With Memorial Day just a few days away, many across the country will soon stop and remember the meaning of military service and the ultimate sacrifice so many gave — and are still giving. Remembering is what the day is all about. And yet sometimes we can do more than reflect. We can honor vets by listening when they speak, and acting at their urging. Right now, they’re talking – and they’re asking for our help on an issue important to every one of us.

Center for Food Safety strongly supports yesterday’s Vietnam Veterans of America appeal to President Obama on the hazards of 2,4-D resistant corn, developed by Dow Chemical Company, to dramatically increase use of the company’s toxic 2,4-D herbicide. Make no mistake, this is an effort rooted in profit and market dominance, not science. The Vietnam vets of this nation know all too well the price to be paid when the truth is hidden from sight.

As the VVA points out, Dow was a major manufacturer of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, phenoxy herbicides, which together comprised the infamous Agent Orange defoliant dumped in massive quantities on Vietnam to destroy rice fields and rainforests. Vietnam veterans and the Vietnamese people have suffered tremendously from exposure to this toxic biocide.  With increasing scientific study, the US government recognizes ever more diseases suffered by vets as being related to Agent Orange exposure.  Today, that list includes diabetes, neuropathy, Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, liver dysfunction, chloracne, numerous cancers (e.g. leukemia, lung, prostate, and multiple myeloma), as well as birth defects (e.g. spina bifida) in the children of exposed soldiers.

The toxicity of Agent Orange is generally attributed to its dioxin contaminants. Though 2,4-5-T (banned since 1978) is the worse of the two chemicals, 2,4-D exposure has independently been associated with the deadly immune system cancer non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Parkinson’s disease, hepatitis, lower sperm counts, and birth defects in the children of exposed applicators. 2,4-D is the seventh leading source of dioxin in the U.S., and this excludes dioxin emissions from factories that produce it. While dioxin levels in current 2,4-D are lower than in Agent Orange, a recent Australian study shows that today’s 2,4-D contains as much dioxin as it did twenty years ago, directly contradicting industry assurances to EPA that production improvements have reduced dioxin levels.

Such dishonesty will come as no surprise to Vietnam vets, who know better than anyone how little Dow can be trusted. Dow assured the U.S. military in 1963 that Agent Orange was safe, suppressing its knowledge that dioxins in Agent Orange compounds and their precursors had sickened production workers in Germany and the U.S.  In the same year, Dow changed its production process to boost output, despite knowing that this would sharply increase dioxin contamination. And it’s now a matter of public record that Dow, in the mid-1960s, sponsored secret dioxin testing on inmates of a Pennsylvania prison, even as the much larger-scale experiment with its Agent Orange was being conducted on US soldiers and Vietnamese.

Approving crops engineered solely for the purpose of tolerating more of this toxic weed-killer should concern us all. Experts project that a widespread planting of 2,4-D corn will dramatically increase overall use of 2,4-D in agriculture.  Use of 2,4-D will sky-rocket from 27 million pounds at present to over 100 million pounds per year. And corn is just the tip of this health-imperiling iceberg. 2,4-D-resistant soybeans and cotton will increase usage still more. And where do you think that will end? A chemical quagmire, that’s where.

Our hope at Center for Food Safety is that President Obama will listen carefully to the Vietnam Veterans of America. If he does, he’ll find that U.S. vets are actually not asking him to do anything at all. They are asking him not to approve this risky crop. Not yet. Not until we know more. Not until science and the public have their chance to speak. After all, a smarter, more measured approach to virtually every issue is always the best answer. Had we walked that path in Administrations past, there would have been no organization called Vietnam Veterans of America in the first place.

Institute of Medicine Gives Big Food Another Deadline – or else!

This week, the nation’s top public health experts are gathered at a much-trumpeted obesity conference hosted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called Weight of the Nation. (A quick glance at the agenda reveals nothing that would even begin to challenge the food industry.)

