After 80 years, the FDA updates food-safety regulations – National Consumers League

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food.jpgBy Ali Schklair, Linda Golodner Food Safety & Nutrition Fellow 

In 1938, Congress passed the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C). Regulated by the FDA, the law set safety standards for the manufacturing and distribution of food, drugs, and cosmetics. But, our food (drug and cosmetic) system has changed dramatically since the 1930s. 

Today, most of our raw and processed foods come from industrial farms. The popularity of frozen and prepackaged foods has skyrocketed. And imported foods account for 15 percent of the US food supply, including almost 50 percent of fresh fruit and 20 percent of fresh vegetables. While everything from farming practices to eating habits has evolved since the 1930s, the FDA has followed the same safety standards implemented almost a century ago.

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which was first enacted in 2011, is a breakthrough for food safety in the US.  On Thursday, September 10th, 2015, the final preventive control rules for human and animal food were released. These rules are a critical piece of FSMA’s prevention-based approach to improving food safety. Additional rules addressing produce safety and food imports are expected to be finalized and released by the end of October. Once all rules are in effect, the US will have a food safety oversight system that requires producers and processors to take preemptive action against the growth and spread of pathogens.

A focus on prevention reflects how food policy and public health frameworks have shifted in America. Instead of relying on reactive interventions, today, health initiatives focus on identifying and preventing hazards before they reach the public. Prevention strategies are used to address public health problems like the flu, obesity, lung cancer, and now foodborne illness.

But, FSMA will only be successful in carrying out these preventive measures if the FDA has access to adequate funding. Currently, the House and Senate appropriations bills for the 2016 fiscal year do not meet funding needs. The Food Safety Modernization Act has the potential to overhaul our current food safety regulatory system, which will hopefully lead to less food contamination and less foodborne illnesses. However, without sufficient funding, we could be stuck with the same antiquated system for another eighty years. 

Teens do not realize the dangers of energy drinks – National Consumers League

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Many student athletes are loading up on highly caffeinated energy drinks before practices and competitions.  In some cases, parents are providing these beverages.  What both the parents and teens may not realize is that energy drinks are leading to death, especially among individuals with heart complications or defects. Too many young people are unknowingly hurting their bodies from energy drink overconsumption.

For starters, energy drinks contain large amounts of caffeine and are designed to be consumed more quickly than a cup of coffee or tea.  While some smaller servings of energy drinks contain less than 200 milligrams of caffeine, a normal amount to consume in a day according to doctors, many come in 20 – 24oz cans which contain far higher levels of caffeine.  Not to mention there are endless accounts of teens drinking multiple energy drinks at one time.  One product, Mio, comes in a small squeeze bottle and is intended to be added to water.  The entire bottle in whole contains 18 servings coming in at around 1060mg of caffeine.  This sort of product is begging to be abused by students. 

High levels of caffeine in energy drinks aren’t the only dangerous component.  Thanks to loopholes and a lack of enforcement on behalf of FDA, energy drink companies use additives (like guarana and l-carnitine) that are not proven to be safe.  Not to mention that guarana contains caffeine that isn’t included in the total amount of caffeine.  Taurine, another common additive, also affects the heart and cardiovascular system.  Mysterious additives in combination with the tendency to consumer these beverages in large amounts lends to a rather dangerous brew. 

With so much contention surrounding youth consumption of energy drinks, why does the U.S. continuing to allow marketing and sales to minors?  In 2011, Canada set limits on the amount of caffeine in energy drinks. Canada also required on package labels that identify groups sensitive to caffeine and warning labels advising against mixing energy drinks with alcohol.  At the very least marketing to minors in the U.S. should be eliminated and age restrictions put in place on sales.  

Making the case for a soda tax – National Consumers League

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Last week the Center for the Science in the Public Interest hosted the National Soda Summit in Washington, DC. Strange name for a conference, I know.  Without further explanation, one might conclude from the title that his was a Coca-Cola extravaganza. Au contraire. CSPI, which was founded in by Dr. Mike Jacobson in 1971, gets the credit for getting Americans, for the first time, to question what’s in their food, ask how nutritional that food is, and ask why our food choices make us unhealthy.

Sweetened drinks such as soda, energy drinks, sports drinks, and sweetened coffees and tea, add large numbers of calories to the diets of children and adults. They are associated with chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.

Undoing the damage that’s caused by unhealthy foods – and the ubiquity of unhealthy drinks available to us every day –is a long slow process. Walk into a 7-11 sometime and count the number of empty calorie options that add massive amounts of calories to our diet every year.

