Category: Legislation, Regulations and Standards
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Consumer Reports Tests Bottled Water for Arsenic
Consumer Reports has published an article detailing its purported findings from a series of tests on several brands of bottled water, reportedly finding some bottles with levels of arsenic that could be “potentially dangerous to drink over extended periods of time.” Most samples apparently tested below the federal limit of 10 parts per billion (ppb);…
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FDA Releases Guidance on Initiating Voluntary Recalls
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued draft guidance on initiating voluntary recalls of food and other agency-regulated products. The guidance discusses (i) “what preparations firms in a distribution chain, including manufacturers and distributors, should consider making to establish recall initiation procedures”; (ii) “preparations firm in the distribution channel should consider making to…
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“Shame on you, Washington Post”: FSIS Criticizes Reporting on Pork Inspections
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has issued a press release responding to The Washington Post‘s reporting on an impending change to pork plant inspections. “FSIS is appalled at The Washington Post’s poor attempt at explaining a proposal to modernize inspection,” the press release states. “The Post’s decision to…
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FDA Announces Start Date for Intentional Adulteration Inspections
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced that inspections for compliance with a rule aiming to mitigate the risk of intentional adulteration (IA) will begin in March 2020. The rule, which “is designed to address hazards that may be intentionally introduced to foods, including by acts of terrorism, with the intent to cause wide-spread…
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USDA Seeks Comments on NPIP Program Changes
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will accept comments on proposed changes to the National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP) Program Standards until May 13, 2019. Changes include an amended testing protocol for Mycoplasma, amended Salmonella isolation procedures and updated cleaning and disinfecting procedures.
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Europe May Limit Use of “Meat” for Plant-Based Products
The EU agriculture committee has reportedly approved a prohibition on the use of the term “meat” to describe vegetable-based products, including bean burgers, vegan sausages and tofu steaks. The provision would limit the use of “steak,” “sausage,” “burger,” “hamburger” and “escalope” to only describe “edible parts of the animals.” One French politician reportedly described the…
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EFSA Accepting Comments on Sodium and Chloride Intake
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is accepting comments on draft dietary reference values for sodium and chloride. The draft values deem 2 grams of sodium and 3.1 grams of chloride per day to be “safe and adequate, considering evidence on the risk of cardiovascular disease on the one hand and nutrition adequacy on the…
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Medical Groups Call for SSB Taxes
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association have issued a policy statement calling for taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and a decrease in SSB marketing to children. The report states that U.S. children consume 17 percent of their calories “from added sugars, nearly half of which are from sugary drinks,” which are…