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.

The post Coalition Calls for Nutrition, Ingredient and Allergen Labeling on Alcoholic Beverages appeared first on Consumer Federation of America.

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.

The post Not Sure Whether to Sell Girl Scout Cookies? You’re Not the Only One appeared first on Consumer Federation of America.

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.

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For decades, researchers have suspected that several artificial dyes contribute to hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder in children. These suspicions were recently confirmed by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. After comprehensively and systematically reviewing the evidence, the agency concluded in 2021 that several dyes “cause or exacerbate neurobehavioral problems in some children.” Specifically, the agency’s report fingers the color additives FD&C Blue No. 1, FD&C Blue No. 2, FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Yellow No. 5, and FD&C Yellow No. 6.

Last year, CFA joined consumer advocacy partners in petitioning the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to require a warning label on dye-containing foods and supplements to alert consumers about the adverse effects these dyes have on children’s neurobehavior. Earlier this month, I testified with other petitioner representatives, and experts including toxicologists, epidemiologists, and pediatricians, at  a public hearing that CDPH held on the group’s petition. We sought to counter industry trade groups’ and paid consultants’ arguments against acting on the science.

One common argument was that these dyes are safe because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved them, and FDA is the expert. However, FDA’s approval of these dyes happened in the 80s or even earlier, before the dawn of the personal computer, never mind the genetic analysis technologies that have shed light on why food dyes appear to cause hyperactivity in some children, and even appear to have as large an effect on children’s behavior as lead does on children’s IQ.

Industry has argued that FDA’s ongoing market surveillance should suffice to ensure public protections against these food dyes remain up-to-date. However, FDA’s market surveillance of the harms caused by these dyes has let consumers down, in part because FDA is underfunded and under resourced. The entire FDA Office of Food Additives Safety—responsible for regulating more than 10,000 chemicals in food and a multi-billion-dollar industry—has just over 100 full-time technical staff. And it does not currently have a director.

According to a 2013 study of over 4,000 chemicals purposely added to food such as flavors, preservatives, and sweeteners, less than 22% had sufficient data to estimate how much is safe to eat, and less than 7% were tested for developmental or reproductive effects. FDA may not even know that a chemical is in the food supply, thanks to the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) process, under which food companies have been allowed to determine themselves that over a thousand food chemicals are Generally Recognized as Safe.

Unfortunately, FDA is not going to stand up for consumers on food dyes, but California can. And one big reason for doing so is to establish a level playing field for companies that want to do the right thing. A few years ago, several large companies including General Mills, Kellogg, and Mars made bold pledges to remove artificial colors from their products, but most of them have not followed through. And no wonder! If a company’s competitors can save money and otherwise take advantage of using these chemicals, its hard to make the business case for change.

In Europe, public health authorities have required a warning label on most dyed foods for 15 years. The experience of many leading U.S. companies “across the pond” shows that reformulating foods to remove dyes is feasible and economical. If we arm American consumers with accurate information about food dye harms, we can be confident that it will move the market on this issue just as it has in Europe. Consumers have a right to make educated choices about what foods they purchase and consume. If the FDA can’t stand up to protect consumers, particularly young children, from harmful food dyes, then individual state public health departments should. California, CFA urges you to lead by example and put consumers first.

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Since 1994, FDA has prohibited companies from calling a food “healthy”—or “healthful,” “good for health,” etc.—if the food lacks certain specified nutrients, or if it has too much added sugar, sodium, or saturated fat. One problem with the current definition: it excludes many foods that most nutritionists would characterize as “healthy.” For example, salmon cannot bear a “healthy” claim because of its high fat content. Another problem is that the current rule allows “healthy” claims on foods that most nutritionists would agree are not good for you, like sugary vitamin fortified cereals. The new rule attempts to fix these problems by replacing criteria based on minimum nutrient values—which gave companies an incentive to fortify foods with vitamins and minerals—with criteria based on the food groups defined in the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs), namely: vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy, protein foods, and oils. So, for example, the rules allow cereals to bear a “healthy” claim if they meet a minimum threshold for whole grains, but not for vitamins.

The new rule also continues to exclude foods that are high in sodium and saturated fat—with an exception for saturated fats in nuts and seeds. And the rule continues to exclude foods that are high in added sugars, but it does not exclude foods that are high in added sweeteners, such as aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sucralose, and stevia extract. This omission opens the door to misleading claims insofar as foods made with artificial sweeteners are unhealthy.

