Key Highlights:

• Keynote Speaker: James “Jim” Jones, Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods, U.S. FDA, will inaugurate the conference with insights into the FDA’s evolving role in food safety and nutrition.
• Plenary Sessions: Dive deep into the FDA’s reorganization, debate the dietary guidelines treatment of ultra-processed foods, and find out what it means to apply a health equity lens to food policy.
• Breakout Sessions: Engage in small group discussions on targeted food advertising, climate change’s impact on food safety, lobbying strategies, precision nutrition, regulation of food ingredients, and the challenges facing food workers.
• Networking Opportunities: Connect with leaders and innovators in food policy, nutrition, and public health.

This conference is a must-attend for anyone invested in shaping the future of America’s food policies. Join us for two days of rigorous debate, insightful discussions, and collaborative learning.

RSVP and More Information: https://consumerfed.org/events/national-food-policy-conference/

 We look forward to welcoming you to this important discussion on policies to create a safe, affordable, just, and sustainable food system.

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The appeal comes in the form of a February 27 letter from five leading public interest groups as TTB begins a series of “listening sessions” on labeling and advertising of alcoholic beverages on February 28.  Raising concerns that the listening sessions are no more than a delay tactic to maintain the status quo and “slow walk deliberations for months,” the organizations – the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA), Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Consumer Federation of America (CFA), Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE), and National Consumers League (NCL) – called for TTB to publish the rulemakings by June 2024.

The Treasury Department promised that TTB would issue mandatory alcohol labeling rules in a November 17, 2022 letter in response to a lawsuit filed by CSPI, NCL, and CFA. The Department stated its intention to publish the three rulemakings before the end of 2023.

“We write … to express our dismay and serious concern that TTB has backtracked from its written undertaking of the November 17, 2022 agreement,” the groups wrote to Secretary Yellen. “TTB has, in effect, enabled recalcitrant companies by delaying indefinitely rulemakings on mandatory alcohol labeling while opting for a voluntary rule under which labeling “Serving Facts” or “Alcohol Facts” and ingredients are optional.”

Focusing on the health consequences of delaying action on alcohol labeling, the letter from advocates to Secretary Yellen describes how better alcohol labeling will benefit the 84 percent of U.S. adults who drink alcoholic beverages –216 million people – and who currently do not have the facts about the alcohol they are consuming to protect their health and safety. Overconsumption of alcohol is a costly public health problem that has become much worse in recent years, as alcohol-related deaths have risen substantially.  Among the key concerns, alcohol is involved in about 30 percent of all traffic crash fatalities in the U.S, is a source of empty calories that contributes to obesity, can impact blood sugar control in people with diabetes, and labeling can be a life-or-death matter for people with food allergies. Additionally, excessive drinking increases the risk of liver disease, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, alcohol use disorders, certain cancers and severe injuries.

“The consensus among public health and nutrition experts, and consumers themselves, in favor of mandatory and complete alcohol labeling is overwhelming,” said Thomas Gremillion, Director of Food Policy at the Consumer Federation of America. “By reneging on its promise to initiate rulemakings, TTB continues to deny Americans the same helpful and easily accessible labeling information now required for conventional foods, dietary supplements, and nonprescription drugs.”

The letter to Secretary Yellen also stresses that alcohol manufacturers have the capability to put standardized Serving Facts labels on their products, when required. This is the case for products such as some hard ciders, hard seltzers and wine coolers that are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which requires such products to have the same Nutrition Facts panel and ingredients statements on nonalcoholic beverages, from soft drinks to juices.

“To date, TTB has taken the position that requiring standardized nutrient content labeling on alcoholic beverages is too costly and burdensome for beverage alcohol manufacturers,” said Sally Greenberg, CEO of the National Consumers League. “However, the inconvenient truth for the industry is that some of the very same companies whose products do not include a Serving Facts statement if they are regulated by TTB already put complete alcohol labeling on their hard ciders, hard seltzers, wine coolers and other FDA regulated wines and beers.”

Highlighting that the time has come for mandatory alcohol labeling, the letter makes clear that the agency’s current voluntary labeling rules are not working. Although the rule gives companies the option of putting “Serving Facts” or “Alcohol Facts” and ingredients information on their products, new research from the Center for Science in the Public Interest finds that most manufacturers have opted out of TTB’s voluntary program. Using TTB’s COLA database to examine the labels for 132 of the nation’s top beer and wine brands, CSPI’s study found that only 11 labels of the 65 beer brands examined (17%) and none of the 67 wine brands included ingredients lists while 18 beers (28%) and no wines used the voluntary “Serving Facts” label, and one additional beer brand carried the voluntary “Alcohol Facts” label. CSPI’s review also showed that even when serving information is included on beer and wine labels, there is no standard format for where and how the disclosures appear, making it hard for consumers to find information easily and compare different brands.

“We have the data that demonstrate that Treasury’s voluntary rule has failed to adequately improve transparency in alcohol labeling,” said Dr. Peter G. Lurie, President of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Ensuring that the agency ends this ineffective voluntary regime by issuing mandatory labeling rules necessitates national leadership. This is why we are appealing directly to Secretary Yellen to intercede personally to require the agency to commit to publish all three proposed rules by June 2024.”

The 2022 letter whereby TTB undertook to publish standardized alcohol content, calorie, and allergen labeling by the end of 2023 resulted from a lawsuit filed by Center for Science in the Public Interest, Consumer Federation of America, and the National Consumers League on October 3, 2022. The suit charged TTB with failing to act on a citizen petition, submitted to the Treasury Department in 2003 to mandate alcohol labeling. CSPI, CFA and NCL filed the petition along with a coalition of 66 other organizations and eight individuals, including four deans of schools of public health.

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Our answer: zero. I joked to friends that I did not want the kids selling cigarettes either.

Of course, eating Girl Scout cookies is much more wholesome than smoking. So when the girls in the troop set up a stand to sell cookies in front of a local grocery store, our daughter took a shift. She sharpened her sales pitch, had a great time with her friends, and we felt grateful for the parents that took on the burden of warehousing a bunch of ultra-processed food that they might not so easily offload. But we stopped short of putting ourselves in that situation, and with good reason.

This is not to shun the Girl Scouts. It is a wonderful program that gives girls the opportunity to develop important skills and explore nature. Many former scouts credit their professional success in part to the cookie sale, which Girl Scouts USA touts as an opportunity for girls “to practice and develop their entrepreneurial skills.” The cookies also generate an estimated $800 million a year, most of which funds local Girl Scout activities like summer camps and scholarships.

Nevertheless, I would like to offer some validation to the parents that share my concerns, and maybe wonder if they couldn’t just make a donation to the troop.