Released at this bland event was an equally uninspired report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM, an advisory arm of Congress) called, Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention: Solving the Weight of the Nation. The irony of the report’s title gets lost among the 478 pages that aim to solve “this complex, stubborn problem” with “a comprehensive set of solutions.”

One of the recommendations intended to speed things up is for the food industry to “take broad, common, and urgent voluntary action to make substantial improvements” to marketing aimed at kids. This is certainly important, as advocates have for years been sounding the alarm about the intractable problem of junk food marketing to children and its connection to poor health. But another part of the IOM dictate sounded vaguely familiar:

If such marketing standards have not been adopted within two years by a substantial majority of food, beverage, restaurant, and media companies that market foods and beverages to children and adolescents, policy makers at the local, state, and federal levels should consider setting mandatory nutritional standards for marketing to this age group to ensure that such standards are implemented.

Two years? Where have I heard that deadline before? Oh yes, it was another IOM report, this one focused entirely on food marketing to children, from 2005, which reviewed the science showing a clear connection between junk food marketing and children’s dietary habits. That report said if voluntary efforts by industry to clean up its act were unsuccessful, “Congress should enact legislation mandating” a shift in advertising. Also, that “[w]ithin 2 years the Secretary [of health] should report to Congress on the progress and on additional actions necessary to accelerate progress.”

So it’s been 5 years since that earlier deadline has passed and now the food industry has 2 more years to show how much it really cares about kids? Did anyone at IOM bother to check its earlier reports before writing this one?

But it’s hardly IOM’s fault. If anyone is to blame for lack of action on this issue, it’s Congress and the White House, as two recent reports make painfully clear.

An in-depth investigation by Reuters describes the dirty details of the onslaught of Big Food lobbying in the wake of an effort by the federal government to improve voluntary guidelines on food marketing to kids.

Reuters found that food and beverage lobbyists spent more than $175 million lobbying since President Obama took office in 2009, more than double that spent in the previous three years, during the Bush Administration. “In contrast, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, widely regarded as the lead lobbying force for healthier food, spent about $70,000 lobbying last year — roughly what those opposing the stricter guidelines spent every 13 hours.”

Reuters also examined lobbying visits to the White House, finding that a “who’s who of food company chief executives and lobbyists visited the White House” including:

CEOs of Nestle USA, Kellogg, General Mills, and top executives at Walt Disney, Time Warner, and Viacom, owner of the Nickelodeon children’s channel — companies with some of the biggest financial stakes in marketing to children. Those companies have a combined market value of more than $350 billion.

Another damning report emerged this month from the Sunlight Foundation found similar influence from Big Food. The strategy was for industry lobbyists to give money to members of Congress in exchange for their sending letters objecting to federal agency efforts. Here is how Sunlight describes one such transaction:

Days after receiving several campaign checks from the food lobby last May, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who is up for re-election this year, sent a letter raising concerns about the Federal Trade Commission’s efforts to develop voluntary guidelines aimed at toning down the marketing of junk food to kids.

Seems Klobuchar wasn’t the only Democrat on the dole. Sunlight found that while most letter-writers were Republicans, lobbyist campaign donations held particular sway with Senate Democrats. Those who wrote letters of objection “collected on average, more than twice as much campaign money from food lobbying interests since 2008 as those who did not write letters.” A similar pattern also held in the House, where 38 Democrats wrote letters of protest.

As Jeff McIntyre, policy director for the advocacy group Children Now told Reuters: “We just got beat. Money wins.” That’s why it’s irrelevant how many more recommendations or deadlines come from the Institute of Medicine or any other panel of experts on how to “accelerate” progress. The only thing getting accelerated is lobbying dollars into politicians’ pockets. And kids’ poor health.

