Tag: Europe
-
ASA Bans Heinz Ad After Revision Fails to Correct Complaint
The U.K. Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has again barred HJ Heinz Foods UK from airing a television commercial suggesting that the nutritional benefits of beans and a protein supplement are comparable. After ASA found that the ad made an unpermitted nutrition claim, Heinz changed a line in the commercial to reduce an implied comparison between…
-
CRISPR-Edited Organisms Are GMOs, European Court Holds
The Court of Justice for the European Union has held that techniques to edit an organism’s genes without inserting foreign DNA—such as CRISPR/Cas9—result in the creation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) subject to the EU GMO Directive. Confédération paysanne v. Premier ministre, No. C-528/16 (CJEU, entered July 25, 2018). The plaintiff, a French agricultural union,…
-
Europol Arrests 66 in Horsemeat Investigation
Europol has announced the arrests of 66 people following a four-year investigation into an organized-crime group accused of selling horsemeat “not suitable for consumption” as beef products. The investigation began in 2013 after Irish authorities found products sold as beef burgers that contained horsemeat and led to a Dutch man in Spain alleged to be…
-
Glitch Reveals Pizza Co.’s Facial-Recognition Ad Tactics
An apparent glitch in a Peppes Pizza advertisement in Oslo, Norway, reportedly revealed to passersby that the ad determined whether to show pizza or salad to its audience based on gender as perceived by facial-recognition software. The digital billboard used a hidden camera to scan faces of the audience and showed images of sausage pizza…
-
European, U.S. Courts Split on Compensation for False Outbreak Identifications
A German court has reportedly ordered the city of Hamburg to compensate a Spanish vegetable grower falsely linked to a 2011 E. coli outbreak that sickened more than 4,000 people in 16 countries. Vegetable cooperative Frunet asserted that it suffered €2.3 million in damages as a result of its incorrect identification as the source of…
-
U.K. Group Issues Report Critical of Government Action on Sugar
Britain’s Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has published a report condemning government policies aimed at reducing the consumption of sugar. “Just as fat seems to have been given an amnesty, so sugar is now in the dock,” according to report co-authors Rob Lyons and Christopher Snowdon. “So what exactly is the evidence that sugar is…
-
Report Faults EU Regulators for Derailing Debate over Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals
The Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has alleged that companies used “numerous tactics from the corporate lobbyist playbook” to persuade several European Commission departments to obstruct the Directorate-General of the Environment (DG Environment) in its attempts to regulate endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). In particular, the CEO report claims that groups representing the chemical and plastics sectors…
-
ENSSER Publishes Statement Challenging Consensus on GMO Safety
Led by the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER), a group of independent researchers has released a joint statement in Environmental Sciences Europe that challenges “recent claims of a consensus over the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).” According to the January 20, 2015, statement, “the scarcity and contradictory nature of…