Because there is cause for some serious concern. Below is a graph from CDC of child obesity. There is some good news with respect to the youngest kids, which reflects in part the success of reforms to strengthen the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

But in general, the outlook is grim. More U.S. kids are suffering from obesity every year (currently 19.3% of the population ages 2-19), and more adults (currently 42.4% of the population over age 20). When you throw in “overweight,” 73.6% of us are affected. In other words, maintaining a healthy weight in the United States has become a rarity, and more Americans succumb to our obesogenic food environment every year.

Selling Girl Scout cookies, or serving them at a party, or giving them away, or even giving them to the troops, contributes to the obesogenic food environment problem, if even in just a small way.

To their credit, the Girl Scouts and their bakers have avoided some of the most egregious hazards of ultra-processed foods, like partially hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup. But they are still a long way from their home baked roots. What is touted as the “original Girl Scout cookie” recipe, published in 1922 for use by Girl Scouts (and presumably a lot of their mothers), had seven ingredients: butter, sugar, milk, eggs, vanilla, flour, and baking powder. Today’s Trefoil cookies contain 17 ingredients (11 if you count “enriched flour” and “leavening” as single ingredients).

Some of today’s ingredients are “characteristic” of what researchers have defined as the “ultra-processed food group.” They are “either food substances never or rarely used in kitchens (such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated or interesterified oils, and hydrolysed proteins), or classes of additives designed to make the final product palatable or more appealing (such as flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners, and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents).” Ultra-processed foods now make up over two-thirds of the calories in American kids’ diets, but an increasing body of research suggests we should eat less of them.

Why are today’s commercially baked Girl Scout cookies worse for us than their sugary antecedents? That question is subject to vigorous debate, with some researchers arguing that the evidence in support of UPF consumption causing disease, rather than simply correlating with it, does not justify dietary recommendations to avoid them. But the classification scheme’s proponents counter that “various attributes of ultra-processed foods acting through known, plausible, or suggested physiologic and behavioral mechanisms relate them to ill health.”

Particularly compelling evidence indicates that UPFs, independent of their nutrient attributes, lead consumers to overeat. In a headline grabbing 2019 study by NIH researcher Kevin Hall, two groups of participants ate a UPF diet or an “unprocessed” food diet for 2 weeks, immediately followed by the alternate diet for 2 weeks. The diets were matched for macronutrients, but the subjects eating the UPF diet ate over 500 calories more per day, on average, and gained an average 2 pounds during the two-week UPF diet phase.

Why did the subjects overeat on the UPF diet? Theories abound. UPFs tend to have less fiber, allowing a person to eat more calories more quickly, without feeling full as soon. More ominously, researchers have posited that additives in UPFs may disrupt the gut microbiome and interfere with the absorption of nutrients, and that they hijack the brain’s reward circuitry. As we pointed out in a recent CFA petition to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, emerging evidence suggests that added flavors, including “natural” flavors, may contribute to obesity by inhibiting “flavor-nutrient learning,” the process by which we come to associate foods with vital nutrients. Other research suggests that non-nutritive sweeteners may activate metabolic pathways that stimulate hunger and excess calorie consumption.

As the research into UPFs continues, which ingredients and characteristics matter most will become clearer, but for now, we know enough to know that most kids in the U.S. should be eating less of these foods. Less, not zero: protein, in particular, can be hard to come by in non-ultra processed form, especially for vegans and vegetarians, and in some cases, the benefits of consuming a given UPF may outweigh the risks. But we should not delude ourselves about the toll these foods are having on our health, and the drudgery of trying to instill healthy eating habits in kids amidst a constant barrage of junk food offerings.

And yes, it is drudgery. Before reading Priya Fielding-Singh’s How the Other Half Eats, I thought my family had feeding the kids pretty well figured out. However, learning about other parents’ choices about what their kids eat—when to cook at home, when to eat out, when to push the veggies, when to give in to demands for a snack or for something they’ve snatched off the shelf at the grocery store, when to stop the ice cream truck, etc., etc.—those stories brought home the reality of the balancing act we have to engage in.

Public policy should make some of this easier. Most of us don’t want our kid to seem like the weird one at the birthday party that can’t eat a cupcake, but we are also not so thrilled with the idea of them ingesting artificial dyes that carry a warning label in other industrialized countries. Most parents support healthier school meals. Vast majorities support mandatory front-of-pack labeling requirements to help identify foods high in salt, sugar and fat, which also tend to be UPFs. There are many, many commonsense policy reforms that could relieve some of the burden for parents.

But the food industry has an important role to play too. Until recently, Girl Scout cookies were criticized for containing high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils. Now they don’t. But they still feature troublesome ingredients like caramel coloring, low-calorie sweeteners like sorbitol, and added flavors—both “natural” and “artificial,” two categories which are not meaningfully different. The Girl Scouts bakeries could get rid of these ingredients, but it would increase costs, and consumer pressure has yet to persuade them to change.

In the meantime, the struggle continues. One recent commentary condemns Thin Mints as “poison we don’t need.”  Another warns us to censor any jokes we might be tempted to make about “body image concerns” when talking with the girls selling their wares, lest we “create feelings of shame around eating” that lead to eating disorders. If you want to pass on the Girl Scout cookies, I understand.

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Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in connection with the cases Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, which challenged the Chevron deference doctrine. Based on the nature of their inquiries and remarks, the Supreme Court’s six conservative justices indicated that they may very well upend Chevron deference. Such a ruling would hamper federal agencies from continuing to do their important work, give corporations the ability to effectively gridlock policymaking, and ultimately, eliminate important safeguards for American consumers. 

This blog provides some examples of how overturning Chevron deference could adversely impact each key issue area that the Consumer Federation of America focuses on. We aim to shed light on the potential challenges and setbacks in advocacy and policy enforcement and emphasize the critical role that Chevron deference plays in supporting the work of federal agencies.  These potential impacts underscore the importance of maintaining Chevron deference for the continued protection and promotion of consumer interests and well-being. 

Food Safety  

Food safety advocates understand all too well that consumers face a gauntlet of preventable harms in the food system not so much because federal regulators enact bad policies, but because they do not take any action at all. Cronobacter in infant formula, dangerous Salmonella in poultry, literally thousands of chemicals in food with unexamined safety records, alcoholic beverage labels that fail to disclose ingredients, allergens and other basic facts—all of these problems and more require new rulemaking, which regulated industry may challenge in court. Despite Chevron deference, the industry and its throngs of well-paid lawyers often prevail, and years of work can go down the drain. Decades of regulatory dysfunction may follow, as has happened in the wake of a federal court of appeals ruling that invalidated the Department of Agriculture’s rules on Salmonella in meat and poultry in 2001. Indeed, USDA’s failure to protect consumers from foodborne illness has become so dire that several large companies have joined consumer groups in support of reform. Many factors undoubtedly contribute to regulatory inertia—a conflicted mission at USDA, a culture of timidity at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the revolving door between industry and regulatory agencies in general, the list goes on. However, should the U.S. Supreme Court rule that regulatory agencies are even more susceptible to second-guessing from the courts, the tendency to use litigation risk as an excuse for inaction will grow, and consumers will pay the price.   – Thomas Gremillion

Investor Protection 

A potential U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright to unravel the Chevron doctrine poses a significant threat to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) ability to protect investors from bad actors, promote market integrity and fairness, and ensure investors have the information they need to make informed decisions.  At a time when markets, technology, and financial risks are evolving rapidly—perhaps unprecedentedly so given the rise of artificial intelligence, the risks of climate change, and the growth of cryptocurrencies—it is imperative that the SEC keeps pace. Upending Chevron would fundamentally jeopardize the SEC’s ability to do so. 

