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Early in February I wrote about heavy metal toxins in baby foods.  A report, Baby Foods Are Tainted with Dangerous Levels of Arsenic, Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury, revealed:

• Arsenic, led, cadmium, and mercury are present in commercial baby foods at levels much higher than considered safe.
• Their sources: foods raised on contaminated soil and water, and vitamin/mineral pre-mixes.
• Baby food companies set their own safety standards for toxic metals.
• The FDA knows baby foods have high levels of toxic metals but isn’t doing anything about it.
• Some baby food companies refused to share data on this topic.

Politico has been following this story.  It reports:

• The FDA launched a working group on toxic food contaminants in 2017,  partly in reaction to an earlier EPA study that found food to be a source of about half the lead that kids get (see supplementary material in this paper).
• Preventing lead exposure would be good for society as well as for children.

In response to the “Tainted” report, the FDA now says it will set standards.

The FDA wrote baby food manufacturers to shape up.  The FDA, it says,

 is taking this opportunity to remind all baby and toddler food manufacturers and processors covered by the preventive control provisions of the rule Current Good Manufacturing Practice, Hazard Analysis, and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Human Food…of your responsibility under the rulemaking to consider chemical hazards that may be present in foods when conducting your hazard analysis….FDA takes exposure to toxic elements in the food supply extremely seriously, especially when it comes to protecting the health and safety of the youngest and most vulnerable in the population.

And the FDA issued a statement to the food industry. 

Toxic elements are in the environment, and therefore in the food supply. The levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, and cadmium in certain foods depends on many factors, including: growing conditions; manufacturing and agricultural processes; past or current environmental contamination; and the genetic capacity of food crops to take up elements. We share the public’s concerns for the health of America’s children, and want to reassure parents and caregivers that at the levels we have found through our testing, children are not at an immediate health risk from exposure to toxic elements in foods. The FDA routinely monitors levels of toxic elements in food, and if we find that they pose a health risk, the FDA takes steps to remove those foods from the market.

Research has shown that reducing exposure to toxic elements is important to minimizing any potential long-term effects on the developing brains of infants and children. As such, this issue is among FDA’s highest priorities and we are actively working to make progress on identifying and implementing impactful solutions to make foods commonly consumed by infants and young children safer.

In the meantime, here’s what Beech Nut says on its website.

Toxic heavy metals are not good for babies’ health.  Baby food companies need to do much better in getting rid of these things if they want anyone to keep buying their products.

What to do in the meantime?  Feed kids small amounts of as wide a variety of foods as possible.  That’s good advice anyway.

The FDA has a new Agricultural Biotechnology Education and Outreach Initiative to teach the public about GMOs.

Its “Feed Your Mind” Initiative  provides webpages, fact sheets, infographics, and videos developed jointly with the USDA and EPA.

What is this about?

in 2017, Congress provided funding for an Agricultural Biotechnology Education and Outreach Initiative, which calls upon FDA to work with EPA and USDA to share science-based educational information about GMOs, beginning with answers to some basic GMO questions.

Some of this is useful.  For example:

If you want details about any of  FDA-authorized GMOs, you have to go to this obscure website on “completed consultations.”

Most GMOs are crops grown for animal feed (or ethanol for cars).

So the only GMO products you are likely to find at supermarkets are papayas, potatoes, squash, and apples.

How can you tell?    If the papayas are from Hawai’i, you can assume they are GMO.

As for the others, you have no way of knowing unless they are labeled, and good luck with that.

GMOs are supposed to be labeled starting in 2020 and definitely by 2022 (unless overturned by litigation).  The label is supposed to look like this:

The FDA website says nothing about GMO labeling.  It also says nothing about GMO monoculture, corporate control of the food supply, pesticide resistance, or pesticide harm.

But it does have all this:

• Two videos
  • Why do we have GMOs?
  • Do GMOs Affect Your Health?
• Four new fact sheets
  • GMO Crops and Food for Animals
  • GMO Crops and Humanitarian Reasons for Development
  • Types of Genetic Modification Methods for Crops
  • Why Do Farmers in the U.S. Grow GMO Crops?
• Spanish translations of the fact sheets and infographics
• High school curriculum Science and Our Food Supply: Exploring Food Agriculture and Biotechnology

Thanks to the Hagstrom Report for this item.  It revealed that The Alliance for a Stronger FDA has produced a chart of the changes to the funding levels for the FDA in the Agriculture appropriations bill.