 Public Comment Period Ends Friday, April 27

Over 150 groups and more than 365,000 citizens from across the country are urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to reject a Dow Chemical application seeking approval of a controversial genetically engineered (GE) corn that is resistant to the hazardous herbicide 2,4-D. In addition to the public comments, 154 farm, environmental, health, fisheries groups and companies will submit a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack expressing their overwhelming opposition to this crop. The comments and letter will be submitted when USDA’s public comment period ends this Friday, April 27.

“American agriculture stands at a crossroads. One path leads to more intensive use of old and toxic pesticides, litigious disputes in farm country over drift-related crop injury, less crop diversity, increasingly intractable weeds, and sharply rising farmer production costs,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “This is the path American agriculture will take with approval of Dow’s 2,4-D resistant corn, soybeans and the host of other new herbicide-resistant crops in the pipeline. Another path is possible, but embarking upon it will take enlightened leadership from USDA.”

According to agricultural scientist Dr. Charles Benbrook, widespread planting of 2,4-D resistant corn could trigger as much as a 30-fold increase in 2,4-D use on corn by the end of the decade, given 2,4-D’s limited use on corn at present. Overall 2,4-D use in American agriculture would rise from 27 million lbs. today to over 100 million lbs. 2,4-D soybeans and cotton would boost usage still more. Yet USDA has provided no analysis of the serious harm to human health, the environment or neighboring farms that would result.

“It’s clear that this new generation of GE herbicide-resistant seeds is the growth engine of the pesticide industry’s sales and marketing strategy,” said Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, Senior Scientist at Pesticide Action Network. “These seeds are part of a technology package explicitly designed to facilitate increased, indiscriminate herbicide use and pump up chemical sales.”

In addition, 48 medical and public health professionals have signed a letter to USDA warning of the severe health harms that would likely accompany the massive increase in 2,4-D use, expected to accompany approval of the GE seed. “Many studies show that 2,4 D exposure is associated with various forms of cancer, Parkinson’s Disease, nerve damage, hormone disruption and birth defects,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. “USDA must take these significant risks seriously and reject approval of this crop.”

American farmers are also rightly concerned that the introduction of 2,4-D resistant corn will threaten their crops. 2,4-D drift is responsible for more episodes of crop injury than any other herbicide. Last week, a coalition representing more than 2,000 farmers and groups filed petitions with the USDA and the EPA, asking USDA to conduct a thorough environmental review before making a decision on approving 2,4-D resistant corn and EPA to convene an advisory panel to examine impacts from increased application of the herbicides.

“Farmers are on the front lines of this potential chemical disaster,” said Iowa conventional corn and soybean farmer George Naylor. “Conventional farmers stand to lose crops while organic farmers will lose both crops and certification, resulting in an economic unraveling of already-stressed rural communities. I’m also very concerned about the further pollution of the air and water in my community.”

“USDA must stand up for those growing America’s food and put their interests, and the public’s, ahead of chemical companies’ profits,” added Margot McMillen, an organic farmer in Missouri. Hers is the message of farmers who are speaking on this issue today at a national telepress conference organized by the National Family Farm Coalition.

Dow’s 2,4-D resistant corn is a clear indication that first-generation GE, herbicide-resistant crops—specifically Monsanto’s Roundup Ready (RR) varieties—are rapidly failing. RR crops, which comprise 84 percent of world biotech plantings, have triggered massive use of glyphosate (Roundup’s active ingredient) and an epidemic of glyphosate-resistant “superweeds.”

Though Dow claims 2,4-D crops are the solution to weed resistance a recent peer-reviewed study published in the prestigious journal Bioscience concludes that these new GE crops will pour oil on the fire.  The study, entitled “Navigating a Critical Juncture for Sustainable Weed Management,” suggests new GE crops will trigger an outbreak of still more intractable weeds resistant to both glyphosate and 2,4-D.

2,4-D drift and runoff also pose serious risk for environmental harm.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Marine Fisheries Service have found that 2,4-D is likely having adverse impacts on several endangered species, including the California red-legged frog, the Alameda whipsnake, and Pacific salmon, via impacts on their habitats and prey.