Even now, the SEC’s investor protection efforts continually face the threat of litigation from industry opponents. If the Court tips the scales even further by limiting the SEC’s authority to interpret and apply the securities laws, then the prospects for strong, lasting investor protections would only get worse.  Policing our markets and protecting investors from misconduct demands a level of expertise and precision that only the SEC possesses, and that neither courts nor Congress can match. Limiting the SEC’s ability to exercise its authority would only serve to harm investors, diminish market integrity, and destabilize our financial system. – Micah Hauptman / Dylan Bruce

Housing 

The overruling on Chevron deference would have far-reaching consequences for the ways Americans are housed. Over the last forty years, this jurisprudence has supported the ability of federal agencies to effectively regulate American corporations and protect consumers. Within housing this includes the ability of agencies to implement federally- mandated rental protections and housing counseling, offer fair housing oversight, enforce federal emission and building standards, and protect homeowners against exploitative mortgage products. For example, in 2023, after years of collaboration between three federal banking agencies (the FDIC, Federal Reserve Board, and OCC) and several rounds of vigorous public input, new, modernized rules interpreting the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act were released: a deeply collaborative product that responds to the unique realities of banking and community development today.

The overruling of Chevron risks making these types of rulemakings all but impossible and allows the worst acting corporations and their trade groups to gridlock policymaking by tying decisions up in courts. By contrast, federal agencies are led by politically appointed leaders, are accountable to Congress, and staffed by policy experts who often bring decades of experience. It is essential that we allow federal agencies to continue to do their important work and make sure that American consumers live in safe and affordable homes, are protected against housing discrimination, and can rely on fair and transparent mortgage products. – Sharon Cornelissen

Product Safety  

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce could undermine consumer safety and health.  The potential safety ramifications are enormous and could implicate vehicle safety standards, phthalates concentrations in children’s toys, drugs, medical devices, and so much more. The federal agencies tasked with ensuring public health and safety rely on their agencies’ vast technical and scientific expertise. Subject matter experts can include engineers, epidemiologists, chemists, and other complex fields. Neither Congress nor judges have access to the expansive technical expertise of federal agencies. Unlike the judicial system, federal agencies provide the public with the chance to comment on proposed regulation. As such, health and safety agencies can utilize critical information from product safety professionals and safety advocates. The foundational principle of Chevron enables agencies to keep consumers safe and healthy. – Courtney Griffin 

Consumer Protection 

The Chevron doctrine correctly defers to subject matter experts at agencies like the Federal Trade Commission who live and breathe consumer protection on a daily basis and who are accountable to the public through legislative oversight and extensive transparency requirements. If the Supreme Court strikes down Chevron, inexperienced and uninformed political appointee judges can freely question regulatory interpretations and create harmful case law that is difficult to overturn. Such a decision will inevitably erode longstanding, strong safeguards that keep Americans safe, healthy, and shielded from predatory and fraudulent practices. – Erin Witte  

Financial Services  

Without Chevron deference, the current practice of permitting regulators to interpret regulatory ambiguities in consumer financial protection law will make consumers vulnerable to discrimination and undermine innovation in the marketplace. 

In almost every facet of our economy, technology is disrupting business practices and permitting new risks to consumers. Since the 19th century, commercial banking has been understood to consist of lending money, taking deposits, and paying checks. A judge with experience in banking law should readily grasp the meanings of those activities and their implications for our economy. On the other hand, emerging technologies require policy professionals with a deep understanding of highly technical topics. Federal regulatory agencies employ these experts. Their wisdom benefits policymaking. 

Addressing discrimination in artificial intelligence is among the developments likely to require deep understanding as a precondition for successful regulatory implementation of existing banking laws. Even an attorney with a career of experience in fair lending law would be challenged to evaluate the fairness of an AI-driven algorithm, for example. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), the Fair Housing Act (FHA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) are among the laws whose fairness standards can be applied to algorithmic decision-making in lending and lending-adjacent activities. 

 Inaction by the institution with authority for AI governance, be it a regulator or the Courts, will lead to problems for all affected stakeholders. Consumers will be vulnerable to discrimination and without regulatory clarity, lenders will be anxious to try AI out of fear of legal jeopardy. Markets need clarity on how fairness is defined and measured and even on how to identify protected class status when lenders are prohibited from soliciting demographic information directly. The Supreme Court must uphold the principle of Chevron deference. – Adam Rust   

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“This bill represents an important milestone,” said Thomas Gremillion, Director of Food Policy at Consumer Federation of America, “Cancers caused by alcohol kill tens of thousands of Americans each year. At the same time, survey after survey shows that fewer than half of adults are aware that alcohol increases cancer risk. One survey showed that 10% of adults think drinking wine decreases cancer risk. It does not. Drinking any type of alcohol—even small amounts—increases cancer risk.”

According to American Cancer Society researchers, alcohol use represents the 3rd and 4th leading cause of cancer for women and men, respectively. For some cancers, even light or moderate drinking significantly increases risk. For example, researchers estimate that consuming 1 standard drink per day is associated with a 4% increase in breast cancer risk, and drinking 2-4 drinks per day with a 23% increased risk.

“Alcohol’s cancer burden has fallen particularly hard on historically disadvantaged groups such as African-Americans and indigenous peoples,” said Gremillion, “and low awareness has contributed to that burden.”

Alaska Natives represent 17 percent of the state’s population, and are at significantly higher risk for alcohol harms, including cancer. A recent analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, shows that rates of alcohol-associated cancers among American Indians in Montana were more than 40% higher than among White Montanans. Epidemiological data show similarly increased risk for African Americans. According to one recent study, among those who drink in excess of dietary guidelines, African Americans are at a more than 100% increased risk of breast cancer, and nearly 300% increased risk of colorectal cancer, compared to their white counterparts. Researchers have also found that African Americans are less likely to be aware that alcohol causes cancer.

“The alcohol industry has sought to cast doubt on the scientific consensus that alcohol causes cancer for decades,” said Gremillion. “But the evidence has only gotten stronger and industry lobbyists are having to resort to more and more radical tactics.”

