<\/p>\n
June 1, 2012<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Contact: Carol McKay, NCL Communications, (412) 945-3242, carolm@nclnet.org<\/p>\n
Washington, DC\u2014Consumer advocacy organizations today welcomed the decision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reject a\u00a0bid<\/a>\u00a0by the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) to change the name of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) to \u201ccorn sugar.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an important victory as it upholds the principle of \u2018truth in labeling\u2019 for consumers,\u201d said Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of the National Consumers League (NCL). \u201cWe applaud the FDA for acting as the \u2018cop on the beat\u2019 to ensure consumers aren\u2019t misled by changing the name of High Fructose Corn Syrup to something it is not.\u201d<\/p>\n The groups\u2014NCL, Consumers Union (CU), Consumer Federation of America (CFA), and Shape Up America! (SUA)\u2014signed a letter<\/a>\u00a0to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg in April of this year asking that the agency reject the CRA’s proposed name change.<\/p>\n The consumer letter called on the agency to \u201cpromptly deny\u201d the CRA petition to change the name of HFCS and noted that the FDA had received nearly 5,000 comments submitted from the general public opposing the name change, at a ratio of 100:1\u00a0 and urged the agency to act quickly because \u201cFDA\u2019s failure to promptly deny the CRA petition allows the trade association to continue to run deceptive marketing campaigns calling HFCS \u2018corn sugar\u2019 and confuses consumers who wish to avoid the ingredient.\u201d<\/p>\n FDA rejected the CRA petition in\u00a0a letter<\/a>\u00a0to the trade association made public yesterday stating that \u201cwe conclude that your petition does not provide sufficient grounds for the agency to authorize \u2018corn sugar\u2019 as an alternate common or usual name for HFCS.\u201d<\/p>\n The FDA letter further stated, \u201cThe use of the term \u2018sugar\u2019 to describe HFCS, a product that is a syrup, would not accurately identify or describe the basic nature of the food or its characterizing properties. As such, using the term \u2019sugar\u2019 would not be consistent with the general principles governing common or usual names.\u201d<\/p>\n CRA\u2019s petition, filed in 2010, asked the FDA to do several things, including amend the generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status of HFCS to designate \u201ccorn sugar\u201d as an alternate name for the product.<\/p>\n \u201cWe agree with the agency\u2019s assessment that changing the name of HFCS to \u2018corn sugar\u2019 would not accurately reflect the product\u2019s composition and would mislead consumers,\u201d said Urvashi Rangan, Director of Consumer Safety and Sustainability at Consumers Union. \u201cTraditional sugar and HFCS are distinct and very different products.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThousands of consumers wrote to the FDA urging the agency to deny the petition,\u201d said Chris Waldrop, Director of the Food Policy Institute at Consumer Federation of America. \u201cFDA\u2019s decision preserves information on the ingredient label that consumers want to know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHonest labeling is an essential part of reducing diet-related illnesses and diseases,\u201d added Barbara J. Moore, President and CEO of Shape Up America! \u201cWe congratulate FDA for making a decision that serves to protect consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n ###<\/strong><\/p>\n About the National Consumers League<\/strong><\/p>\n The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" June 1, 2012 Contact: Carol McKay, NCL Communications, (412) 945-3242, carolm@nclnet.org Washington, DC\u2014Consumer advocacy organizations today welcomed the decision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reject a\u00a0bid\u00a0by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1379"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17270,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379\/revisions\/17270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}