On the tables at the conference were two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew and Pepsi and Coke and energy drinks– with notes on how much sugar each contained – try 64 teaspoons in the Mountain Due and 72 in the Pepsi. Bags of domino sugar were mounted on one table to demonstrate the absurd amounts of empty calories in these drinks. That’s a little bit deceptive because the sweetener in these drinks isn’t sugar but high fructose corn syrup. However, the calories are the same.

NCL supports a tax on sweetened drinks, with proceeds devoted to school nutritional education programs.  The latest research from the Robert Wood Johnson is that a calorie –based tax on drinks would reduce consumption of beverage calories. Based on sales data from supermarkets in New York, a .04 cent per calorie tax on sugar sweetened beverages would reduce the consumption of beverage calories by 9.3 percent. Research shows that a variety of pricing strategies can create incentives for healthier choices. Interestingly, a 20 percent increase in the cost of sweetened beverages, is estimated to reduce consumption by 24 percent. Like cigarettes, soda is price sensitive; raising the price of these empty calorie drinks may be just what we need to lower consumption levels.

 

Raw milk is a raw deal for consumers – National Consumers League

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NCL has recently signed onto a consumer group letter opposing two shocking federal bills introduced to weaken restrictions on the sale of raw milk. Raw milk – milk that hasn’t been pasteurized to kill dangerous bacteria – can kill you. NCL’s first leader, Florence Kelley, watched children get sick and die from raw milk. She was disconsolate that states were slow to require pasteurization, Louis Pasteur’s great discovery that heating milk kills pathogens.

(Pasteur also developed the rabies vaccine.) Heating milk to 161 degrees for 15 seconds, known as flash pasteurization, is all it takes to make milk safe.

The ignorance of those who champion the so-called benefits of raw milk is astounding. Its one thing if an adult wants to consume raw milk, but parents feed raw milk to their children putting their kids’ lives at risk.  The CDC reported in 2012 that unpasteurized products are 150 times more likely to cause food borne illnesses than pasteurized versions.

One of the federal bills would end the interstate ban on raw milk sales and the second would allow interstate transport between states where raw milk is legally sold. There are 40 bills to allow raw milk sales at the state level.

Bill Marler is a food lawyer in Seattle who has handled two-dozen cases involving illnesses from raw milk consumption in children or the elderly.  “It’s a high risk product and in most cases, I’m representing the most vulnerable in society,” Marler said.

In November, five-year-old Maddie Powell was one of nine children in her family, all younger than seven, who were sickened by E. coli from raw milk. Maddie, along with two of the other children, developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a potentially fatal kidney disease that is known to coincide with E. coli infections. After this frightening and costly experience, Maddie’s mother said they would not return to drinking raw milk.

Why in the world would any parent knowingly subject their child to such a dangerous product to begin with? Because raw milk advocates are peddling a message that their product has health benefits superior to pasteurized milk. Nothing could be more misguided. We hope these federal bills will generate an informed discussion that will demonstrate the folly of consuming raw milk.

America: Land of the free, home of the wasteful? – National Consumers League

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Have you ever wondered what happens to the food you throw away? A quarter to a third of all food worldwide goes to waste, and in America an astonishing 40 percent of our food is wasted. For many Americans, bounty and convenience make it easy to be out of touch with where food comes from and where it ends up. Learn what you can you do about it, starting today!

Since the 1970’s, when industrial farming became a significant means of feeding the public, food waste in the U.S. has increased by 50 percent. While Americans’ growing interest in the origin of their food is a step in the right direction, we need to complete the circle by also taking note of what happens to our food that we toss away. 

Food waste can happen at many points throughout the supply chain but consumers and commercial establishments, like restaurants and grocery stores, are the largest wasters of food. American families throw away 25 percent of the food they purchase which costs a family an estimated $1,350 to $2,275 a year.  Not only is this bad for our wallets, but it’s also bad for the environment. Food waste typically ends up in landfills creating methane gas, the second most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted in the U.S. The UK estimates that if everyone on earth stopped wasting food that could be eaten, it would have the environmental equivalent of removing every one in four cars from the road. 

We at the National Consumers League found these statistics disturbing and we’ve decided to do something about it.  The League will begin working on a food waste project to educate consumers and put pressure on both federal and local governments to reduce food waste. Improved expiration date labeling, compost pick up, and food handling education are all important steps to help consumers reduce their food waste. 

America may be the land of plenty but there are still plenty of Americans that go hungry every day; One in six to be exact. If we reduced our food waste losses by 15% we could feed 25 million more Americans each year, that’s half of all Americans that are currently food insecure. As a nation, we have no reason to ignore this massive problem.  Both the United Kingdom and the European Union have resolved to drastically reduce their food waste and the United States should follow their lead. As a nation we cannot continue to throw food prematurely or unnecessarily into the garbage as tens of millions Americans struggle to find food to put on the table to feed their families. 

