The Government Accountability Office has much to say about the FDA’s current inability to protect the public from unsafe food. Here’s how the New York Times views the situation. The FDA needs help. Badly. Let your favorite presidential candidate know.
The FDA must be hearing lots of complaints about food labels and health claims because it is asking for comments on the best way to calculate the percent daily value (DV), and on what nutrients get displayed. It is considering removing “Calories from Fat,” for example, and requiring the amount of monounsaturated fat to be listed. Want to comment on these ideas or suggest others? Go to this FDA site. As for health claims, the FDA plans to reevaluate the ones for soy and heart disease, fat and cancer, antioxidant vitamins and cancers, and selenium and cancers based on recent research. To comment, go to the Federal Register.
As predicted, the FDA says cloned animals are just fine to eat and, therefore, do not need to be labeled in any special way. According to Food Chemical News, the FDA acknowledges that people have raised “moral, religious and ethical concerns,” but emphasizes that it performed “strictly a science-based evaluation” as it is required by law to do. Yes indeed. Whenever I hear “science-based,” I know that something political is going on, in this case avoidance of those pesky “moral, religious, and ethical concerns.” Maybe that’s why the USDA says slow down. Also according to Food Chemical News, USDA “has asked cloning firms to extend their voluntary moratorium on introducing meat and milk from clones into the marketplace to enable a smooth transition for such products.”. I can’t wait to see what happens next. Even if cloned animals are safe, they are not necessarily acceptable–and the USDA seems to understand this.
And just for fun, take a look at some of the comments on this decision.
The FDA has produced electronic posters giving the nutrient content of raw fruits, raw vegetables, and cooked seafood (purchased raw). Why? I’m guessing because real foods don’t come with Nutrition Facts labels and you have to go to the USDA’s nutrient composition data base to find out what the details are. You can download the posters in small, medium, large, and extra-large, or just in text format. If you care about which fruit or vegetable has the most of any one nutrient, here’s an easy way to find out. Have fun with them!
According to rumors, the FDA is about to approve the use of cloned animals for food. The rumors originate from the Wall Street Journal, which warns everyone to “get ready for a food fight over milk and meat from cloned animals and their offspring.” When it first approved cloned animals, the FDA asked producers of the cloned animals not to do this until consumers got used to the idea: “we are continuing to ask producers of clones and livestock breeders to voluntarily refrain from introducing food products from these animals into commerce so that we will have the opportunity to consider the public’s comments and to issue any final documents as warranted.” I guess they’ve done that and the time has come?
Today’s “Ask Marion” on Eating Liberally follows up on my previous post about the FDA Science Board’s tough review of agency resources and competence. Enjoy!
Here’s what the New York Times has to say about the new report from the FDA’s Science Board. The Science Board is a high-level committee that directly advises the FDA Commissioner (full disclosure: I used to be a consumer representative on that Board). At the Commissioner’s request, it has just issued a no-holds-barred report on the current state of the FDA. Congress, it says, has deliberately taken resources away from the FDA to the point where it cannot possibly do what it is supposed to. The report singles out the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition–the part that deals with food regulation and safety–as a particular target for budget cuts. Since 1992, for example, CFSAN has lost 15% of its workforce, but has far more to do. You think a weak food regulatory agency is maybe not such a good idea? Let your congressional representatives know what you think about this issue. You don’t know who they are? Just go to this site, type in your zip code, and take it from there.
The FDA has released its version of the new food safety plans for imported foods. It has established a Food Protection Plan web site, an Import Safety site, and a new plan for food protection. These are linked to the import safety plan mentioned in yesterday’s posting. It’s still difficult to figure out how all this will work in practice but the idea seems to be to require countries that export foods to us to certify their exporters and allow U.S. inspectors on site. And the FDA will be allowed to order recalls. What a concept! Some progress, but will it do the trick?
