IFT Annual Meeting & Food Expo

The Institute for Food Laws & Regulations (IFLR) will be at the IFT Annual Meeting & Food Expo June 6-9. Stop by and see us at booth #602.

Thousands of food industry professionals from around the globe convene at IFT to learn about the latest developments in scientific research, technologies, new products, food law, and consumer trends. The IFT Annual Meeting & Food Expo brings together decision-makers from all of the many disciplines involved in food science, technology, law, and more. The meeting packs in tremendous educational sessions as well as offering great networking for professionals in R&D and other scientific/technical positions, as well as in corporate management, purchasing, consulting, academia, government/regulatory, and technical sales and marketing.

Hope to see you in Anaheim!

Seminar on Food Import Safety May 26-27

Neal Fortin will be speaking on food import law on May 27 in Madison, Wisconsin. The seminar titled, Food Import Safety: Systems, Infrastructure, and Governance, is sponsored by the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy at University of Wisconsin – Madison. More information and the agenda are available here, here, and here.

To register, send an email to chpra@engr.wisc.edu with the following information: Name, Title, Affiliation, Mailing Address, Telephone Number, Fax Number, and E-mail. The conference is free-of-charge but space is limited. For a map of the UW campus, see http://www.map.wisc.edu/.

Food counterfeiting, John Spink Video Presentation

Food counterfeiting, contamination outpace international regulatory systems

John Spink discusses food counterfeiting and contamination. Watch>>

PDF of Spink's presentation

From MSU News, Special Report available at: http://special.news.msu.edu/aaas2009/food_release.php

CHICAGO — Intentionally contaminated Chinese milk killed several children and sickened 300,000 more, causing concern around an increasingly connected world economy. Demand for inexpensive products virtually guarantees future repeats of food adulteration and counterfeiting from overseas, Michigan State University researchers said, as trade volumes overwhelm regulatory oversight.

Nobody can guarantee safe food, said Ewen Todd, but governments need to improve controls by promoting increased corporate responsibility, identifying vulnerabilities and assessing risks. Todd, a professor of advertising, public relations and retailing, conducted a symposium on the safety of imported food today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting held in Chicago.

Increasing risk-based inspections and sampling; improving the detection of food system signals that indicate contamination; improving immediate response to contamination events; and improving risk communication all should be part of a more stringent regimen, Todd said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspects less than 2 percent of the food coming into the country, while 13 percent of America’s food is imported, Todd said.

“It’s a worldwide trend. First of all, transportation is easier, trade is easier,” he said, while consumers are increasingly well traveled and have higher expectations. “We want stuff in the winter when we can’t grow it.”

Between the extremes of accidentally contaminated food and terrorism via intentional contamination lies the counterfeiter, seeking not to harm but to hide the act for profit. The melamine incidents are such examples. As an industrial chemical that mimics protein content in tests was added to milk and subsequently created kidney problems for children.

Product counterfeiting is the focus of a presentation by John Spink, an instructor at the National Food Safety and Toxicology Center and director of the Packaging for Food and Product Protection (P-FAPP) initiative, both at MSU. He is developing a criminal justice program focused on food counterfeiting.

“We take a risk-based approach to analyze where the gaps are and look closer at where there is a higher reward for fraud,” he said.

“Counterfeiting goes back to Roman times, when French wine had a seal of Roman origin,” he said. “Products are moving around the world so fast now that there’s more opportunity for fraud. When food was distributed more regionally, there was less potential for large-scale fraud, or outbreaks of any kind.”

Recent instances of counterfeiting or contamination include conventionally grown vegetables sold as organic; fish sold as a more premium species; milk and pet food adulterated with melamine; catfish containing banned antibiotics; toothpaste contaminated with diethylene glycol (a base chemical in antifreeze); and canned energy drinks of unknown origin labeled with brand names.

Pharmaceutical counterfeiting has attracted most of regulators’ attention until recently, he said, but those companies are required to report adverse affects or similar problems, while food companies and other manufacturers are not.

“At MSU, our approach to anti-counterfeiting strategy is extremely interdisciplinary to address the many aspects of the risk,” Spink said, including public health communication, supply chain and packaging security. “Overall, we take a holistic, strategic perspective on the human element that led an individual to perceive an opportunity and then act — this perspective is led by criminal justice, social anthropology and basic business economics. Of course other important disciplines are intellectual property rights law, food law, medicine, nursing, public health, international trade, psychology, consumer behavior, retailing, management, economics and business.”