Understanding GMOs – National Consumers League

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92_gmo.jpgFew agricultural issues are as controversial and complex as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Tinkering with the genetics of food is bound to set off red flags for many, especially those who are concerned about environmental issues. It’s important, however, to consider many aspects: economics, health, policy, environment, regulation, and labeling are a handful of the most important aspects to consider when weighing GMO pros and cons.

Health is likely the most important concern to an American consumer. Is it safe to be eating GMOs? Evidence here is unclear, some proving theories that GMOs are harmful, others disproving them. As with any issue it’s important to approach evidence with an open mind making a decision based on which studies you find to be most accurate and representative. While it’s possible to see associations between the increase in corn DNA as well as the increase in various health issues, like obesity and autism, that doesn’t necessarily mean the two are connected. The same connections could be made between health issues and increases in other technologies like cell phones. Additionally, specific concerns about the creation of new allergens have been raised. Testing and controlling for known allergens from GMOs, is well developed but possible threats lie in the development of new, unknown allergens.

Environmental factors prove to be a point of contention for GMO stakeholders as well. The apparent increased use of herbicides is disconcerting to say the least. Upon further inspection, glyphosate is the most increased herbicide, many others have been decreased. Glyphosate is notably less harmful to humans than other herbicides, but it is so effective that it eliminates important biodiversity (i.e., insects and plants) on farms. Some good news is that overall insecticide use has decreased among GMOs. Some insects have already developed a resistance to some GE crops but scientists predict genetic engineering will continue to reduce the need for insecticides. Additionally, in some countries GMOs help with soil preservation by lending themselves to low and no till farming.

Patents prove to be an especially salient issue for farmers. GMO seeds that have been patented are more expensive and thus difficult for poorer farmers to obtain which puts undue financial strain on those farms. Labeling is perhaps the biggest issue in the news now. Washington State recent voted down a proposed bill to require the labeling of foods made with GMOs. It has been speculated that more of these bills will pop up in the near future, putting pressure on industry to voluntarily begin labeling or in some cases stop using GMOs altogether.

As the GMO issue continues to grow and change, it’s important for each of us to critically evaluate its components. An ever-increasing body of scientific evidence lends itself to our ability to make informed choices, an opportunity each of us should seize.

 

Understanding ‘sell by’ dates – National Consumers League

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The amount of food wasted in America is disturbingly high. Around 40 percent of the U.S. food supply is thrown away unused every year due, in part, to confusing food date labeling. More than 90 percent of Americans have thrown out food prior to its actual expiration date. Recently, a push has been made to reduce the amount of food that grocery stores are disposing of by repurposing it in cheap prepared meals or donating it to food banks. At home, consumers can reduce food waste by learning the truth about “use by” date labeling.

According to a Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic study on waste associated with food date labeling, food dating emerged in the 1970s due to consumer demand. Americans were starting to produce less of their own food and purchasing more processed grocery store products, but there were no standards for indicating how long the food products could be safely consumed. Consumers pushed for a uniform, regulated food-dating system.

Unfortunately, food date labeling was never a priority to Congress, which failed to pass federally regulated guidelines indicating an expiration date for various foods. It was decided that food dating wasn’t an issue of public health and thus didn’t need to be federally regulated. Instead, states took this issue into their own hands, providing Americans with a patchwork quilt of laws across the United States that engaged dating terms such as “use by,” “best by,” and “sell by.” Today, food dating regulations exist mainly at the state level, with some at the local level, in 41 states. Baby formula remains the only federally-regulated food dated product because necessary nutrients and potency are lost as time progresses.

Not only are the current regulations confusing and incongruent, but their purpose is overwhelmingly misunderstood and assumed to be an “expiration date.” In reality, the purpose of food date labels is to ensure that products are eaten at their peak quality, not to determine when the product is no longer safe to consume. Therein originates the problem of food waste. It’s actually quite uncommon to get sick from foods that are past their use by/sell by dates, as it is not a measure of food safety but instead a measure of peak freshness. In most cases, smell and sight are good indicators that a food has turned. If you’re still not sure, the Internet has some great resources (like foodsafety.gov), which could aid in the decision-making process.