Last year, consumer advocates complained that U.S. trade officials were beholden to the alcohol lobby after they raised objections within the World Trade Organization to a national law in Ireland that will soon require cancer warnings on alcohol labels. At the beginning of this year, advocates cried foul again when the National Academies of Sciences announced that a special expert committee to study alcohol’s health effects would include several scientists who had previously accepted funding from the alcohol industry. Congress delegated authority to the National Academies following a report from the federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee that recommended revising drinking limits downward for men, in part due to cancer risk.

The World Health Organization first documented the link between alcohol and a variety of cancers in 1987. Researchers estimate that cancers associated with alcohol consumption affect nearly 90,000 Americans each year, and that alcohol consumption represents the third largest modifiable risk factor contributing to cancer cases in women (behind smoking and obesity) and the fourth largest in men (behind smoking, obesity, and UV radiation). In 2014, alcohol consumption was associated with an estimated 6.4% – 50,110 – of all cancer cases in women, and 4.8% – 37,410 – of all cancer cases in men, with the largest burden for female breast cancer (39,060 cases).

Despite these impacts, however, surveys from organizations such as the National Cancer Institute and American Institute for Cancer Research have found that fewer than half of U.S. adults know that alcohol increases cancer risk. This disconnect between alcohol’s contribution to cancer risk, and consumer awareness of that contribution, supports the need for a warning label, according to consumer groups.

“Consumers deserve accurate information about alcohol and its risks. At a time when alcohol-related harms are soaring to unprecedented heights and dragging down U.S. life expectancy, messaging to raise awareness of alcohol cancer risk provides an important counterbalance to Big Alcohol’s propaganda,” said Gremillion. “Laws like Rep. Gray’s will enable more informed drinking decisions, and ultimately save lives.”

The Consumer Federation of America is a national organization of more than 250 nonprofit consumer groups that was founded in 1968 to advance the consumer interest through research, advocacy, and education.

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This particular saga begins with the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs). Updated every five years, the DGAs have long included a recommendation that men who choose to drink alcohol should drink no more than two drinks per day. Women are advised to drink no more than one. This rather permissive stance reflects a prevailing view expressed in the 2010 DGAs that “moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.”

The problem with that advice is that the latest science casts doubt on those purported cardiovascular benefits and shows that virtually any alcohol has a negative effect on health. As the popular science podcaster Andrew Huberman sums it up, “even low-to-moderate alcohol consumption,” i.e. more than two drinks per week, “negatively impacts the brain and body in direct ways.” This advice is consistent with new Canadian guidelines warning that consumption of 3-6 drinks per week increases “your risk of developing several types of cancer, including breast and colon cancer.”

Needless to say, Big Alcohol does not like the new Canadian alcohol guidelines. Nor did they like the suggestion of the 2020 U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee—the expert committee charged with updating the DGAs—that the recommended limits for men be reduced from two drinks per day to one. They persuaded 28 members of Congress to sign a letter to then USDA and HHS Secretaries Perdue and Azar, who subsequently issued new DGAs that maintained the recommended drink limits for men at two per day.

But the Big Alcohol lobbyists did not stop there. An obscure provision of the gargantuan 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which Congress passed almost literally at the eleventh hour in December of 2022, sets aside $1.3M for the National Academies to conduct a study of alcohol and its health effects. In other words, Congress removed dietary advice related to alcohol from the DGA process, outsourcing it to the National Academies.

There are reasonable arguments for excluding alcohol from the DGA process. For one, alcohol is not a nutrient. On the other hand, the U.S. adult population consumes an average of almost 100 calories per day from alcoholic beverages, according to the CDC, and so alcohol contributes substantially to soaring obesity rates. The most important consideration, however, is that American consumers get objective, scientifically valid guidance on consumption. So the news that the National Academies would be studying alcohol rather than the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee did not ruffle a lot of feathers. Until the Academies announced the make-up of their expert panel last month.

The panel included two Harvard professors, Dr. Kenneth Mukamal and Dr. Eric Rimm, who have a history of alcohol industry funding. Following public outcry and within hours of a New York Times article reporting on the controversial appointments, the National Academies rescinded their appointments. Earlier this month, however, the Academies announced that it was appointing one of Rimm and Mukamal’s colleagues, Dr. Luc Djousse, who also has a checkered history of receiving and failing to disclose alcohol industry funding.

The Academies also announced another Harvard professor who has co-written papers with Dr. Mukamal, Dr. Carlos Camargo, who was chair of the alcohol committee for the 2005 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. Those guidelines stated: “Alcohol may have beneficial effects when consumed in moderation. The lowest all-cause mortality occurs at an intake of one to two drinks per day. The lowest coronary heart disease mortality also occurs at an intake of one to two drinks per day.” If you are wondering whether that advice is at odds with the new Canadian guidelines and today’s scientific consensus, it is.

But it’s not just the presence of industry friendly voices on the National Academies committee that raises concerns, but also the omission of experts who have challenged their research, or published in fields critical to understanding alcohol’s health impacts. In particular, the twelve appointed experts do not include a cancer epidemiologist, and the only member who has specialized in alcohol-related harms is an expert in prenatal exposure to alcohol.

Why has the National Academies chosen these experts, and declined to appoint others nominated by public health groups? A review of the nominations submitted to the National Academies from outside groups, such as the Distilled Spirits Council, would shed some light on those considerations. However, when I asked the National Academies for that information, the reply was that “we don’t have an obligation under law or Academy policy to make any such comments public.” This is an important contrast with the DGA process. To be sure, industry influences the composition of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, but the public has visibility into who nominated which members. This National Academies alcohol committee is a black box.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that this type of criticism has been leveled. A 2017 study found that six of the twenty members who wrote a 2016 report on genetically engineered crops had conflicts of interest that were not disclosed. And back in 2006, the Center for Science in the Public Interest looked at 320 different panel committee members and found that 18% had “direct conflicts of interest” defined as “a direct and recent connection to a company or industry with a financial stake in the study outcome.”

Tufts University professor Michael Siegal, whose blog is linked above, has called for a formal investigation into the formation of the National Academies’ alcohol panel, rightly pointing out that “in the absence of an investigation, the conclusions of this panel will be forever tainted and cannot be trusted or viewed as impartial.” The National Academies should not wait for public health and consumer advocates to force the issue. As a first step, the Academies should publish the correspondence it has received from industry and other stakeholders nominating the various experts on the committee. It should also remove Dr. Djousse and other members with conflicts of interest and add experts in relevant fields such as cancer epidemiology and addiction.