“EPA recently denied our petition to ban or control 2,4-D, putting their head in the sand instead of protecting people and plants,” said Mae Wu, a health attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “If USDA now grants Dow’s application, farmers, gardeners, wildlife, and kids will all face even greater exposure to this toxic herbicide.”

If approved, the Center for Food Safety has vowed to challenge USDA’s decision in court, as this novel GE crop provides no public benefit and will only cause serious harm to human health, the environment, and threaten American farms.

The groups submitting public comments to USDA include the Center for Food Safety, Pesticide Action Network, Food & Water Watch, Food Democracy Now, the National Family Farm Coalition, Organic Farming Research Foundation, the Organic Consumers Association, SumOfUs.org, the Sierra Club, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In addition to its member comments, CFS also filed legal and sciientific comments. View CFS Legal Comments; Science Comments; Science Comments II

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The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. More information can be found at www.centerforfoodsafety.org

Pesticide Action Network North America (PAN North America, or PANNA) works to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with ecologically sound and socially just alternatives. As one of five PAN Regional Centers worldwide, we link local and international consumer, labor, health, environment and agriculture groups into an international citizens’ action network. This network challenges the global proliferation of pesticides, defends basic rights to health and environmental quality, and works to ensure the transition to a just and viable society. More information can be found at www.panna.org

Food & Water Watch works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainable. So we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of where their food comes from, keep clean, affordable, public tap water flowing freely to our homes, protect the environmental quality of oceans, force government to do its job protecting citizens, and educate about the importance of keeping shared resources under public control. On the web at www.foodandwaterwatch.org

National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) unites the voices and actions of its diverse grassroots members to demand viable livelihoods for family farmers, fishers and workers, safe and healthy food, and economically and environmentally sound rural communities.www.nffc.net

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s purpose is to safeguard the Earth: its people, its plants and animals and the natural systems on which all life depends. We work to restore the integrity of the elements that sustain life — air, land and water — and to defend endangered natural places. We seek to establish sustainability and good stewardship of the Earth as central ethical imperatives of human society. NRDC affirms the integral place of human beings in the environment. We strive to protect nature in ways that advance the long-term welfare of present and future generations. We work to foster the fundamental right of all people to have a voice in decisions that affect their environment. We seek to break down the pattern of disproportionate environmental burdens borne by people of color and others who face social or economic inequities. Ultimately, NRDC strives to help create a new way of life for humankind, one that can be sustained indefinitely without fouling or depleting the resources that support all life on Earth. On the web at www.nrdc.org

People who eat contaminated beef products are at risk of contracting the human version of mad cow disease known as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). The disease slowly eats holes in the brain over a matter of years, turning it sponge-like, and invariably results in death. There is no known cure, treatment, or vaccine for BSE diseases.  The incubation period for “mad cow” disease in cattle is thought to be approximately 5 years; it may be latent in humans for a decade or more before manifesting itself.

“The current safety net is riddled with holes,” stated Center for Food Safety staff attorney Elisabeth Holmes. “Clearly the California cow is an example of how the USDA’s current strategy is far from airtight.”  While USDA had made some efforts towards more stringent requirements since the 1990’s, unfortunately its recently-issued BSE proposal is a complete reversal of those endeavors.  The current proposal suggests dropping requirements that limit importation, using a mitigation measure as the primary means of safety, and adopting a lower standard than what many other countries currently insist upon (77 Fed. Reg. 15848 [Mar. 16, 2012]).  The Center for Food Safety is urging the USDA to enact tougher requirements to protect the security of our nation’s food supply.

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) applauds the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today for issuing industry guidance limiting the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals.  Antibiotics are essential tools in both human and animal medicine but mounting evidence has linked persistent use of these drugs in animal production to the development and spread of antibiotic-resistant organisms.    “This is an important step in protecting the public from the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” said Paige Tomaselli, Attorney for the Center for Food Safety. “But it’s high time that FDA takes drastic measures to eliminate all non-therapeutic uses of all antibiotics in food animal production.”