The group reports these increases for food safety funding:

▪ $5 million for innovation and emerging technology
▪ $7 million for advancing FSMA (the Food Safety Modernization Act)
▪ $8 million for strengthening response to foodborne outbreaks
▪ $3 million for dietary supplements
▪ $5 million for imported seafood safety
▪ $2 million for CBD activities
▪ $500,000 for antimicrobial monitoring system
▪ $1 million for standards of identity

These are drops in a very large bucket of need for FDA funding.

Please note that the FDA, a public health agency, gets its funding from agricultural appropriation committees, not health committees.

This is an unfortunate accident of history, but goes a long way to explaining why the FDA is so consistently underfunded.

The FDA released its final guidance on the new food labeling rules late in December.

I have a collection of Kellogg Froot Loop cereal boxes (or facsimiles) going back to its first year.  I’ve been tracking it closely and have just started seeing the new label in stores.

The Spanish translation is optional, but I’m for it.

Industry groups are still complaining that they need more time.  

Really?  Let’s review the history.

• Between 1993 and 2013: FDA receives 12 citizen petitions calling for changes to the Nutrition Facts and Supplement Facts labels.
• 2003 to 2007: FDA issues 3 advance notices of proposed rulemaking seeking public comment on issues relevant to updating the Nutrition Facts label.
• 2014: FDA issues proposed rules.
• 2015: FDA issues supplemental proposed rule covering added sugars, DV, and footnote text.
• 2016: FDA issues final rules, expects all companies to comply by 2019.
• 2017: FDA delays compliance date until 2020.
• 2019: FDA issues final rules; FDA says it will give six-month leeway for compliance.

I say it’s about time.  Yes!

The CDC continues to track the latest outbreak of illnesses caused by eating Romaine lettuce contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.

The outbreak at a glance:

• Reported Cases: 67
• States: 19
• Hospitalizations: 39
• Deaths: 0
• Recall: Yes

The FDA’s advice:

Consumers should not eat romaine lettuce harvested from Salinas, California. Additionally, consumers should not eat products identified in the recall announced by the USDA on November 21, 2019.

A former FDA official, Stephen Ostroff, says:

It’s not clear where this strain is hiding. Cattle? Water sources? Elsewhere? What is clear is that additional steps must be taken to make romaine safer.

The New Food Economy emphasizes some particularly distressing aspects of this particular outbreak.

• It is caused by the same strain of E. coli O157:H7 that caused outbreaks linked to leafy greens in 2017 and to Romaine lettuce in 2018.
• This strain of E. coli seems particularly virulent: 39 of the 67 cases had to be hospitalized.
• The source has not yet been traced.

Consumer Report’s advice: ”

People should avoid all romaine lettuce and that any currently in refrigerators should immediately be thrown out because of the risk of E. coli contamination…CR’s experts think it is prudent and less confusing for consumers to avoid romaine altogether, especially because romaine is also sold unpackaged and in restaurants, and customers can’t always be sure of the origin that lettuce.  “Much of the romaine lettuce on the market at this time of year is from Salinas,” says James E. Rogers, Ph.D., director of food safety research and testing at Consumer Reports.

Food safety lawyer Bill Marler says enough is enough; It’s time to put warning labels on Romaine lettuce.

Marler’s advice: when in doubt, throw it out.

My comment:  Contamination of vegetables with toxic E. coli means that the vegetables somehow came in contact with waste from farm animals or wild animals or birds.  The most likely suspect is Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) or large dairies because they produce so much animal waste.  If one animal is infected under crowded CAFO conditions, other animals also will be infected (but cows don’t show symptoms).

Preventing lettuce contamination means that CAFOs must manage their waste so that it is not infectious (USDA and EPA regulated) and vegetable farms must keep infected water from contaminating their crops (FDA regulated).  All of this means following food safety procedures to the letter, but also in spirit.

Constant Romaine outbreaks are further evidence for the need for consistency in USDA and FDA food safety policies, and a reminder that calls for a single, united food safety agency have been coming for more than 40 years.  Surely, it’s time.