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It’s not just Thanksgiving, of course. Today, roughly a third of packaged food labels list “natural flavor” as an ingredient, even though the term is widely misunderstood by consumers. Until recently, the confusion did not seem to matter much to public health. But as increasing evidence links eating so-called “ultra-processed foods” to obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related diseases, ingredients like “natural flavors” are getting a closer look.

Federal regulations define “natural flavor” as an ingredient used to “impart flavor,” which is derived from plant or animal material. However, deriving a substance from a plant or animal, while arguably less artificial than creating one whole cloth in a lab, does not make the substance very “natural,” at least not in most consumers’ eyes.

For one, a “natural” flavor source need not bear any relationship to the flavor it imparts. Consider that clove oil and tree bark provide much of the “natural” vanilla flavor consumed today. Vanilla flavor can also come from castoreum, a chemical compound beavers release to mark their territory. Or consider that wheat and milk are the main ingredients in McDonald’s “natural beef flavor.”

“Natural flavors” are also allowed to include synthetic chemicals, so long as their “function” is not “to impart flavor.” In fact, “natural flavor” compounds may contain more synthetic chemicals than “artificial flavors” because extracting flavor substances from a plant or animal source is often more complicated, and requires more solvents and other processing aids, than chemically synthesizing it. This complexity also makes natural flavors more expensive to produce, but food manufacturers are able to pass along the costs to consumers. At least for now, consumer will pay more for a food made with “natural flavors,” because they believe it is healthier than one with “artificial flavors.”

The truth, however, is that whether a food contains “artificial flavors” or “natural flavors” seems to matter less than whether it contains any added flavors at all. That’s because research increasingly suggests that added flavors may play an important role in explaining the association between our obesity epidemic and ultra-processed foods, which now make up over two-thirds of the calories in American kids’ diets.

By making these foods hyperpalatable, according to one theory, added flavors hijack the brain’s reward circuitry and generate cravings that overcome normal satiety cues. Alternatively, added flavors may cause overeating by disrupting “flavor-nutrient learning,” the process by which we come to associate foods with their nutritional content.

As with so much in nutrition science, the precise effect of “natural flavors” on America’s obesity epidemic will take time to tease out. However, as recognition grows that ultra-processed foods are a potentially important contributor to our dietary dysfunction, allowing some ultra-processed food ingredients to masquerade as “natural” creates an unwarranted illusion of wholesomeness.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, whose regulations gave us “natural flavors,” might consider a rebranding for this ubiquitous ingredient. Changing the name “natural flavors” to something more neutral, like “added flavors,” could have the added benefit of starting conversations about what ‘natural’ really means in food. Already, arguments about food are a mainstay of Thanksgiving. This holiday, many families may argue about whether ingredients like “natural flavors” are enhancing our health and enjoyment, or alternatively, masking a deeper issue in our food system. It’s an important conversation to have, one to be thankful for.

The post An Unwelcome Guest at the Table? Serving up Natural Flavors for Thanksgiving Dinner appeared first on Consumer Federation of America.

This epistemological fragmentation makes for bad citizens, and in some cases, bad diets. Obesity may seem less threatening than the end of democracy, but given estimates that the annual cost of treating diet-related disease in the United States today now surpasses $1.1 trillion, we ignore the spread of dietary misinformation at our peril.

That’s why I was happy to learn this week about the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s warning letters to the American Beverage Association, the Canadian Sugar Institute, and a dozen of their paid “influencers.” Many of the influencers are registered dietitians, and they are not shy about touting that fact in their posts.

The ABA paid influencers to post videos on Instagram and Tiktok promoting aspartame’s safety. The posts challenged a decision earlier this year by a World Health Organization committee to categorize the sweetener as a possible carcinogen and instead said things like “a person weighing about 150 pounds will have to consume roughly 75 tabletop packets daily before it can potentially lead to adverse health outcomes.”

The Canadian Sugar Institute paid influencers to post videos on Instagram and Tiktok challenging claims that sugar is unhealthy. One dietitian advised parents to “let [kids] eat as much [candy] as they want” in order to foster a “healthy relationship with food.”

As a parent, I feel qualified to say that unlimited candy fosters no such relationship. But then again, who am I to claim a monopoly on the truth, especially as it relates to candy? Nutrition is complicated. Popular understanding of a healthy diet has rapidly evolved. We once thought trans-fat laden margarine was good for the heart. Indeed, this complexity is what makes the misinformation schemes detailed in the FTC’s letters so insidious. And it is what makes disclosing the nature of commercial speech so critical.

To be clear, the influencers targeted by the FTC included disclosures. That seems to be how the FTC identified them. But the disclosures were not “adequate.” Under the new guidelines that FTC released in June of this year, disclosures must be “clear and conspicuous.” The influencers that received letters failed to meet that standard. For example, they used cryptic hashtags like “Paid partnership with @cndnsugarnutr.” As the FTC pointed out, most consumers do not know that “cndnsugarnutr” means the Canadian Sugar Institute. And even if they did, they might overlook the small text description that appears underneath a video, which itself does not include any disclosure.

Under the FTC’s standards, a disclosure must be “difficult to miss (i.e., easily noticeable) and easily understandable by ordinary consumers.” According to the enforcement letters, the influencers should have included disclosures in the videos themselves, both visually and audibly: “Consumers should be able to notice the disclosure easily, and not have to look for it.”

In other words, posts like the ones targeted in the letters should look like what they are: commercials. Of course, most of us don’t want to watch commercials, and so trade groups and their flunkies will stay busy finding new ways to transmit their sales pitches. Already, marketers are touting the “limitless opportunities for promotion” that virtual reality platforms have to offer, to take just one example.

As the shared reality that we once took for granted slips further away, epistemological guideposts of sorts will become even more important. The notion that advertising should not masquerade as impartial information, and certainly not as impartial dietary advice, is one such very important guidepost. In that sense, this week’s warning letters from FTC can be seen as not just cracking down on a few egregious purveyors of deceptive advertising, but more broadly defending the integrity of public discourse.

The post The Truth Behind Your Feed: FTC Targets Deceptive Food Marketing Online appeared first on Consumer Federation of America.

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I will let others debate the merits of those policies. In this blog, I would like to draw attention to another aspect of the recent manufacturing statistics: the growth in what the Administration dubs “food/beverage manufacturing.” According to the Administration’s report, while “the computer/electronic” segment drove manufacturing growth over the past year, “construction for chemical, transportation, and food/beverage manufacturing is also up from 2022,” and in fact, a chart in the report (see below) shows that manufacturing construction grew in the “Food, Beverage, & Tobacco” sector more than anywhere other than in the “computer/electronic” sector.

What is this new food and beverage manufacturing? Disturbingly, growth in “Tobacco” manufacturing accounts for almost all of the growth in the “Food Products” sector–$3.966 billion of a $4.277 billion—between March of 2022 and 2023, according to Census data. This growth is a bit of a head scratcher considering that cigarette smoking rates reached an all-time low last year. On the other hand, use of electronic cigarettes has risen, and cannabis use has been soaring, although it’s not clear whether the Census Bureau has lumped that manufacturing activity under “Tobacco.”