FDA said its actions today would result in a “sea change” from decades of widespread antibiotic use.  The FDA’s plan includes encouraging industry to voluntarily eliminate non-therapeutic antibiotic use within three years, to include veterinary oversight or consultation for administration of antibiotics to food-producing animals, and to implement “judicial use” principles.  FDA’s action today included issuing a Final Guidance for Industry (#209), issuing a proposed Guidance for Industry (#213) with specific recommendations on how to align animal drug applications with Final Guidance #209, and a proposed rule linking the FDA’s Veterinary Feed Directive with the industry guidances. When FDA releases the proposed rule, the public will then have 90 days to comment.

In human medicine, antibiotic use is generally confined to treatment of illness.  Yet, on many industrial livestock farms in the U.S., antibiotics and other antimicrobials (drugs that kill microorganisms like bacteria) are routinely administered to healthy animals. In fact, 80 percent of all antibiotics produced in the U.S. are given to animals, not humans.  One result of this unregulated overuse has been a significant increase in antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” which can dangerously jeopardize the use and effectiveness of medically important antibiotics for humans.

In August 2010, more than 180,000 citizens sent letters to the FDA responding to the agency’s request for comments on rules governing the judicious use of antibiotics on industrial farms.  Those letters joined dozens of scientific experts and public interest organizations calling on FDA to tighten oversight and curtail misuse and overuse of antibiotics on industrial farms. In 2011 and 2012, FDA’s actions took inconsistent turns as the agency refused to withdraw approval for tetracycline and penicillin, yet it limited certain uses of cephalosporins.

“Today’s action by the FDA puts forth a plan that demonstrates the agency’s commitment to public health, added Tomaselli. “The Center for Food Safety will keep pressure on the FDA to ensure it stays the course to implement the guidances and the proposed rule.”

“Dow’s ‘Agent Orange’ corn will trigger a large increase in 2,4-D use—and our exposure to this toxic herbicide—yet USDA has not assessed how much, nor analyzed the serious harm to human health, the environment, or neighboring farms,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety.  “This novel corn will foster resistant weeds that require more toxic pesticides to kill, followed by more resistance and more pesticides—a chemical arms race in which the only winners are pesticide/biotechnology firms.”

If approved, millions of acres of “Agent Orange” corn could be planted as early as next year, raising concern for its adverse health impacts. 2,4-D was one of the main ingredients in Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used by the U.S. in the Vietnam War. Agent Orange was contaminated with dioxins, a group of highly toxic chemical compounds, which are responsible for a host of serious medical conditions—from diabetes to cancer to birth defects—in Vietnam veterans as well as Vietnamese and their children.  Industry’s own tests show that 2,4-D is still contaminated with dioxins.

“Many studies show that 2,4 D exposure is associated with various forms of cancer, Parkinson’s Disease, nerve damage, hormone disruption and birth defects,” said Dr. Amy Dean, an internal medicine physician and President-Elect of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine.  “Because it poses significant health risk, exposure should not be increased, but significantly reduced to protect the public’s health.”

2,4-D drift and runoff also pose serious risk for environmental harm.  Because it is such a potent plant-killer, 2,4-D can harm animals by killing the plants they depend on for habitat and food.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Marine Fisheries Service have found that 2,4-D is likely having adverse impacts on several endangered species, even now.  2,4-D is currently used to control weeds primarily in cereal grains and lawns. Its use in corn has been extremely limited. USDA’s approval of 2,4-D resistant GE corn will increase the overall use of this toxic herbicide, worsening these impacts and likely placing many other species at risk.