MSU’s international experience also gives it a valuable perspective by understanding source country economies and cultures, Spink said.

FDA Comments on Nutrition Symbols Public Hearing

FDA developed a memorandum discussing the agency’s September 2007 Public Hearing, Use of Symbols to Communicate Nutrition Information, Consideration of Consumer Studies and Nutritional Criteria. The memorandum responds to the comments submitted and presented by participants of the public hearing.

The document also explains the FDA still lacks sufficient data to answer all the questions surrounding the use of front-of-pack nutrition symbols. In particular, FDA received little information on consumer understanding and use of nutrition symbols or the economic impacts of nutrition symbols on food labels.

The full document is available here.

What Do Bill Marler and Ashton Kutcher Have in Common?

In a Twitter challenge to reach one million followers, Ashton Kutcher donated 10,000 bed nets to fight malaria in Africa.  Now the Bill Marler set out a challenge to reach just 25,000 followers by the end of the month. If he does, he will donate $25,000 to the best charity suggested by the Twitter folks.

You can get to Bill on Twitter at @bmarler.  Read more about the challenge here.

Stronger Partnerships for Safer Food

George Washington University Professor Michael R. Taylor and the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), and the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) today released a new report, Stronger Partnerships for Safer Food: An Agenda for Strengthening State and Local Roles in the Nation’s Food Safety System.

With attention direction toward federal food safety reform, the vital contributions of state and local agencies are often forgotten. Food safety reform will be incomplete and insufficient unless an integrated national food safety system takes full advantage of and enhances the contribution state and local agencies.

The report outlines the current roles of federal, state, and local agencies in protecting Americans against foodborne illness.  It contains 27 findings on the strengths and weaknesses in illness surveillance, outbreak response, regulation, and inspection. The report makes 19 specific recommendations for strengthening state and local roles and for building an integrated national food safety system that works effectively to prevent foodborne illness. It is the product of a collaborative project involving the GW School of Public Health and Health Services, AFDO, ASTHO, and NACCHO and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

"Cheat Death" Fruit Juice Ad Banned

An advertisement for POM Wonderful read, “Cheat Death. The antioxidant power of pomegranate juice.” POM Wonderful offered the “no one would take it serious” defense. While consumers are unlikely to believe the juice would make them immortal, some may believe the product somehow contributed to a longer life, concluded the UK Advertising Standards Authority. The claim for longer life was not substantiated and was banned. The article in the UK Telegraph is here.

Would Dietary Supplements and Cosmetics Find a Home in a New Food Safety Administration?

This blog summarized the Trust for America’s Health report, “Keeping America’s Food Safe: A Blueprint for Fixing the Food Safety System at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services?” earlier.

More recently, Ricardo Carvajal published some insightful questions on the Blueprint and other proposals for a single Food Safety Administration (FSA).  These proposal raise the “question of whether FDA’s dietary supplements and cosmetics programs should be housed in a new FSA or in the medical products agency that would remain once FDA’s food safety functions have been split off.”

Dietary supplements are defined as foods under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.  Yet, the Blueprint appears to suggest that dietary supplements should be regulated by the medical products agency because they often are marketed for drug-like effects.

Ironically, the fear that FDA would regulate dietary supplement as drugs was a significant force behind passage of the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). DSHEA was a significant rebuke to idea of treating dietary supplements like drugs.

Passing an statute to create a new Food Safety Administration is a monumental task. Hardly the time to exhume issues that Congress has already settled. This issue could kill the Blueprint’s chance of passage.

Mr. Carvajal  notes,

It strikes us as curious that the decision of where to house the dietary supplement and cosmetics programs would be based to any degree on the fact that unlawful marketing claims might be made for those products (a problem that needs to be addressed through enforcement), or that some consumers might seek those products out for their “drug-like” effects (what is to become of coffee?).  In any case, we thought that Congress had definitively settled the question as to how dietary supplements should be regulated – as food – and that nothing about the recent or current food safety crises suggests otherwise.  As for cosmetics, their regulatory paradigm has long resembled the one for foods much more strongly than the one for drugs.

Read all of  Ricardo Carvajal, “Would Dietary Supplements and Cosmetics Find a Home in a New Food Safety Administration?” here.

