fronts.  CSPI’s Margo Wootan sent me the recent decision by the Children’s Advertising Review Unit of the Better Business Bureau that Kellogg must stop advertising Pop-Tarts to kids:

CARU was concerned that the product packaging, which features berries and states “Made with Real Fruit” for several of Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts®  products that have fruit in their names, impliedly represents to children that the products contain substantial amounts of fruit.

In fact, according to CARU, Pop-Tarts contain less than 6% fruit and less than 2% of the fruit shown in the advertising. Kellogg claimed that its marketing was not aimed at kids, but lost that one.

It’s great that regulatory agencies like FTC and FDA (and voluntary agencies like CARU) are regulating but it’s hard to keep track of who is doing what.   Nothing to do but wait and see what happens next.  Stay tuned.

Update, June 8: CSPI’s Margo Wootan writes that FTC can’t impose fines because it does not have the authority to issue civil penalties.  Ted Mermin of Public Good Law concurs.  He says:

Companies fight hard to make FTC (and similar) orders as narrow as possible, in large part to avoid precisely the situation in which they are held responsible for violating an existing injunction/order.  Since (in the Commission’s view, at least) Kellogg hadn’t violated an existing order, the FTC did not have the authority to fine them without first going to the US Department of Justice to get DOJ to take the case (a matter of a 45 day delay, if DOJ takes it at all).  The burden of that delay (and of needing to get authority from DOJ in the first place) is precisely what is driving the congressional charge for enhanced FTC authority as part of the financial reform legislation.

If the House version of financial reform legislation had been in effect, the FTC would have had the authority to seek civil penalties (i.e., fines) and the outcome here might have been different.  As it was, the fact that Kellogg had stopped the practice…kept the Commission (at least the three commissioners in the “majority”) from focusing on any remedy other than injunctive relief–that is, a broadening of the existing order from the Mini-Wheats case, with the threat of that $16,000 per violation (and an expanded area of prohibited activity) running into the future.

Update, June 11: In an editorial titled “Snake oil for breakfast,” the New York Times explains why health claims matter so much.  If you can’t believe health claims, what part of the food label can you believe?:

Businesses have been making dubious claims about their products at least since the 17th century, when the British clergyman Anthony Daffy sold Daffy’s Elixir as a cure for scurvy as well as agues, gout, rheumatism, rickets, worms and other ailments. Hucksterism — no matter how implausible the claim — lives on…[for example] POM Wonderful claimed its pomegranate juice helps treat, prevent or cure hypertension, diabetes and cancer.  This might be par for the course for an era of swift-boating political ads and a torrent of television commercials plumping for myriad wonder drugs (sudden death may result). It leaves the consumer in a quandary: what part of the label can be believed?