Thanks to Elaine Watson at FoodNavigator-USA for writing about Coca-Cola’s efforts to get the FDA to let it put vitamins in its drinks.  OK, its “healthier” drinks.

Historically, the FDA discouraged (putting it mildly) makers of candy and other junk foods from adding vitamins so they could be marketed as “healthy.”  This was known as the “jelly bean rule.”   Vitamins could not be added to jelly beans—or Coca-Cola.

It’s not really a formal rule, but here’s what the FDA says in 21CFR104.20:  ​​

The Food and Drug Administration does not encourage indiscriminate addition of nutrients to foods, nor does it consider it appropriate to fortify fresh produce; meat, poultry, or fish products; sugars; or snack foods such as candies and carbonated beverages.

But what about the exceptions?

• Gummy Bears: vitamins are be added to gummy bears, but these are typically sold as dietary supplements, not foods. They can do this because the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 authorized much looser rules for supplements.  Even though gummy bears are candy, the FDA isn’t going to fight this one.
• Glaceau Vitamin Water:  Coca-Cola now owns this company. Some Vitamin Waters have as much sugar as a Coke.  They have Nutrition Facts labels and are marketed as foods, and look to me to be in violation of the jelly bean rule,.  The FDA hasn’t done anything about them, even though they are vitamin-enriched sugar water.  If you have any idea why not, please tell me.

For decades, Coca-Cola has tried to get the FDA to ease up on the jelly bean rule.  Now it is trying again.

Its argument?  The rule, by not allowing the addition of vitamins to sugary teas and coffees, stifles innovation.

Its assurance?  It won’t add vitamins to Coke, but will add them to its other, presumably “healthier” (meaning, I suppose, less sugary) beverages.

As I wrote earlier, candy makers are trying this trick too.

I wonder how long the FDA can hold out on this one.  I wish it luck.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I hear things like this.  According to a report from the Associated Press, the FDA plans to follow the Trump administration’s deregulaory agenda by getting rid of the standard of identity rules for frozen cherry pies.

The rules currently require commercial frozen cherry pies to be filled with “mature, pitted, stemmed cherries that are fresh, frozen, and/or canned,” to contain at least 25% cherries by weight, and to have no more than 15% of the cherries with blemishes.

In October, then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb sent out this tweet.

In a June email, the FDA said it planned to revoke the standard for frozen cherry pies in April. It has kept its word.

My questions:

• Without the standard of identity, are we likely to have more or fewer cherries in frozen cherry pie?  [Want to make a bet?  I’m guessing fewer].
• What lobbying group got the FDA to do this, and why did the FDA agree?
• Did ex-Commissioner Gottlieb really consider this a top priority for FDA? [If so, we are in even worse trouble than even I imagined].

I’m stuck on regulatory priority.  Food safety, anyone?

As for the origins of the cherry pie count, see this excellent piece in the Washington Post by historian Xaq Frohlich.

Last week, the USDA and FDA ended their turf battle and announced a joint framework for jointly regulating cell-based meat products.

Congress instructed them to do this in a statement related to the Appropriations Act:

Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Agriculture and the Commissioner of Food and Drugs shall enter into a formal agreement delineating the responsibilities of the two agencies for the regulation of cell-cultured food products derived from livestock and poultry. Such agreement shall be made public on the USDA and FDA websites within one day of the completion of the agreement.

These products, not yet on the market, are made from animal cells grown in tissue culture; no animals are killed in the process.

What to call these emerging products is a matter of some debate.  Proponents call them such things as in vitro, lab-based, vat-grown, or clean.

The meat industry wants them called artificial, synthetic, or fake.  It publishes a flier called “Fake Meat Facts.”

The proposed plan calls for the FDA to regulate the collection of animal cells, cell banks, and cell growth—the processes.  USDA will oversee production, as it does for live animals and poultry.

Much must be at stake.  The agencies’ framework is proactive; the products are not expected to be marketed for several years.

The meat industry is relieved that USDA is in charge.

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association President Jennifer Houston said, “The formal agreement announced today solidifies USDA’s lead oversight role in the production and labeling of lab-grown fake meat products.”

“This is what NCBA has been asking for, and it is what consumers deserve,” Houston said.

The market for these products is expected to be huge, but questions remain:

• Lab-based: Is it really environmentally friendly?
• And yes, more research is needed.

We will be hearing a lot more about these products as they head to market.