FDA Seeking Comments on Retail HACCP Manual

FDA is seeking comments on its Voluntary Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point Manuals for Operators and Regulators of Retail and Food Service Establishments. The Operator's Manual contains information and recommendations for operators of retail and foodservice establishments who wish to develop and implement a voluntary food safety management system based on Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles. The Regulator's Manual contains recommendations for state, local, and tribal regulators on conducting risk-based inspections of retail and foodservice establishments, including recommendations about recordkeeping practices that can assist operators in preventing foodborne illness.  The full notice is available here.

GAO Report: Seafood Fraud

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report, "Seafood Fraud: FDA Program Changes and Better Collaboration among Key Federal Agencies Could Improve Detection and Prevention." GAO-09-258 (Feb. 19, 2009).  Highlights are available at: http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d09258high.pdf.

People Will Make Healthier Choices If Restaurants Provide Nutritional Data, Study Finds

ScienceDaily reports on a new study showing potential benefits for nutrition labeling in restaurants. The study shows that nutritional information can help consumers moderate their eating over time. 

A field study, experiment, and consumer food diaries were used to explore how nutrition information disclosure on menus may influence consumers’ product evaluations and consumption behaviors.  Howlett et al., Coming to a Restaurant Near You? Potential Consumer Responses to Nutrition Information Disclosure on Menus. Journal of Consumer Research, 2009; 090325111256050 DOI: 10.1086/598799.

Save 20% on Food Regulation Text

Food Regulation: Law, Science, Policy, and Practice, provides an in-depth discussion of the federal statutes, regulations, and agencies involved in food regulation.  After an introduction to U.S. food and drug regulation, it covers current food regulations, inspection and enforcement, international law, the Internet, and ethics.  With detailed discussion of policies and case studies, the book remains accessible to students and professionals alike.  

If you would like more information, a summary is available here. The full Table of Contents is available here.  A free copy of Chapter One is available here. 

Save 20% until June 30, 2009! [click here]  Web orders, use promotion code WX9W5EE.  For other orders, use X3E9AEE.

Health Canada Guidance on Food-like Natural Health Products

In Canada, natural health products and foods are regulated under the Food and Drugs Act (FDA) and its regulations. Products that meet the definition of a “natural health product” under the Natural Health Product Regulations (NHPR) are subject to the FDA. Products that are “food” as defined by the FDA are subject to regulation under the food requirements of the FDA and to Parts A, B and D of the Food and Drug Regulations (FDR).

Since implementing the Natural Health Product Regulations (NHPR) in 2004, Health Canada has received several hundred product license applications for products in food format (e.g., energy drinks, vitamin or mineral supplements in candy, and water with added vitamins or minerals). These products have characteristics of both natural health products (NHPs) and foods. There have been regulatory challenges in classifying these products. Are they food-like NHPs or NHPs in food form?

Health Canada provides a new guidance document that outlines the principles and consideration to be applied in determining if a product in a food format is a natural health product.

A Blueprint for Fixing the Food Safety System

The Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a report, Keeping America's Food Safe: A Blueprint for Fixing the Food Safety System at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which examines problems with the current system and proposes ways to improve the food safety functions at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to better protect the nation's food supply.

The report calls for the immediate consolidation of food safety leadership within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and ultimately the creation of a separate Food Safety Administration within HHS. Currently, no FDA official whose full-time job is food safety has line authority over all food safety functions.

"FDA certainly needs a modern food safety law and more resources, but to make good use of these tools, HHS needs a unified and elevated management structure for food safety that can implement a science- and risk-based food safety program dedicated to preventing foodborne illness," said Michael R. Taylor, JD, Research Professor of Health Policy at the School of Public Health at The George Washington University and Former Deputy Commissioner for Policy at FDA and Former Administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "Major organizational change requires careful planning and implementation and should not be rushed, but the time is ripe for building sustainable solutions to the problems in our nation's food safety system," he added.

Investigators Find Source of Many Foods Untraceable

From a NY Times story:

Most food manufacturers and distributors cannot identify the suppliers or recipients of their products despite federal rules that require them to do so, federal health investigators have found.

A quarter of the food facilities contacted by investigators as part of the study were not even aware that they were supposed to be able to trace their suppliers, according to a report by Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. . . .

Do Fewer Inspections Make Food Safer?

Doug Powell has written a number of blog posts pointing out that inspection don’t make food safety (see the fallacy of food safety inspections.)

