You’ve likely seen BPA-free plastic water bottles and Tupperware in stores and opted to grab those over similar, non-labeled products. You probably didn’t know, however, that those products likely just contain other bisphenols, like BPS or BPAF, instead. Regulating bisphenols, a class of endocrine disrupting chemicals, has been challenging due to “regrettable substitution.” This phenomenon allows companies to truthfully label a product “BPA-free” while misleadingly substituting a harmful chemical (BPA) with an unknown or unforeseen hazardous chemical (BPS). Adequate protection of human health requires regulators to consider how bisphenols as a class can be appropriately restricted.
Category: Food Safety
What Type of Salt Should You Buy? Rethinking 1924 Food Fortification Policy in 2024
For 100 years, food fortification, the practice of deliberately increasing the content of vitamins and minerals in a food, has been essential to combating public health crises. However, these practices have continued into the modern era. Because overconsumption of nutrients has been linked to toxicity and diseases, public health officials should continue to reflect on the benefits and risks of food fortification today.
History of Food Fortification
In the United States, food fortification (also known as enrichment) began in 1924 to address endemic goiter, enlargement of the thyroid gland. A physician in Cleveland suggested the use of salt since it was so commonly consumed to increase iodine consumption. After some persuasion, the Michigan State Medical Society studied the safety of iodized salt and launched the world’s first food fortification campaign. This was the first time food was deliberately manufactured with an eye towards addressing disease. However, while some members of the salt industry were excited by the potential to improve public health through their product, others were not. The Morton Salt Company argued that furnishing iodine to the populus properly belonged to large pharmaceutical companies. But the results were overwhelming: The incidence of goiter among children in Michigan decreased from 35% to 2.6%.
Monthly Round-Up of What to Read on Pharma Law and Policy
By Ameet Sarpatwari, Aviva Wang, Liam Bendicksen, and Aaron S. Kesselheim
Each month, members of the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) review the peer-reviewed medical literature to identify interesting empirical studies, policy analyses, and editorials on health law and policy issues relevant to current or potential future work in the Division.
Below are the abstracts/summaries for papers identified from the month of July. The selections feature topics ranging from how Wikipedia pages communicate drug efficacy information, to addressing pharmaceutical industry payments to physicians, to the frequency with which the Food and Drug Administration removes hazardous dietary supplements from the market. A full posting of abstracts/summaries of these articles may be found on our website.
Why soda taxes, an awesome public health policy, are rare
By Daniel Aaron
This post is, in part, a response to a panel discussion on soda taxes and obesity, given by Professors Emily Broad Leib, Steven Gortmaker, and Carmel Shachar on February 14, 2020.
Diet is devastating the public’s health
Diet is the top cause of death and disability in the United States and abroad. Diet-related disease has been rising for forty years, and we cannot seem to control it. Currently 39.8% of Americans are obese. By 2030, this will climb to half of all Americans. Obesity causes numerous health risks, including heart attacks and strokes, and increases the risk of many different types of cancer.
How Thailand’s Fishing Industry and Your Tuna Melt Are Linked to Human Trafficking
By Stephen Wood
I used to be averse to mayonnaise and I still am for its use as a condiment or in dishes like coleslaw or potato salad. My grandmother made our potato salad with oil and vinegar and lots of garlic and our coleslaw was vinegar-based too. I would tell friends that I was allergic to mayonnaise so that they wouldn’t slather it on my bologna sandwich or make me eat chicken salad. I’m not sure why this is the case; mayonnaise is made from stuff I like — eggs, salt, and vinegar — and when homemade can be really delicious. It’s just weird. But something changed that. I wanted to eat tuna. Not the blue or yellow-fin tuna that you grill as a steak or to enjoy as sushi, but canned tuna. This transition happened when I moved out of my family’s home and into an apartment. I was working and living on my own and soon realized I needed to eat on the cheap. I wasn’t used to eating on the cheap. I like lobster, escargot, flank steaks, and good wine. But I was broke and on a budget so I decided that I was going to brave it and eat canned tuna. With mayonnaise. I perfected a recipe. It has tuna, mayo, celery, onion, cumin seeds, and salt. It’s topped with shredded cheese and toasted and it is delicious. I’ve overcome my aversion to mayonnaise for this one thing, and also occasionally deviled eggs. But there is a problem.
Can Ethical Labelling Make Food Systems Healthy, Sustainable, and Just?
By Christine Parker
Consumers are often encouraged to “vote with their fork” and “say no” to unhealthy, unsustainable and unfair food. Food packaging is typically littered with claims about the nutrition, ethics and social goods associated with the product inside. Claims like “organic”, “GMO free”, “fair trade”, and “anti-biotic free” are common. But can consumer preference base labelling make a difference to the health, sustainability and ethics challenges facing the food system?
Governments, civil society groups and industry all act as if label claims make a big impact on consumers and food businesses. Governments mandate that certain safety and nutritional information should be displayed on food labels. Public health advocates campaign for mandatory disclosure of more information (like added sugars) hoping it will nudge both consumers and businesses towards healthier options. Businesses use label claims to promote themselves as ethical and environmentally responsible. A plethora of other groups have put forward their own independent certifications and trademarks from dolphin friendly tuna to sustainably farmed coffee. Read More
Revisiting an Old Proposal on Aesthetic Adulteration of Food
This Winter Session I am enrolled in Harvard Law School’s “Food and Drug Law” course. One of the topics covered in the first week of class is “filth”—a category including natural food adulterants like mold, insect parts, and rot.
As the FDA has noted, there is no feasible way to prevent some filth from getting into practically all of our food supply. Of course, the FDA has tools to address this problem where it causes actual harm. The FDA’s poisonous and deleterious substances controls empower the agency to preempt and remediate safety risks in food. And, through its “aesthetic adulteration” standards, the FDA is also empowered to address filth in food even where it causes no direct harm to human health.
bioIP Faculty Workshop Call for Abstracts
The American Society for Law, Medicine & Ethics (ASLME) is pleased to announce the 4th annual bioIP Faculty Workshop on Friday April 26, 2019, at Boston University.
The Workshop offers a unique opportunity for three scholars in their first decade of teaching to present their work in progress for in-depth critique and commentary by respected senior scholars in the field.
The Cry Over Fake Milk
A debate has been brewing between the cattle milk industry and the plant-based milk industry (producing drinks made from ingredients such as almonds, soy, and rice), regarding what products can actually be labeled “milk.”
This has motivated the Federal Drug Administration to review how milk is defined under federal regulations, in order to protect public health and ensure that consumers are purchasing what they expect based on a product’s label.
Cottage Food and Food Freedom Laws – New LawAtlas data
The newest map on LawAtlas.org analyzes state laws governing the production, sale, and regulation of cottage food operations.
Typically, commercial food production is required to take place in certified commercial kitchens that are heavily regulated. Cottage foods laws regulate the production and sale of certain foods (foods less likely to cause foodborne illness, such as jams and baked goods) made in home kitchens, rather than a licensed commercial kitchen, and a person’s ability sell them in venues like farm stands or retail stores. Similar state laws, called “food freedom laws,” expand upon cottage food laws to include potentially hazardous products like meat and poultry.
These laws are quickly becoming an increasing area of debate at the state level. Part of this debate centers on the economic rights of “small-batch” home bakers and cooks versus public health and safety concerns. These private bakers, canners, and cooks want the liberty to sell their products to consumers free from the onerous licensing requirements required of their larger commercial counterparts, restaurants and food processing plants, are subject to. At the same time, there is concern that this individual economic interest is riding roughshod over existing regulations designed to protect consumers from foodborne illnesses that can be caused by improperly prepared foods.