Both “use by” and “best by” dates are intended for consumer use to specify a time at which the peak freshness of a product begins to deteriorate. These dates say nothing about whether the food is safe to eat or not; they are created by the manufacturer strictly for food quality purposes. “Sell by” dates are a tool for manufacturers and sellers to determine proper turnover of a product. At one time, “sell by” dates were coded so the consumer didn’t know what the label meant, but when the movement for better labeling began in the 1970’s many grocers voluntarily adopted the practice of transparently labeling “sell by” dates because it was what consumers wanted.

Today “sell by” dates can prove to be more confusing than helpful, causing unnecessary food waste as many consumers assume foods past the “sell by” date have gone bad. A need for federally regulated food expiration dates still exists, but, in the meantime, consumers should know that their own senses and some light Internet research might be the best determinant of whether foods are fit to eat or if they really do need to be tossed.

Safety of food imports getting a boost – National Consumers League

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Did you know that 20 percent of America’s food supply is imported from other countries, including half of our fresh fruit and 20 percent of the fresh vegetables we eat? Despite these significant numbers, the federal government has been, up until now, only inspecting 2 percent of these imports. According to new rules from the Food and Drug Administration, however, that is about to change.

Advocates at the National Consumers League (NCL) and other organizations concerned with the safety of the food supply are celebrating the recent proposal by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for long-awaited import rules, a key component of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which President Obama signed into law in January 2011.

According to experts at Pew Charitable Trusts, food imported from other countries accounts for a disproportionately high percentage of foodborne illness in the United States. Eight of the 19 multistate foodborne illness outbreaks that have occurred since President Obama signed FSMA into law in January 2011 were linked to imported foods, including pomegranate seeds, tahini sesame paste, cucumbers, ricotta salata cheese, mangoes, raw tuna, pine nuts and papayas. That number also includes the current 9-state hepatitis A outbreak linked to pomegranate seeds imported from Turkey that has sickened 153 people, 66 of whom have been hospitalized.

Advocates see these rules as instrumental for creating a food safety system, which works to prevent — not just respond to –foodborne illness outbreaks. The Foreign Supply Verification rule will require importers to ensure foreign suppliers meet U.S. standards. The Accredited Third Party Certification will only further strengthen the safety audits and certifications for food imports. According to the FDA, the new rules will shift the regulatory system toward prevention within the supply chain, instead of relying heavily on FDA inspectors to catch problems at the border or port of entry.

Think foodborne illness is too rare to worry about? Think again. It might be more common than you think, with major newsworthy outbreaks happening quite regularly. Check out these most recent outbreaks, as reported by USA Today.

2013 Foodborne illness outbreaks in imports:

June 2013: Hepatitis A

  • Nine states
  • Source: Turkish pomegranates in a frozen berry mix
  • 153 ill, 66 hospitalized, no deaths

May 2013: Salmonella Montevideo, Salmonella Mbandaka

  • Nine states.
  • Source: Tahini sesame paste from Turkey.
  • 16 ill, one hospitalized, one death.

April 2013: Salmonella Saintpaul

  • 18 states
  • Source: Cucumbers from Mexico.
  • 84 ill, 17 hospitalized, no deaths.

Cheers and jeers for American meat industry – National Consumers League

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It’s been a month of cheers and jeers for the American meat industry. The good news? According to a recent study by the American Meat Institute Foundation, meat producers have significantly reduced listerosis outbreaks, a foodborne illness, by sharing effective food safety practices and research within the industry. The bad news? Where to begin?

Earlier in the month, the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) internal watchdog released a scathing report of the Food Safety Inspection Service’s (FSIS) inspection of pork slaughterhouses. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) made three key discoveries: many slaughter plants are committing the same food safety violations again and again; more than 25 percent of the plants visited did not examine the internal organs of the carcasses after processing; and OIG witnessed widespread mishandling of animals. The companies, which routinely flouted food safety rules, did so at no consequence as Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) failed to use the aggressive enforcement actions – suspensions and withholding the mark of inspection – available to them. Also, plant workers have replaced FSIS inspectors on the inspection lines. They have received little guidance or training. And, as a result, many have failed to inspect the carcasses’ internal organs, thereby eliminating the possibility of detecting contamination. Finally, inspectors failed to report humane handling violations, further allowing the animal abuse.

What particularly concerns NCL is the report’s review of the pork slaughterhouse pilot program, which is remarkably similar to the poultry pilot program FSIS seeks to implement throughout the poultry industry. This is a program that NCL, along with a robust coalition of food safety and workers’ rights groups, has been fighting against. More specifically, the report describes the effects of the HAACP-based Inspection Models Project (HIMP), a pilot program that began in 1997 that increased line speeds – in other words, the speed at which the meat passes through human inspection—and reduced the number of FSIS inspectors in a handful of pork facilities.