Increasing the number of poor inspections will  never improve food safety. However, let’s be careful not to over generalize.  Just ask yourself, “Do fewer inspections make food safer?” 

The past decade has been an American experiment with federal food safety deregulation. The experiment has left Americans with a growing sense of the failure of their government, left the public feeling vulnerable, and intensified calls for reform of our food safety system. Less government oversight and fewer inspections is not working.

I had a great trainer once who challenged me, “Practice does NOT make perfect!  Proper practice makes perfect!”

Inspections do not make food safer.  Proper inspections make food safer.

Posner Dresses Down Prosecutor in Salad Dressing Dispute

Judge Richard Posner blasted a federal prosecutor in an appellate opinion for her repeated “false and misleading” characterization of salad dressing “best when purchased date” as the expiration date, the ABAJournal.com reports. Open criticism of a prosecutor by a judge is rare. Such criticism of a U.S. Department of Justice Attorney is exceedingly rare. Therefore, Judge Posner’s candor is surprising.

The defendant in the case had bought 1.6 million of bottles of Henri's salad dressing and attached new labels that extended "best when purchased by" dates. He was convicted of violating food-labeling laws and wire fraud and was sentenced to five years' probation. However, at trial the prosecutor repeated characterized the “best when purchase date” as an expiration date. The prosecutor also represented the salad dressing as “foul, rancid food,” when the acidic salad dressing apparently had no expiration date and was shelf stable.

The appellate review involved mostly what was not in the record. Posner noted, “the omissions are more interesting than the scanty contents of the government’s threadbare case.” The prosecutor produced no evidence of a health concern, not a single consumer complaint about the taste, and no evidence of product deterioration.

Judge Posner also criticized the testimony of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expert witness, as "not just improper and inadmissible but incoherent." The FDA expert apparently testified as to unpublished agency interpretation or guideline. Posner said, “It is a denial of due process of law to convict a person of a crime because he violated some bureaucrat’s secret understanding of the law. ‘The idea of secret laws is repugnant. People cannot comply with laws the existence of which is concealed.’” (Quoting Torres v. INS, 144 F.3d 472, 474 (7th Cir. 1998).

“Misbranded” food under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) is an expansive definition. In fact, the definition is so breathtakingly broad I have to work hard to find limitations to talk about in my food law class. However, the FD&C Act definition of misbranded is silent on dates, and unlike some states, FDA has no regulations on “best by” dates. FDA has given me something new to add to my curriculum, United States v. Charles Farinella.

To read more:

Ameet Sachdev, Posner tosses out salad-dressing verdict with unusually stern words for prosecutor, ChicagoTribune.com (Mar. 16, 2009).

Above the Law, Judge Posner Says Expired Salad Dressing is Fine... But Federal Prosecutor Isn't.

California Court of Appeal Affirms that Methylmercury in Tuna is "Naturally Occurring"

Canned tuna is exempt from California’s Proposition 65 for methylmercury, a chemical listed by the state of California as a reproductive toxin and carcinogen, because the methylmercury in tuna is naturally occurring for purposes of Proposition 65.  So confirmed the California Court of Appeals in an opinion by Associate Justice Timothy A. Reardon in The People ex rel. Edmund Brown Jr. v. Tri-Union Seafoods (A116792, filed Mar. 11, 2009)

The tuna company defendants had also argued that federal law preempts Proposition 65 and that the level of methylmercury is below the threshold at which a warning is required; however, the appellate decision did not consider these other grounds. The decision was based solely on the whether the toxin was naturally occurring for purposes of Proposition 65.

Peanut inspection system filled with holes

Alan Ludd, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Sunday, March 08, 2009)

“Georgia’s food inspectors had rules for butchering alligators. They had procedures for the proper handling of ‘feral swine.’ But only since last month has the inspectors’ manual told them specifically how to ensure the safe processing of a more everyday fare: peanuts. .  .  .”   The full report is available here.

Trans Fat Ban in Boston

Effective March 12, Boston has banned the use of artificial trans fat in bakeries.  Earlier the Boston Public Health Commission had banned other food-service establishments from using trans fatty acids.  

“There are no health benefits and no level of consumption of artificial trans fat that is considered safe,” said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, executive director of the Public Health Commission. “In fact public health research over the past 20 years has shown that trans fatty acids significantly contribute to heart disease and other health problems.”  From the Boston Public Health Commission Media Release.