Category: Diana Winters

Are The FDA’s New Definitions And Labeling Requirements Good For Us, Or Just Empty Calories?

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By Diana R. H. Winters

[Crossposted from the Health Affairs Blog]

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently taken three steps toward providing consumers with more and better information about food products that the agency regulates. First, in response to several citizen petitions, the agency requested comments on the use of the term “natural” on food labeling. Second, the agency issued a statement in early May indicating that “in the near future” it planned to solicit comments reevaluating how nutrient content claims are regulated — including the term “healthy.” And third, the agency issued a final rule on an updated Nutrition Facts label, with which large companies must comply by July 2018.

With each of these actions the FDA is attempting to ensure that information provided to consumers by food manufacturers comports with the latest scientific understanding about food components. Indeed, the updated nutrition facts label will provide important information and potentially allow consumers to make more informed choices about what they eat. The agency, however, has set itself a far trickier task in defining words such as “natural” and “healthy.”

Act Naturally

In the past, the FDA has repeatedly declined to define the term “natural.” The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) of 1990 required the FDA to standardize definitions for nutrient content claims, like “fat free” or “high in fiber,” and to limit the use of health claims, like “heart healthy” (21 U.S.C. §§ 343(r)(1)(A), (B)). The word “natural,” however, does not fit into either of these categories.

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The inadequacy of voluntary measures to reduce the use of antimicrobials in animal feed

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By Diana R. H. Winters
[Cross-posted at HealthLawProf Blog.]

On Thursday, October 2, 2014, FDA released its “Summary Report on Antimicrobials Sold or Distributed in Food-Producing Animals” for 2012. The Report contains the depressing news that “domestic sales and distribution of medically important antimicrobials approved for use in food-producing animals increased by 16%,” between 2009 and 2012, though the percentage of those labeled solely for therapeutic use rose from 28% to 32%. The other 68% are labeled for just production (growth promotion) or production and therapeutic uses.

But why is that depressing, you may ask. Isn’t this exactly why FDA issued a final-guidance document and a draft rule in December 2013, both addressing its voluntary program with drug sponsors to decrease, and eventually end, the use of medically important antimicrobials for growth promotion in animal feed? Problem identified, solution initiated—right? If only it were that simple.

FDA has a long history of delay and intransigence on this issue. I have written about that history in the past, and do so again in this forthcoming article. In 2011, FDA was sued by a group of public interest organizations for its unwarranted delay, and a federal district court ordered the agency to begin proceedings to hold withdrawal of approval hearings for certain medically important antibiotics, hearings that it had originally called for in 1977. The Second Circuit reversed this decision in July of this year (NRDC v. FDA, 760 F.3d 151).  Read More

So Much, But Yet Not Enough—The Administration’s Plan to Combat Antibiotic Resistance

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By Diana R. H. Winters
[Cross-posted at HealthLawProf blog.]

Yesterday was a big day in the fight against antibiotic resistance. The White House released an Executive Order and a National Strategy document on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) released a report on antibiotic resistance, and the National Institutes of Health and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority announced a $20 million prize for developing tests to identify highly resistant infections. Kevin Outterson at The Incidental Economist, Food Safety News, and the New York Times provide a good summary of these developments.

It is clear that the administration recognizes the grave threat posed by antibiotic resistance and that it intends to make combating this danger a national priority. Its approach is broad—the National Strategy includes a “Guiding Principle” that “[d]etecting and controlling antibiotic resistance requires the adoption of a ‘One-Health’ approach to disease surveillance that recognizes that resistance can arise in humans, animals, and the environment,” and the strategy pays much attention to the role of antibiotics in food production. One main objective of the strategy is to eliminate the use of medically important antibiotics at subtherapeutic levels for growth promotion (the practice of feeding animals antibiotics to make them fatter, not to make them well).

But in regards to the use of antibiotics for growth promotion in animals, the strategy does not provide the tools, or even the rhetoric, to support meaningful movement towards decreasing their use. The strategy calls for FDA to implement Guidance #213, to enhance its data collection capabilities, and to increase educational outreach on the appropriate use of antibiotics. Guidance #213, issued in December 2013, is intended to provide drug sponsors with information as to how they can “modify the use conditions” of medically important antimicrobial drug products to limit use to that “necessary for assuring animal health,” and only under veterinary supervision. Not only do guidance documents not establish legally enforceable duties, the recommendations in Guidance #213 are characterized as voluntary. FDA, moreover, has known the dangers of using antibiotics in animal feed at subtherapeutic levels for four decades, and has been sitting on the information. Swift and strong action is needed now.

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Antibiotics in animal feed and thin statutory interpretation: NRDC v. EPA

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By Guest Contributor Diana R. H. Winters

Legal commentators have spent a lot of time this week sparring over statutory interpretation and the contrasting readings of the ACA by the Halbig and King courts.  The potential consequences of these cases demonstrate just how high the stakes of this enterprise can be.

With less fanfare, the Second Circuit decided a case yesterday that may too have large consequences for the health and welfare of the public.  In NRDC v. EPA, the court reversed a district court’s decision to require FDA to hold hearings on the withdrawal of approval for the use of two antibiotics—penicillin and tetracyclines—in animal feed.  This issue has enormous public health consequences, but the consequences of this case extend beyond antibiotic use, to agency practice in general.  The opinion sanctions egregious agency delay and a tremendous lacuna in decision making.

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