Category: Other Developments

  • IOM Issues Report on Sustainable Diets

    The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has issued a report that summarizes its Food Forum and Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine that took place May 7-8, 2013. Titled “Sustainable Diets: Food for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet – Workshop Summary,” the report discusses current and emerging information on the food and nutrition…

  • WHO World Cancer Report Targets Diet and Nutrition

    The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) last week published its World Cancer Report 2014, a collaborative effort providing “a professional, multidisciplinary assessment of all aspects of the geographical distribution, biology, etiology, prevention, and control of cancer.” In addition to a chapter on cancer etiology as it relates to diet,…

  • “Fiery Poet-Priest” Accidentally Used to Hawk Potato Crisps

    A recent marketing promotion has drawn the attention of keen-eyed literary buffs after a University of Anglia lecturer tweeted that the stock photo of a stern-looking man used to sell Tyrrells Potato Crisps is actually a portrait of R.S. Thomas, a famous Welsh poet who died in 2000 and was known as “the fiery poet-priest.”…

  • PHAI Staff Attorney Calls for States to Curtail Digital Food Marketing to Kids

    In a Food and Drug Law Institute (FDLI) Update article titled “State Law Approaches to Curtail Digital Food Marketing Tactics Targeting Young Children,” Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) staff attorney Cara Wilking describes the types of digital marketing to children younger than age 8 that should be proscribed because they are unable to identify it…

  • Subway Responds to Petition Seeking Removal of Chemical from Bread

    Subway has reportedly announced plans to remove azodicarbonamide from its breads after a food blogger’s petition criticized the restaurant chain for including “the same chemical used to make yoga mats, shoe soles, and other rubbery objects” in its U.S. products. Owned by Doctor’s Associates Inc., Subway apparently released a media statement confirming that it had…

  • NRDC Report Claims FDA Allowed Harmful Antibiotics in Feed Additives

    A recently released Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report suggests that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has allowed 30 potentially harmful antibiotic additives to remain approved for use in food animals (cows, pigs and chickens), even though the agency’s own scientists found that “none of these products would likely be approvable as new…

  • Litigation Documents Reveal Debate over HFCS “Natural” Campaign

    Among the tens of thousands of documents reportedly made public in advance of a hearing in litigation pitting the sugar industry against companies that make high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) are emails that purportedly show some HFCS company executives were concerned about rebranding and advertising the substance as “natural” and “nutritionally the same as sugar.” Some…

  • CSIRO Uses RFI Sensors to Track Flight of the Honey Bee

    The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) has reportedly launched a new research initiative designed to monitor honey bee behavior using tiny radio frequency identification (RFI) sensors. According to a January 15, 2014, CSIRO news release, researchers have for the first time fitted 5,000 bees in Hobart, Tasmania, with 2.5-by-2.5 millimeter sensors as…