American farmers are also rightly concerned that the introduction of 2,4-D resistant corn will threaten their crops: 2,4-D drift is responsible for more episodes of crop injury than any other herbicide.  “In my experience, 2,4-D is an herbicide that can and does drift considerable distances to damage neighboring crops,” said Indiana farmer Troy Roush. “We can expect greatly increased use of 2,4-D with Dow’s new corn, and that could wreak havoc with soybeans, tomatoes, and other crops my neighbors and I grow.”

The advent of Dow’s 2,4-D resistant corn is a clear indication that first-generation genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant crops—Monsanto’s Roundup Ready (RR) varieties—are rapidly failing.  RR crops, which comprise 84 percent of world biotech plantings, have triggered massive use of glyphosate (Roundup’s active ingredient) and an epidemic of glyphosate-resistant weeds.  These resistant “superweeds” are regarded as one of the major challenges facing American agriculture.

Dow now falsely suggests that 2,4-D crops (2,4-D soybeans and cotton are also under development) are the solution to weed resistance.  Far from solving the problem, however, a peer-reviewed study recently published in the prestigious journal Bioscience, entitled “Navigating a Critical Juncture for Sustainable Weed Management,” suggests that these new GE crops will pour oil on the fire, triggering an outbreak of still more intractable weeds resistant to both glyphosate and 2,4-D.

USDA’s public comment period on 2,4-D resistant corn is open until April 27.

For more information on 2,4-D corn, see CFS’s two-page fact sheet and more extensive Food Safety Review.

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The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. More information can be found at www.centerforfoodsafety.org

Honey bee in a hive. Image from library.thinkquest.org

Three new studies released in the past two weeks, including one today by Harvard University, add to the growing body of evidence that implicate pesticides, specifically neonicotinoids—a class of pesticides used as a seed treatment in crops—as one of the most critical factors contributing to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

“These studies show, once again, that these pesticides have a role to play in CCD and must be addressed,” said Peter Jenkins, an attorney for the Center for Food Safety. “While pesticide manufacturers and government agencies argue over the state of the science, honey bees are being lost to CCD at an alarming rate.”

One of the new studies—released in Science last week—shows that sub-lethal neonicotinoid exposure disrupts honeybees’ foraging and homing abilities.  Another study shows that neonicotinoid exposure reduces queen fitness in bumblebees, causing an 85% reduction in the number of queens produced.  Harvard researchers found that 94% of the hives had died after exposure to a neonicotinoid pesticide called imidacloprid at levels hypothesized by the study team to have been present in high fructose corn syrup since the introduction of neonicotinoids into corn seed treatments in 2004-2005. The Harvard study will be published in the forthcoming issue of the Bulletin of Insectology. These three studies are just the latest in a string of studies over the past year connecting these pesticides with CCD.

Beekeepers cite colony loses of at least 30% each year, costing rural agricultural economies millions of dollars. In response, two weeks ago, commercial beekeepers and environmental organizations including the Center for Food Safety, Pesticide Action Network and Beyond Pesticides, filed an urgent legal petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend further use of one such neonicotinoid, clothianidin, and adopt safeguards to ensure similar future pesticides aren’t approved by the agency. The legal petition was supported by over one million petition signers.

“EPA should move swiftly to close the loophole and revoke the conditional registration of clothianidin,” continued Jenkins. “Bees and beekeepers can’t afford to wait for more industry misinformation and agency inaction.”

Nine years ago, scientists within the EPA required a field study examining the potential harms of one neonicotinoid pesticide (clothianidin) to non-target insects – specifically honey bees – because they had reason to believe the pesticide may harm pollinators. EPA, under pressure from manufacturers like Bayer ignored the agency’s regulations and granted a conditional, or temporary, registration to clothianidin in 2003. The pesticide has remained on the market until this day.