The next biggest growth industry in the sector is “Beverages,” accounting for over $2 billion of increased shipment value. This growth reflects a continuation of drinking trends that began during the pandemic, which have coincided with a steep increase in alcohol-related deaths, particularly among women.

By contrast, manufacturing shipments of “food products” rose just 1.8%. Shipments of “meat, poultry, and seafood products” actually declined 1.8%, with “dairy products” and “grain and oilseed milling” increasing modestly at 3.5% and 4.8%, respectively.

The decline in meat processing shipments is notable because that category accounts for the largest chunk of the “food manufacturing” pie. However, meat processing does not generate a lot of “value added.” According to an earlier Commerce Department report, “in 2012, value added accounted for 39 percent of the total value of food, beverage, and tobacco product shipments. The other 61 percent consists of materials and inputs from other industries, such as livestock or crops, or plastic used for packaging.” Of course, businesses want to create value, in order to generate profit, and so one might expect that investment would flow to the sectors of the food manufacturing sector that generate the most value added.

In fact, the latest numbers on alcohol and tobacco suggest that may be happening. As a proportion of shipment values, the products that create the most added value are tobacco (84%), key components of ultra-processed foods (“flavoring syrup and concentrates” (75%)), and alcoholic beverages (specifically, wineries (63%), breweries (66%), and distilleries (67%)). Among other food products, the manufacture of “bread and bakery products” (58%), snack foods (54%),  and breakfast cereals (51%) create a lot of value. By contrast, “animal slaughter and processing” adds 22% value, and “cheese” production adds just 21% value.

This data suggests that the invisible hand of the market may encourage a surfeit of tobacco, booze, and junk food consumption. In light of American’s declining life expectancy, we might wonder whether public policy should be doing more to counter the drive for profit and economic growth in the food sector. There are many good ideas about how to encourage production of foods and infrastructure that will expand access to a healthy diet for the millions of Americans who currently experience nutrition insecurity, and to its credit, the Biden Administration is pursuing many of them. However, these efforts will continue amidst a larger backdrop of celebrating economic growth for growth’s sake.

It is axiomatic that what’s measured matters. For all of the heartache that came with COVID-19, the pandemic unified us around a common set of objectives. As the number of deaths and reported infections declined, we breathed a collective sigh of relief. When they spiked, we shared a common dread of a return to lockdowns, school closures, and cancelled visits.

As a new normal sets in, public health metrics have once again taken a backseat. Economic indicators, rather than measures of public health, have returned to prominence as the measure of our collective well-being. This makes sense, to a degree. Economic recessions tend to increase unemployment, poverty, and other societal ills that closely align with the overall levels of well-being. But the health of the economy and society sometimes diverge. As Robert F. Kennedy famously told supporters in 1968, economic output “can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.” Lately his words ring truer than ever.

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I have always enjoyed putting together the National Food Policy Conference each year because it gives me an excuse to learn about issues outside the focus of my advocacy work, and to collaborate with a brilliant group of leaders that serve on the conference’s advisory committee. But as the political landscape has become more divided, and debate over public policy—including food policy—seems increasingly untethered to any consensus about the facts on the ground, I’ve come to view the National Food Policy Conference as critical to advancing CFA’s mission.

That mission, since the organization was established in 1968, has been to advance the consumer interest through research, advocacy and education. And CFA’s success in pursuing its mission—and the success of the consumer movement more broadly—has always depended on getting to the truth and identifying data-driven, empirically-justifiable policy reforms that expand the pie for everyone, rather than for just a particularly vocal or well-endowed minority.

But getting to the truth requires considering people and positions that we do not agree with. And that can be difficult. In fact, many people find it easier to caricature those they disagree with than to look for common ground, or to acknowledge nuance. This is a tendency that social media has exploited, and it has become a fundamental obstacle to progress today.

The National Food Policy Conference provides an antidote. This conference is unique in the broad range of perspectives that it presents on food policy issues, and by having such a diverse mix of industry, consumer advocates, regulators, and academics, the conference fosters meaningful dialogue and provides a platform for collaboration. It gives attendees a chance to hear from the other side, and to influence the other side, in an atmosphere that above all prizes open and honest exchanges of opinion, on and off stage.

After years of pandemic restrictions, many of us have fallen out of the habit of attending large gatherings. As an introvert, I understand the appeal of staying home. But I have also been pleasantly surprised by the exuberant energy at recent events I have attended, including last year’s National Food Policy Conference.

Unlike last year, this year’s National Food Policy Conference will not have a virtual attendance option. The decision to eliminate the virtual option reflects practical considerations, and also our intention to focus on the experience of in-person attendees. Toward that end, we have included interactive activities in the day’s program, along with increased opportunities for networking. I hope you will consider attending this year’s conference. You can check out the program and register by clicking here. Hope to see you soon!

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For the Good of Consumers, Ireland’s Alcohol Health Labeling Law Should Be Respected

Consumer Federation of America Supports Consumer Product Safety Commission Against Unwarranted Attacks

Consumer Groups Urge Congress to Support the PAID Act

Florida Student Privacy Bill Bans Educational Apps from Selling Data

Susan Grant to Retire After 15 Years as CFA’s Privacy Advocate

After 15 years with the Consumer Federation of America, long-time consumer advocate Susan Grant will be retiring as CFA’s Privacy Advocate at the end of June.

“We are so grateful to Susan for her incredible career; chock full of protecting consumers, connecting people and groups, and working diligently to make our lives better and safer,” said Janet Domenitz, CFA’s Board Chair and Executive Director of MASSPIRG.

“Susan has been an invaluable member of the CFA staff for so many years and of late has focused her talents on issues surrounding consumer privacy,” said Susan Weinstock, CFA’s CEO. “She has done a great job of working with CFA member organizations as well as other national organizations in pushing consumer privacy laws and rules at the state and federal levels. Consumers across the country and around the world have benefited from Susan’s pursuit of consumer protections throughout her career. While we will miss her, Susan has earned this well-deserved retirement.”

Grant served as CFA’s Director of Consumer Protection and Privacy from 2008 to 2021 and has served as a Senior Fellow focused on privacy advocacy issues from 2022 to June 2023. Grant launched her advocacy career in 1976 at the Consumer Protection Division of the Northwestern Massachusetts District Attorney’s Office. Prior to joining CFA, Grant also held positions at the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators and National Consumers League.

“After working in a county consumer agency and then at one of CFA’s member organizations, joining the CFA staff was like going to the mothership,” said Grant. “It’s been a great privilege to work for such an influential group and with such smart, dedicated individuals. I’m so pleased that there is a new crop of advocates to carry on CFA’s vital mission.”

