Category: Issue 285
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California Science Panel Considers Substances to Monitor in Humans
The California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program’s Scientific Guidance Panel decided at a December 4-5, 2008, meeting that it would designate diesel exhaust and flame retardants as the first substances the state will monitor in humans under a 2006 law (SB 1379) requiring the establishment of a state biomonitoring program. The panel also reportedly agreed that the…
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Regulators Warn Consumers After Finding Dioxins in Irish Pork, Beef
The Irish government this week recalled all pork products from pigs slaughtered in the country after testing revealed high levels of dioxin in animal feed and pork fat samples. Authorities have thus far linked the carcinogen to 10 pig farms that received feed from Millstream Power Recycling Limited, a Carlow company which reprocesses foodstuffs to…
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WHO Tightens Tolerable Daily Intake for Melamine
WHO experts have reportedly determined that a tolerable daily intake (TDI) of melamine is 0.2 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (mg/kg bw/d). This threshold is lower than the one recently adopted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which accepts 0.63 mg/kg bw/d as an appropriate TDI for dietary melamine. The WHO standard…
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Agency Revokes Order Banning Use of Antimicrobial Drugs in Animals
Reversing a position it took in July 2008, the FDA has issued a notice announcing the withdrawal of a final rule that prohibited the extra-label use of cephalosporin antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals. As we noted in issue 266 of this Update, the FDA issued its prohibition “based on evidence that extralabel use of these…
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NRC Report Faults Federal Strategy for Nanotechnology-Related Research
The National Research Council (NRC) has published a report, titled Review of Federal Strategy for Nanotechnology-Related Environmental, Health, and Safety Research, that finds “serious weaknesses in the government’s plan for research on the potential health and environmental risks posed by nanomaterials, which are increasingly being used in consumer goods and industry.” NRC describes the research plan developed…
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Report Calls on Agencies to Better Coordinate Oversight of GE Crops
The GAO, which serves as the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, has released a report that analyzes federal oversight of genetically engineered (GE) crops and recommends steps the agencies could take to better address the unauthorized release of these crops into food, animal feed or the environment. Titled Genetically Engineered Crops: Agencies Are Proposing Changes…