“Unhealthy for whom?,” you may be asking yourself. The broadest consensus holds that children under 2 years of age should not consume artificially sweetened foods. According to the DGAs, “high-intensity [i.e., artificial] sweeteners are not recommended for children under 2” because “[t]aste preferences are being formed during this time period, and infants and young children may develop preferences for overly sweet foods if introduced to very sweet foods during this timeframe.” Caregivers often feed “adult” foods to children, and this fact alone arguably supports banning “healthy” claims on artificially sweetened foods.

But the evidence also indicates that artificial sweeteners are bad for adults. Last year, a large scale prospective cohort study of over 100,000 adults in France found “a potential direct association” between higher artificial sweetener consumption (especially aspartame, acesulfame potassium, and sucralose) and increased cardiovascular disease risk.” According to the study, sweetener consumption was linked to a 9 percent increase in risk of cardiovascular disease, and an 18 percent risk of stroke.  Sweeteners may cause these ill health effects in part by interfering with the metabolic process. In a randomized-controlled trial encompassing 120 healthy adults, also conducted last year, subjects who were administered various sweeteners for 2 weeks—in doses lower than FDA’s acceptable daily intake—had “impaired glycemic responses” compared with controls given sugar or nothing at all.

This research raises serious concerns because low-calorie sweeteners have become ubiquitous in the food supply, with over 25 percent of children now estimated to be consuming these ingredients as part of their normal diet. The concerns have led some public health authorities to reexamine policies on sweeteners. New York City, for example, has banned low-calorie sweeteners from all food and beverages at “sites serving a majority of children age 18 or younger.”

Ultimately, “healthy” claims are marketing claims, designed not so much to inform consumers as to sell food products. After all, many of the healthiest foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, have no labels at all, or minimal labeling. “Healthy” claims may lead to excessive consumption of “healthy”-labeled products, at the expense of unlabeled, healthier alternatives. They are also simplistic, as dietary needs are specific to each individual, and “healthy claims” may deter consumers from looking further into a product’s nutritional content.  Because of these inherent deficiencies, CFA has urged FDA to abandon development of a “healthy” icon in favor of a comprehensive front-of-package labeling system that identifies which foods are unhealthy.

In the meantime, FDA should take a conservative stance in defining misleading and deceptive “healthy” marketing claims. “Healthy” claims should not apply where the evidence suggests a food product may cause significant health problems, and the evidence against artificially sweetened foods is substantial, and growing.

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TTB’s decision comes after three national consumer organizations – the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Consumer Federation of America, and the National Consumers League – sued TTB on October 3, 2022, for failing to act on a 2003 petition to require alcohol labeling with the same basic transparency consumers expect for non-alcoholic beverages and food products. CSPI’s litigation department filed the complaint on behalf of the three organizations in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Based on evidence that alcohol is a significant source of empty calories and increases the risk of certain cancers, alcohol use disorders, traffic accidents, and severe injuries, the 2003 petition specifically called for listing the amount of alcohol and calories per serving, the percent alcohol by volume, the serving size, the number of standard drinks per container, and other needed information to make fully informed drinking decisions. These consumer groups also petitioned for an ingredients listing on all alcoholic beverages, something that is a standard feature for other food products and particularly important to those with allergies or other chemical sensitivities.

As a result of the lawsuit, TTB committed to publishing three rulemakings covering mandatory nutrient and alcohol content labeling, mandatory allergen labeling, and mandatory ingredient labeling within the next year.

In addition to the lawsuit, the groups applauded the House and Senate Appropriations Committee for including report language in the FY23 Financial Services and General Government bill urging the agency to take action on this critical rule.

“This is a groundbreaking day for consumers,” said Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of the National Consumers League. “Consumer advocates have been trying for 19 years to get this far. Now there is light at the end of the tunnel. We thank the TTB for finally taking this action and look forward to working closely with the agency, the industry, and other consumer advocates to make sure this is done right and that consumers are the winners.”

“All we have requested over these two long decades is the kind of information that consumers expect when purchasing other foods and beverages,” said Peter Lurie, Executive Director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “We hope TTB can move quickly on this long overdue action.”

“Better labeling requirements for alcoholic beverages will allow consumers to make more informed decisions,” said Thomas Gremillion, Director of Food Policy at Consumer Federation of America. “Consumers have a right to consistent, reliable, and relevant information about the products they buy. For too long, the alcohol industry has kept consumers in the dark, and TTB’s announcement is an important step forward.”

The 2003 citizen petition was submitted to the Treasury Department by CSPI, CFA, and NCL and a coalition of 66 other organizations and eight individuals, including four deans of schools of public health.

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This is misleading. Drinking alcohol does not deliver nutritional benefits. Alcohol blocks the absorption of essential vitamins and nutrients, acting as an oxidative force in the body. It also causes many other health problems, including cancer. Given what we know about alcohol, the FDA’s prohibition against vitamin fortification claims like Vizzy’s is hardly surprising.

The rules are clear. Vitamin fortification claims on alcohol, such as Vizzy’s “with antioxidant Vitamin C,” are prohibited. So why has FDA allowed Molson Coors to continue its unlawful marketing campaign?

Last year, CFA filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to try to get some answers. The agency’s response showed that staff recognized an apparent legal violation, at least in their initial correspondence. However, the agency leadership eventually found a reason to look the other way, and that reason has been redacted from the public record. While FDA rolled over though, a class action lawsuit went forward against Molson Coors. Now, a federal court has made clear what was already obvious to anyone possessing a casual familiarity with the issue and some notion of the rule of law: Vizzy’s labeling claims are illegal.

Perhaps now FDA leadership will devote resources to carry out the agency’s statutory mandate and end Vizzy’s misleading campaign. Recently, the agency issued a final rule revoking the standard of identity for French dressing. Revoking misleading advertising claims on hard seltzers surely deserves priority over more actions like that. And when FDA has set Molson Coors straight, it can turn its attention to the many other “hard seltzer” type products, ostensibly regulated by FDA, that have taken a cue from Molson Coors and trotted out their own misleading claims. Until then, buyer beware!

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Entitled, “One Year Later: How Have American Drinking Habits Changed During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” the presentation presented longitudinal data connected to a study published in October 2020. The earlier study found “statistically significant increases in alcohol consumption” among a nationally representative survey of nearly one thousand respondents, when comparing drinking levels between February and April of 2020 (i.e. before and after COVID-19 associated lockdowns). The more recent data gathered additional consumption data from the original group of respondents for the months of July and November of 2020. The results indicate that the spike in alcohol consumption during the first months of the pandemic has not only held, but continued to grow, with an average increase of 39% reported from February to November of 2020.

Of particular concern, the number of respondents reporting consumption in excess of recommended drinking guidelines increased significantly over the study period. The researchers estimate that an additional 9 million Americans are binge drinking at least once a month, as compared to before the pandemic, helping to gulp down an estimated one billion more standard drink equivalents per month. The vast majority of this consumption took place in the home, with far fewer respondents indicating that they were venturing out to bars and restaurants to drink, as compared to the pre-pandemic data.

Alcohol struggles have affected some groups more than others. Drinking among women increased more than among men; in fact, the data indicate that more women then men are now drinking in excess of recommended guidelines, a first. The data suggests a disparate impact on certain racial groups as well, with Black drinkers’ consumption increasing by 510% between February and November of 2020. Men with teenagers also reportedly nearly doubled their consumption during that time period. The data further show a significant increase in respondents who were reportedly “drinking to cope” or experiencing mental health problems, and sharp increases in drinking among those who were earlier classified into those categories.

“This data reinforces the case for commonsense policies to inform consumers about the dangers associated with alcohol,” said Thomas Gremillion, Director of Food Policy at Consumer Federation of America. “They also demonstrate the folly of short-sighted tax cuts like the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, only 5% of which benefits actual craft brewers or distillers.”

Even before the pandemic, the research showed that alcohol’s toll on U.S. society was growing. Between 1999 and 2017, the number of death certificates mentioning alcohol more than doubled—from 35,914 in 1999 to 72,558 in 2017—some 2.6% of all deaths reported in the United States that year. And while people aged 45-74 had the highest rates of deaths related to alcohol, the biggest increases over time were among people age 25-34. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, excessive alcohol use costs the U.S. economy $249 billion per year, in the form of increased injuries, violence and poisonings; unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease; poor pregnancy outcomes; and chronic diseases including cardiomyopathy, cirrhosis of the liver, and several forms of cancer.

“Given the enormous cost to society, taxes on alcohol should be going up, not down,” said Gremillion. “And public health authorities should be doing more to alert consumers to the dangers of alcohol, including its outsized contribution to cancer, including breast cancer and colon cancer. In particular, Congress should revisit the 1987 law that set the health warning statement for alcohol and amend it to include a cancer warning.”

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). The World Health Organization first documented the link between alcohol and a variety of cancers in 1987, and researchers estimate that cancers associated with alcohol consumption affect nearly 90,000 Americans each year. Even “light” and “moderate” drinking have been tied to various cancers, with the evidence particularly strong for breast cancer. Last summer, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recommended that the 2020 guidelines lower the limit of alcoholic drinks per day for men down to one, in part because of cancer risk.

Nevertheless, surveys from both 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.

“We should not tolerate this gap between alcohol’s contribution to cancer risk, and consumer obliviousness to that contribution,” said Gremillion. “A cancer warning on alcoholic beverages is the most straightforward way to fulfill the consumers’ right to know this critical information, and it would likely help to curb some of the disturbing trends that we are seeing related to pandemic drinking.”

Contact: Thomas Gremillion, 202-939-1010

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Drinking Vizzy is not good for your health. Like all alcoholic beverages, its consumption—even one drink per day—causes a statistically significant increase in breast cancer and other cancer risks. Like all alcoholic beverages, Vizzy is addictive, and it will likely reduce your sleep quality, even when consumed in moderate amounts. And if you drink a lot of Vizzy, like all alcoholic beverages, it will increase your chances of suffering from high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, digestive problems, a weakened immune system, learning and memory problems, and depression and anxiety.

These harms likely outweigh the benefits that anyone without scurvy might reap from Vizzy’s vitamin C. Indeed, Vizzy’s alcohol content directly undermines its “antioxidant” benefit because alcohol reduces antioxidant levels in the body.

But should Molson Coors nevertheless be allowed to tout Vizzy’s “antioxidant vitamin C” ingredients? After all, the claim is true, at least as far as we know. Why can’t consumers handle the truth?

This was the question posed in response to our letter by Baylen Linnekin on the libertarian website Reason. He writes: “Notably, nowhere in their letter do CSPI and CFA claim the information Vizzy provides to consumers is false. Rather, with a flourish of Orwellian denialism, they claim the truthful information Vizzy provides consumers somehow serves to mislead those same consumers.” He concludes that “The FDA shouldn’t prohibit Vizzy, other hard seltzer makers, or any other food or beverage maker from sharing truthful information about its products with consumers.”

This position seems reasonable enough, but it doesn’t stand up too well to scrutiny. Academic researchers have cataloged a variety of ways in which literally truthful claims can be misleading. For example, a claim may tout a product attribute that all other such products share. This was the case with chicken labeled “antibiotic-free.” Companies used the claim to signify that their chicken did not contain any antibiotic residue. But by law, all chicken must be “antibiotic-free” in this sense, regardless of how the birds were raised. So the claim is misleading, because it implies that competing products contain antibiotic residues. The claim also invites confusion with actually meaningful claims, such as “raised without antibiotics.”

Vizzy’s claims are different—their addition of Vitamin C is fairly unique—but they are nonetheless misleading. To understand why, it may help to consider a recent decision by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, or TTB, which inexplicably regulates, rather than FDA, just about every alcoholic beverage other than “hard seltzers.”

In 2017, TTB denied a petition for labeling claims related to Bellion Vodka, which contains a proprietary ingredient dubbed “NTX.” Bellion sought to include labeling claims on its vodka such as “NTX® provides antioxidant and anti-inflammatory support” and “NTX® reduces the risk of alcohol-induced liver diseases, including fibrosis and cirrhosis.” Citing regulations under the Federal Alcohol Administration Act, the regulators at TTB concluded that “the proposed labeling and advertising statements ‘create a misleading impression’ that consumption of alcohol beverages infused with NTX® will protect consumers from certain serious health risks associated with both moderate and heavy levels of alcohol consumption.” A federal court later upheld the agency’s decision.

Much of the deliberations around Bellion concerned the data that company had assembled in support of NTX’s efficacy. But let’s assume for the sake of argument that Bellion’s claims were literally true. This is not so much of a stretch. After all, lots of common substances, such as Vitamin D and zinc, have been shown to slow the progression of liver disease. Assuming they are true, should claims like Bellion’s be allowed?

Of course not. The relevant information is not that Vodka brand X is slightly better for your liver than Vodka brand Y. It is that all vodka is terrible for your liver. Bellion’s health claims obscure that fact, in the same way that other health claims on alcoholic beverages obscure the truth about alcohol’s overwhelmingly negative health effects. Claims like Bellion’s and Vizzy’s invite consumers to make irrational decisions, if they don’t confuse them outright.

If you don’t think that’s a problem for you, think again. Few people are as impervious to the influence of this type of messaging as they might believe. There’s a reason the alcohol industry spends over one billion dollars on advertising each year.

But there’s a cost for even those who know better. To the extent that big alcohol’s misleading health claims succeed, they will succeed in misleading our friends, family, community members, and people whose healthcare costs we must continue to subsidize.

Consumer protections are not a matter of absolutes. Many consumers may buy a certified organic alcoholic beverage with an unrealistic idea of the health consequences stemming from that claim. Nevertheless, the environmental and other benefits of organic farming arguably justify the use of such claims. By contrast, no redeeming benefits rationalize the confusion wrought by health claims like those on Vizzy—and on a fast growing number of other “hard seltzer” beverages to which FDA has turned a blind eye.

Finally, like everything else, consumer protections depend on context. The alcohol industry’s latest foray into health claims comes against a backdrop of disturbingly low levels of awareness regarding alcohol’s harms. In particular, less than half of adults in the U.S. recognize that alcohol increases cancer risk, even though alcohol consumption represents the third-largest modifiable risk factor contributing to cancer cases in the U.S. (behind only smoking and obesity). That needs to change, and it’s why CFA and other consumer advocates have asked regulators to update the health warning statement on alcoholic beverages to include a cancer warning.

Rather than bombard consumers with irrelevant information, product labeling should help consumers make informed choices. We may have a long way to go before Congress takes action to update the Alcoholic Beverage Labeling Act of 1986. The alcohol industry vigorously opposes a cancer warning, and it has successfully enlisted the U.S. government’s help in efforts to stop cancer warning legislation abroad through abusive World Trade Organization challenges. Right now, however, FDA can take a step in the right direction now by simply enforcing existing law that protects consumers from misleading claims, even ones that are literally truthful.

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Washington D.C. — The Food and Drug Administration should bring enforcement proceedings against Molson Coors for illegally misleading consumers with its Vizzy Hard Seltzer advertising campaign, which highlights the alcoholic beverage’s vitamin C and antioxidant content, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest and Consumer Federation of America. The two consumer organizations say that, fortified or not, alcoholic drinks are poor ways to get nutrition, and that Molson Coors is in violation of FDA rules that prohibit misleading claims and strongly discourage food companies from fortifying snack foods, carbonated drinks, or alcoholic drinks with vitamins.

In a letter to Susan Mayne, Director of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, CSPI and CFA point out that Molson Coors makes claims that Vizzy is made “with antioxidant vitamin C from acerola superfruit,” thereby implying that it’s more healthful than hard seltzers made without it. That claim is misleading. In fact, all alcoholic drinks provide empty calories, are associated with serious health conditions, and, when consumed in excess, actually inhibit the body’s ability to take up nutrients from food, according to the groups.

Vizzy Hard Seltzer’s 12-ounce cans contain 5 percent alcohol by volume and 100 calories. One advertisement makes note of the fact that Vizzy is the “first” hard seltzer to be made with vitamin C; another ad distinguishes it from its competitors by stating “Yeah, but we’ve got the antioxidant vitamin C.” They come in flavors like Blackberry Lime, Blueberry Pomegranate, Pineapple Mango, Strawberry Kiwi and so on. Vizzy’s label indicates that each can contains 18 milligrams of vitamin C, or 20 percent of the Recommended Daily Intake of the victim because if its last ingredient dried acerola cherry juice.

“You should get your vitamins from foods first, and a multivitamin or supplement as a distant second if you really need it,” said Eva Greenthal, CSPI Senior Science Policy Associate. “Alcoholic beverages are the absolute last place where you should go looking for or expect to find vitamins. The presence of vitamin C in hard seltzer is no reason to drink more than you would otherwise and doesn’t make this brand of hard seltzer less damaging to your health than any other.”

“Alcohol consumption, particularly heavy consumption, impairs the body’s metabolism of certain vitamins and nutrients,” said Thomas Gremillion, CFA Director of Food Policy. “Any advertising that suggests drinking an alcoholic beverage is a good way to get vitamins into the body is clearly misleading.”

FDA’s fortification policy is spelled out, in part, in a guidance document for the food industry which poses answers to frequently asked questions. For example, it states: “Is it appropriate to add vitamins and minerals to alcoholic beverages? No. Under our fortification policy, we do not consider it appropriate to add vitamins and minerals to alcoholic beverages.” CFA and CSPI are also urging the FDA to issue regulations, not mere guidance, that formally prohibit the use of nutrient content claims on alcoholic beverages, regardless of whether the nutrients come from fortification.

“Alcohol is never a good way to obtain nutrients. If these claims are not expressly prohibited, more manufacturers may attempt to market their alcoholic beverages as healthful sources of nutrients, misleading consumers about these drinks, which are not healthy,” CFA and CSPI wrote.

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The higher incidence of reported foodborne illnesses in areas with higher poverty levels raises serious concerns, particularly since so many factors would seem to support opposite results. Poor consumers are less likely to have reliable access to healthcare and therefore are less likely to have a foodborne illness reported. The poor also have less access to “high-risk” foods—in particular fresh produce, which accounts for an estimated 17% of Salmonella illnesses, and nearly half of all reported foodborne illnesses each year. Moreover, they are less likely to eat “high-risk” foods like raw oysters and raw beef, and to dine out frequently.

Nevertheless, infection rates for common foodborne pathogens are much higher for the poor, in particular for children. Children under five years of age living in a high poverty census tract are 50% more likely to report a Salmonella infection.

The reasons behind the disparate impact remain unclear. Cultural practices, such as cooking a whole turkey overnight, may contribute to the higher foodborne illness rates among the poor. Some evidence suggests that retailers in poorer communities may contribute to the risk by, for example, failing to maintain adequate refrigeration. Perhaps most importantly, living in poverty itself is an important risk factor for foodborne illness, in part because of inadequate nutrition. Over 23 million U.S. consumers, about half of whom are “low-income,” live in a food desert. Research shows that poor nutrition makes individuals more vulnerable to foodborne illness.

CFA’s report provides five action steps to help protect the poor from foodborne illness:

1. Protect consumers from meat and poultry adulterated with virulent Salmonella. Through the use of vaccines, close monitoring, and data transparency, regulators could make significant progress in reducing the toll of salmonellosis caused by meat and poultry, which is currently subject to an antiquated regulatory regime.
2. Make fresh produce safer. To avoid future outbreaks, federal regulators should follow through on rules requiring sanitization of agricultural water, and consider incentives for cattle producers to vaccinate cattle against coli.
3. Slow the rise of superbugs. Widespread use of antibiotics creates antibiotic resistant bugs. While a comprehensive response from Congress is needed, a good start would be to create a system to collect data on how antibiotics are used on-farm, including information on quantities of antibiotics used and the specific indications for use.
4. Promote a culture of food safety in the workplace. Food workers are on the front lines of the fight to prevent foodborne illness. Yet workers that lack basic workplace safety protections, including paid sick leave, cannot be expected to contribute to the attitudes, values and beliefs that make a successful culture of food safety possible.
5. Create a single, independent food safety agency. 15 different federal agencies currently divvy up responsibility for ensuring the safety of the food supply. The Safe Food Act would consolidate federal food safety activities into one independent single food safety agency, with broad jurisdiction to address food safety hazards wherever they may emerge.

“Too often foodborne illness is characterized as a minor nuisance, and food safety a luxury that we can afford to cut back on,” said Thomas Gremillion, Director of Food Policy at CFA. “This report shows that investing in food safety isn’t just good for public health, it’s a matter of social justice.”

“The burden of foodborne illness on our most vulnerable communities is alarming,” said Nick Roper, a CFA Administrative and Advocacy Associate. “Policymakers should take steps to better understand this problem and direct the resources necessary to eliminate this additional poverty penalty.”

Contact: Thomas Gremillion, 202-939-1010

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