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The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. CFS currently represents 200,000 members across the nation. On the web at: www.centerforfoodsafety.org and www.truefoodnow.org

Image from http://public.health.oregon.gov

In a long-awaited decision, last week the Food and Drug Administration disappointed health advocates once again by allowing Bisphenol A or BPA, a known endocrine disruptor, to remain approved as a chemical additive in food containers such as plastic bottles and metal cans.While the agency says it’s still studying the matter, a number of groups say the science is clear enough. Indeed, in the four years since the filing of a legal petition asking for a ban (a court order was needed to force FDA to respond), evidence of potential harm from BPA exposure has only increased. Of particular concern are young children, as the chemical often lines infant formula containers and baby bottles. Ironically, some of the more alarming research is funded by the federal government. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is spending $30 million to study BPA, with much of it published already and more to come. Not surprisingly, the chemical industry claims the additive is perfectly safe.

But with the scientific studies piling up to show how BPA increases the risk of everything from cancer to heart disease to fertility problems, and more recently, even obesity, this latest industry-friendly move by FDA is especially troubling. Meanwhile, without a hint of irony, FDA also maintains several web pages with helpful information for parents and others wishing to avoid BPA, such as: “What You Can Do to Minimize Your Infant’s Exposure to BPA.”

So if FDA admits the chemical is scary enough to avoid and previous independent scientific advisory panels have derided the agency for ignoring the mounting evidence, why did the agency back down yet again?

A revealing article in the New York Times on Tuesday entitled “White House and FDA Often at Odds” could explain what’s behind this disconnect:

The internal clashes over FDA policy played out against a broader backdrop of regulatory politics. Republicans have made the charge that Mr. Obama is an overzealous and job-killing regulator — a central element of their case against his re-election. And on issues from clean air to investor protections, the White House has been carefully calibrating its election season positions.

Lack of support from the White House to allow FDA do its job would certainly explain other politically safe decisions during the Obama Administration. These include refusing to act on the overuse of antibiotics in animal feed and continuing to ignore demands to label foods containing genetically-engineered ingredients.

But if the recent uproar over “pink slime” is any indication, Americans are waking up to the stark reality that our food supply is controlled by corporate entities with powerful influence over our political system. This increasing awareness, combined with strong consumer backlash means more companies are feeling the heat and starting to respond. For example, Campbell’s Soup recently announced plans to phase out BPA from its cans, following other food makers.

FDA seems to be in favor of this voluntary approach: “The Food and Drug Administration is supporting current efforts by industry to stop the manufacture of infant bottles and feeding cups made with BPA from the U.S. market.”

How nice. But we can’t only rely on the kindness of companies. The White House should get out of FDA’s way and let public health guide the agency, not politics.

Image courtesy of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (www.cban.ca)

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) welcomed reports that the University of Guelph, the Canadian university that developed the genetically engineered (GE) “Enviropig,” is closing down its research. CFS is now calling on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to stop any work on approving the GE pig.For years CFS has criticized the developers of the “EnviroPig” for engineering an animal specifically to fit into large-scale and highly polluting concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).  CFS has also criticized the genetically engineered “AquAdvantage” salmon developed by AquaBounty, Inc. – also under review by the FDA – which was similarly engineered to grow better in the confined tanks of industrial fish farming operations.

“There’s a lot of green lipstick on this pig,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director for the Center for Food Safety. “The whole idea of genetically engineering a pig to fit into an unsustainable production model and then dubbing it “enviro” is ridiculous. Given recent industry and consumer backlash, it’s no surprise that funding for this misguided research has dried up.”

The “Enviropig” was engineered using genetic material from a mouse and an E. coli bacterium to reduce phosphorus in the pig’s feces. The University of Guelph began its GE pig research in 1995 and requested food safety approval from regulatory authorities in Canada and the U.S. in 2009. While Canada approved reproduction of the GE pigs in February 2010, no government has approved the “Enviropig” for human consumption and no GE pigs have been sold commercially.

According to recent news reports, the Canadian hog industry group Ontario Pork has redirected its funding away from GE pig research. Lacking this funding, the university is ending its program to breed the genetically engineered pigs.