This report raised a number of concerns with the program. First, the USDA failed to conduct a comprehensive review to gauge whether HIMP has increased food safety and plant efficiency as intended. Despite limited oversight, OIG was still able to identify major flaws with the inspection procedure. With three of the HIMP plants receiving most noncompliance reports (formal write-ups of food safety violations), the program may increase the potential for food safety risks. Even more alarming, inspectors failed to manually inspect the internal organs in which disease and contamination may lurk. Second, HIMP plants, which lack any formal agreements with FSIS, have greater flexibility than other plants. As a result, HIMP plants have faster production lines and fewer inspectors, limiting their ability to improve food safety and to comply with food safety regulations.

HIMP has also been piloted in poultry slaughterhouses, and FSIS plans to expand the program to all poultry plants. As in swine slaughterhouses, the program would increase the speed of the poultry line and replace FSIS inspectors with plant workers, who would not be required to receive any new training. Like many consumer advocacy groups, NCL is particularly concerned about this program’s extension. Workers would have a third of a second to examine the chicken, meaning contamination and defects could go undetected. It is not only a food safety issue, but also a worker safety issue. Faster line speeds mean a higher incidence of repetitive-motion injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, for slaughterhouse employees. And many of these workers, who are often new, undocumented immigrants, women and non-native English speakers, may be hesitant to speak up for fear of being fired or even deported.

Given the OIG’s findings in pork slaughterhouses, you may be wondering how USDA could even consider industry-wide HIMP implementation. Here at NCL, we are too. NCL’s conviction that implementing HIMP is a bad idea has now only deepened given the overwhelming evidence.

“Modernization” of poultry slaughter under fire

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Now that the election is over, advocates in Washington, DC and the Obama administration can refocus their energy on pressing policy issues. One of the biggest issues facing the food safety community right now is the modernization of the food system. New rules meant to modernize poultry inspection has advocates from many areas concerned — is 1/3rd of a second enough to properly inspect a chicken? We don’t think so.

With the two-year anniversary of the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) approaching, this topic is foremost in the minds of many food safety advocates. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which has regulatory jurisdiction over meat and poultry, is also focusing on modernization. To this end, they have issued the proposed rule, “Modernization of Poultry Slaughter Inspection.” NCL has joined a diverse group of labor, food safety and good government groups in opposing this rule.

What does the rule do?

Since the passage of the 1906 Federal Meat Inspection Act, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has been responsible for carcass by carcass inspection in slaughter plants throughout the country. These inspectors are trained and, because they are employed by the government and not the plant, are assured job security regardless of whether they uncover issues at a plant. Under the proposed rule, many inspection duties would be reassigned to plant employees.

What worker safety concerns does this proposed rule present?

  • Aside from shifting inspection duties from government inspectors to plant employees, this proposed rule also allows for increases in line speed. While several inspectors currently man the slaughter line, the proposed rule will decrease their presence. The result is that while under traditional inspection each inspection looks at about 30 birds per minute, under the proposed rule each inspection would look at about 175 birds per minute. This means that he or she spends 1/3 of a second on each bird.
  • Under the new system, inspectors are also unable to look at the whole bird. This is a problem because fecal contamination, which often indicates the presence of foodborne illness, can often occur inside the bird as well as outside it.
  • While USDA claims that this proposal will decrease the prevalence of foodborne illness, in their own data analysis, they admit that the proposal’s impact on campylobacter, which is responsible for close to a million illnesses each year, is “ambiguous.”
  • Under the new system, plants will be allowed to create their own standards for testing of foodborne illnesses and other defects, such as scabs, feathers and bile. This means that checking how plants are doing in implementing this rule will become quite a challenge.

What food safety concerns does this proposed rule present?

  • While FSIS inspectors receive uniform training, the proposed rule does not mandate any specific training requirements for plant employees who would take over inspection duties. This is a concern both for food safety and for the workers themselves who may likely not be adequately prepared for their new responsibilities.
  • Even at much slower line speeds, the poultry slaughter industry is notorious for high rates of repetitive motion injuries. Advocates are concerned that increases in line speeds will only increase the rate of injury. Despite these widely raised concerns, the proposal has been advanced without the benefit of any comprehensive study of the impact of line speeds on worker injury.
  • Because many of those employed in the poultry industry are new immigrants or women, and because only around 30% of the industry is organized, these workers are particularly vulnerable. Will these workers, who depend on the plant for their job, be willing to speak up when they spot food safety problems?

Because of these concerns, NCL has joined with other leading groups to urge USDA to withdraw the rule until it can address the many concerns raised about both food and worker safety. If you eat chicken, or if you feed it to your children, you should be concerned about this rule too.