For the Good of Consumers, Ireland’s Alcohol Health Labeling Law Should Be Respected

By: Thomas Gremillion, Director of Food Policy

What do international trade agreements have to do with consumer protections? Increasingly, the answer seems to be “too much.”

Recently, the United States joined Mexico and the Dominican Republic in challenging Ireland’s regulation of alcoholic beverage labeling in the World Trade Organization. The new Irish law would require alcoholic beverage labels to disclose calories, the amount in grams of alcohol per serving and per container, and various health warning statements including, most importantly: “There is a direct link between alcohol and fatal cancers.”

For United States trade officials, these labeling rules are an “unlawful trade barrier.” For consumer and public health advocates, they are a template for how to design labels to prevent inadvertent overconsumption and raise awareness of alcohol’s role as the third most important modifiable risk factor for cancer deaths in the U.S.

How did we get here? Trade agreements were once mostly focused on lowering tariffs, or duties, on imports. For decades now, however, “free trade” has come to mean trade that is free from regulatory barriers to imports and foreign investors. No country’s democratic process is immune to the resulting pressure. In the United States, consumers lost the right to country-of-origin labeling (COOL) on beef and pork products after Mexico and Canada challenged the rules in the World Trade Organization. The countries argued that keeping track of what meat came from what animals would be so expensive that the giant meatpacking companies would simply stop buying pigs and cows from across the border. Therefore, the law was an unlawful trade barrier. The WTO’s Appellate Body agreed. After it authorized sanctions, Congress quietly repealed the law.

Ireland’s alcohol labeling law could meet a similar fate, but not if CFA can help it. Last year, CFA asked EU regulators to approve the law despite objections from industry and major alcohol exporters like Italy. More recently, CFA and its allies wrote to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to ask U.S. officials not to interfere in the implementation of sound public health policies abroad, policies that should have been adopted in the United States a long time ago.

Indeed, in 2003, CFA and its allies petitioned federal regulators to require basic information on alcohol labels such as the amount of alcohol in fluid ounces per suggested serving, the number of calories, and ingredients. To this day, labeling requirements remain unchanged, although last spring, in response to a lawsuit filed by CFA and other petitioners, the Treasury Department agreed to issue proposed rules requiring standardized alcohol content, calorie, and allergen disclosures. CFA has yet to receive a response to another petition seeking to update the health warning statement on alcoholic beverages for the first time since 1988.

As with Ireland’s proposed law, a new health warning statement on alcohol in the U.S. should alert consumers to the fact that alcohol causes cancer. More than any other element of Ireland’s law, this cancer warning requirement most bothers the industry, but it is sorely needed. Researchers with the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) estimate that alcohol may account for as many as 7,300 breast cancer deaths annually—some 15% of all such deaths. Yet just 24.6% of women surveyed in the U.S. think that “drinking alcoholic beverages increases a woman’s chances of getting breast cancer.”

Such a gap between the harms associated with a product, and the awareness of those harms, provides fertile ground for educational policies to improve public health. Ireland is poised to take advantage. Let’s hope U.S. trade officials get out of the way!

Consumer Federation of America Supports Consumer Product Safety Commission Against Unwarranted Attacks

By: Courtney Griffin, Director of Consumer Product Safety

Attacks from regulated industries and some lawmakers are threatening the important work of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).  The attacks against the CPSC are consistent with other efforts to weaken the federal agencies that protect consumers and workers.  CFA, with its long history of fighting for consumer protections, supports the CPSC and its critical safety mission.

Established in 1972, the CPSC’s sole mission is to “save lives and keep families safe by reducing the unreasonable risk of injuries and deaths associated with consumer products.”  So, while the CPCS is a small agency, its jurisdiction includes 15,000 types of consumer products.  To accomplish its critical work, CPSC issues and enforces mandatory standards, bans dangerous products for which no feasible standard is possible, obtains recalls of dangerous products, researches product hazards, develops voluntary standards with other groups including businesses, and educates consumers.

The CPSC’s work is important to the safety of all consumers and, in the five decades since its creation, the CPSC has reduced death and injuries from many products.  However, its focus on children’s safety is one of the most significant features of the CPSC’s work.  For example, from 1973 to 2019, crib fatalities decreased by nearly 80%, in part because of the CPSC’s important work.  The CPSC’s mandatory safety standard for cribs went into effect in 2011.  Similarly, from 1972 to 2020, pediatric poisoning for all children decreased 80% and for children under 5, decreased 83%.  This year the CPSC finalized a rule for clothing storage units (CSUs) that will protect children from tip-over-related deaths and injuries. From January 2000 through April 2022, CPSC was aware of 234 total fatalities resulting from CSUs, including 199 child fatalities.

The CPSC has also been active in announcing the recalls of dangerous products.  For example, in January 2023 the CPSC reannounced Fisher-Price’s recall of 4.7 million Rock n’ Play sleepers because the product has been linked to approximately 100 infant deaths.  In June 2023, the CPSC reissued a statement urging consumers to stop using certain recalled Boppy newborn loungers that have been linked to multiple infant deaths.  The Commission has continued to seek information from Meta about the issue of dangerous recalled consumer products, such as the Rock n’ Play sleeper and Boppy newborn lounger, sold on Facebook Marketplace.

CFA strongly believes that consumers deserve a marketplace that is just and transparent. To this end, the CPSC’s work is critical to the health and safety of American consumers.  CFA supports the CPSC’s vital mission and its important work against efforts to undermine its authority.  To support the CPSC in its mission to protect consumers from dangerous products, individuals and organizations should:

• Urge their elected officials to support the CPSC in its critical mission to make the marketplace more consumer driven. Encourage their elected officials to protect the CPSC from efforts to undermine its authority to keep consumers safe.  Let their elected officials know that consumers deserve timely information about the potential hazards in their homes.
• Exercise their rights and participate in agency rulemaking on regulations.
• Report complaints about harm or potential harm from unsafe consumer products at gov. This website can also be used to determine whether anyone has already reported injuries associated with a particular consumer product.
• Search reports and recalls/repairs of unsafe or potentially unsafe consumer products.
• Review CPSC’s safety education materials.
• Review CPSC’s injury statistics and technical reports.
• Learn about the various facets of CPSC’s work or contact the CPSC’s Consumer Ombudsman, who is dedicated to helping the public understand how the CPSC works.
• Learn more about the work of groups that have successfully advocated for safer consumer products, such as Kids in Danger (KID), Parents for Window Blind Safety, and Parents Against Tip-Overs.

The attacks on the CPSC reflect the broader goal of regulated industries and some lawmakers to undermine the authority of federal agencies whose mission it is to protect consumers. As CFA continues to advocate for a marketplace that is just and transparent, trust that we will continue to defend this critical consumer protection agency.

Consumer Groups Urge Congress to Support the PAID Act

Earlier this month Representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), and Mark Takano (CA-39) reintroduced the Prohibit Auto Insurance Discrimination (PAID) Act, which would ensure insurance companies use only driving-related factors when determining car insurance rates and eligibility. Nineteen consumer groups, including the Consumer Federation of America, sent a letter urging other members of Congress to support and pass this critical legislation.

Nearly every state in the country mandates the purchase of auto insurance. Currently, auto insurance companies can use these discriminatory socio-economic factors to determine a driver’s insurance rate and eligibility:

1. credit score, credit-based insurance score, or consumer report,
2. education level,
3. job or occupation, as well as their employment status,
4. home ownership status,
5. gender and marital status,
6. prior insurance coverage and previous insurers, and
7. home ZIP code or census tract.

“Many consumers are charged hundreds or even thousands of dollars more based on these variables, even though they aren’t related to driving,” said Michael DeLong, CFA’s Research and Advocacy Associate. “Your auto insurance premium should be based on your driving behavior, not your credit score or your job or whether you graduated from college.”

If the PAID Act becomes law, it would “further require all underwriting rules and rate filings by auto insurers to be made publicly available,” and would “require insurers to submit regular information to the Federal Trade Commission to demonstrate that their marketing, underwriting, rating, claims handling, and fraud investigations, and any models or algorithms used in these programs, do not have a disparate impact on consumers based on their race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or gender identity or expression.”

The organizations wrote that if passed, the PAID Act “should also serve as a model for state legislators and regulators who are serious about reducing unfair discrimination in auto insurance markets.”

“The PAID Act would strike a blow for consumers by greatly reducing auto insurance premiums and ensuring that the process is fair and transparent.” said DeLong. “We urge Congress to put consumers first and pass this bill.”

Florida Student Privacy Bill Bans Educational Apps from Selling Data

By: R.J. Cross, Director of Don’t Sell My Data Campaign, PIRG; and Bess Pierre, Intern, Don’t Sell My Data Campaign

Earlier this month, the Florida state legislature passed a new student privacy bill – the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act  – in an effort to bolster student data privacy protections at school.

How does the Florida student privacy bill protect kids? 

Many sites and apps students use for school include secretive technology that harvests student data and sells it to third parties. A 2022 study by Human Rights Watch found that 90% of educational apps do just this – turning a tool for learning into a tool for exploiting minors’ information for commercial gain, usually unbeknownst to students, teachers, and parents alike.

Florida’s bill bans educational platforms from gathering any more information from students than is reasonably necessary to deliver the primary service of being a learning tool. It also bans companies from using student data for any non-educational purposes. This means student data cannot be sold to third parties or used for targeted advertising.

Requiring companies to only gather the data that’s necessary to deliver the service a consumer is expecting to get, and using it for only that purpose, is a principle broadly known as data minimization. Data minimization is a good approach to data privacy. It’s encouraging to see Florida implement it in this law.

How effective is the new Florida student privacy bill?

The bill is a good step towards protecting kids online. There are some open questions left – like how well enforcement will work, and what companies and products the bill will apply to. The Florida Department of Legal Affairs is currently the only enforcer, which is less ideal than if consumers were able to sue offending companies themselves. The bill also only applies to platforms specifically designed for  K-12 education, leaving out a lot of other websites, apps and online tools students interact with on a daily basis.

Still, the bill is a big step forward for student privacy, while Congress considers its next steps.

What happens next? 

The bill goes into effect on July 1, 2023, and the State Board of Education may adopt rules to improve the law’s implementation at a later date.

Meanwhile, however, companies outside the EdTech space will largely continue to be able to collect, sell and use all of our data however they want. It’s essential for all companies to minimize collection for all consumers, not just children. Businesses should also take responsibility for respecting consumer privacy even before policymakers pass strong regulations.

The post CFAnews Update – June 28, 2023 appeared first on Consumer Federation of America.

Recently, the United States joined Mexico and the Dominican Republic in challenging Ireland’s regulation of alcoholic beverage labeling in the World Trade Organization. The new Irish law would require alcoholic beverage labels to disclose calories, the amount in grams of alcohol per serving and per container, and various health warning statements including, most importantly: “There is a direct link between alcohol and fatal cancers.”

For United States trade officials, these labeling rules are an “unlawful trade barrier.” For consumer and public health advocates, they are a template for how to design labels to prevent inadvertent overconsumption and raise awareness of alcohol’s role as the third most important modifiable risk factor for cancer deaths in the U.S.

How did we get here? Trade agreements were once mostly focused on lowering tariffs, or duties, on imports. For decades now, however, “free trade” has come to mean trade that is free from regulatory barriers to imports and foreign investors. No country’s democratic process is immune to the resulting pressure. In the United States, consumers lost the right to country-of-origin labeling (COOL) on beef and pork products after Mexico and Canada challenged the rules in the World Trade Organization. The countries argued that keeping track of what meat came from what animals would be so expensive that the giant meatpacking companies would simply stop buying pigs and cows from across the border. Therefore, the law was an unlawful trade barrier. The WTO’s Appellate Body agreed. After it authorized sanctions, Congress quietly repealed the law.

Ireland’s alcohol labeling law could meet a similar fate, but not if CFA can help it. Last year, CFA asked EU regulators to approve the law despite objections from industry and major alcohol exporters like Italy. More recently, CFA and its allies wrote to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to ask U.S. officials not to interfere in the implementation of sound public health policies abroad, policies that should have been adopted in the United States a long time ago.

Indeed, in 2003, CFA and its allies petitioned federal regulators to require basic information on alcohol labels such as the amount of alcohol in fluid ounces per suggested serving, the number of calories, and ingredients. To this day, labeling requirements remain unchanged, although last spring, in response to a lawsuit filed by CFA and other petitioners, the Treasury Department agreed to issue proposed rules requiring standardized alcohol content, calorie, and allergen disclosures. CFA has yet to receive a response to another petition seeking to update the health warning statement on alcoholic beverages for the first time since 1988.

As with Ireland’s proposed law, a new health warning statement on alcohol in the U.S. should alert consumers to the fact that alcohol causes cancer. More than any other element of Ireland’s law, this cancer warning requirement most bothers the industry, but it is sorely needed. Researchers with the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) estimate that alcohol may account for as many as 7,300 breast cancer deaths annually—some 15% of all such deaths. Yet just 24.6% of women surveyed in the U.S. think that “drinking alcoholic beverages increases a woman’s chances of getting breast cancer.”

Such a gap between the harms associated with a product, and the awareness of those harms, provides fertile ground for educational policies to improve public health. Ireland is poised to take advantage. Let’s hope U.S. trade officials get out of the way!

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