The announcement comes after years of mounting rejection by farmers, pork producers and consumers.  In a statement appearing in Reuters Canada yesterday, Paul Slomp of the National Farmers Union said, “[t]he GM pig was going to drive consumers away from eating pork if it was ever approved for market. This GM pig fiasco could have permanently damaged (Canada’s) domestic and international pork markets.”

Last year, Olymel, a pork processor in Quebec, announced it would not sell meat from Enviropigs even if the animals were approved for marketing. Other pork industry players are also leery of such biotech efforts. For example, the leading U.S. pork producer Smithfield Farms stated it would not sell meat from animal clones even with FDA approval, and that the company relies on traditional breeding.

“The U.S. government should quit wasting taxpayer dollars on what amounts to an engineered sham for the hog industry,” continued Kimbrell. “Consumers have made clear that they don’t want to eat genetically engineered animals. The FDA should stop its review of this GE pig immediately.”

Recent polls show that consumers do not want to eat these genetically engineered animals. An October 2010 poll by Thompson Reuters found that nearly 65 percent of consumers would not eat genetically engineered fish or meat and 93 percent consumers would want GE animals to be labeled if approved for consumption.

Support for GE labeling recently garnered media attention when a record-breaking one million public comments were sent to the FDA late last month in support of a legal petition filed by CFS calling on the agency to require the labeling of GE foods.  Fifty-five Members of Congress joined Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in a letter to FDA in support of the legal petition.

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The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. CFS currently represents 200,000 members across the nation. On the web at: www.centerforfoodsafety.org and www.truefoodnow.org

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) applauded a bill introduced by Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) Friday that would require the labeling of lean finely textured beef (LFTB) – the ammonia-treated ground beef filler coined “pink slime” by a former U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) official.

“Consumers have spoken loud and clear that they don’t want to eat ‘pink slime’,” said Elisabeth Holmes, staff attorney, for the Center for Food Safety. “This bill will ensure that industry responds to consumer concerns by disclosing the true nature of meat products sold to the public, and is no longer allowed to hoodwink Americans,” she added.

LFTB – manufactured by Beef Products Inc. (BPI) – is made by gathering waste trimmings from beef, simmering them at low heat so the fat separates easily from the muscle, and spinning the mixture in a centrifuge. Next, the filler is sprayed with ammonia gas to kill pathogens like E. coli and salmonella. The product is then molded, frozen, and shipped to grocery stores and meat packers, where it is mixed into in an estimated 70 percent of ground beef in the United States.

The Requiring Easy and Accurate Labeling of Beef Act (REAL Beef Act) would require any beef containing ‘finely textured ground beef’ to have a label at the final point of sale. The bill’s 10 initial co-sponsors include Representatives Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Tim Ryan (D-OH), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jerry Lewis (D-CA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)..

BPI, the meat industry and, most recently, governors and USDA officials have defended using ammonia, saying it reduces bacteria. This claim was soundly disputed in 2009 in a Pulitzer-prize winning exposé by the New York Times, which found that ground beef containing LFTB was four times more likely to contain salmonella than other forms of ground meat.

In response to mounting public concern and calls from Rep. Pingree and others in Congress over the use of “pink slime” in school lunches, the USDA said it will offer school districts a choice in purchasing ground beef as part of their federally-subsidized school foods programs, although many questions remain regarding economics and feasibility. Major fast food chains such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Burger King previously announced they had stopped using “pink slime” in their products.  Additionally, the top two supermarket chains in the country – Kroger and Safeway –said they will cease selling ground beef made with the filler nationwide.

“The meat industry remains defiant in its unwillingness to provide full disclosure for its customers,” said Michele Simon, policy consultant with Center for Food Safety. “This bill helps shed light on a process that has remained hidden for far too long.”

For more on “pink slime,” please visit CFS’s website: http://truefoodnow.org/2012/03/14/food-safety-update-pink-slime-a-symptom-of-industrialized-meat/

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The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture.