Food & Drug Law Prof Blog

Stanford Law & Policy Review Symposium: Food Policy and Health -- Call for Papers

The Stanford Law & Policy Review seeks articles or short essays for publication in the Stanford Law & Policy Review’s upcoming symposium on “Food Policy and Health.”

The Stanford Law & Policy Review is an academic journal at Stanford Law School that explores current issues at the nexus of law and public policy. For each issue we solicit articles from prominent professors, judges, lawyers, political leaders, regulators, economists, and other experts (past contributors include then Governor Bill Clinton, Senator John McCain, and Governor Jeb Bush).

Through this symposium, we would like to explore the many ways United States policies directly and indirectly related to food have consequences for national health, broadly-defined. We hope to address all stages of the supply chain, including production, processing, transportation, sales and consumption. We would particularly like to highlight the ways agricultural production and the environment may be connected to health through food policy.

We welcome submissions on any subject relating to United States food policy and health including, but not limited to:

• Structure and health-related effects of US agricultural subsidies, and other provisions of the Farm Bill.
• Food safety regulation at all stages of supply chain.
• Regulations of food production relating to the environment, including pesticides, agricultural water use, etc. and effects on health, and other agricultural laws related to health, for example regulation of antibiotic use.
• Policy approaches towards nutrition, including school lunches and measures aimed at obesity.
• Marketing law, including marketing to children; labeling law, including Country of Origin Labeling; and private labeling standards.
• Regulation affecting food security and development of local and sustainable food systems including zoning law and other regulation related to urban agriculture.

Additionally, authors will be invited to present their articles at a live symposium at Stanford Law School during the 2009 – 2010 academic year. We will begin evaluating submissions for next year’s volume on June 15, 2009, so please submit your article by that date if you are interested in contributing. Articles should be between ten and forty double-spaced pages, not including notes and citations. Please contact us at your earliest convenience to discuss your submission. To submit an article or to , please e-mail it to slpr.foodpolicy@gmail.com  and direct any questions to Loren Crary, Articles Editor, at lacrary@stanford.edu.

With Salmonella Scare, Shoppers turn to “Sacred Foods”

An article on Examiner.com, reports that the Salmonella scare associated with pistachios has caused many shoppers to turn toward so-called “sacred foods.” Sacred Foods include kosher and Halal foods and foods that are gluten-free and dairy-free.

According to an article in Specialty Food Magazine, the boom of the “sacred food market is second only to the organic market in increased sales in recent years.

The increase in this market can be partially attributed to “perceived quality and hygiene involved in the preparation of these foods which are regulated by religious standards more rigorous than government standards,” and seem less likely to be contaminated than processed foods.

The SpecialtyFood.com article noting the increase in the Sacred Food market can be found here.

Some examples of popular Sacred Food online distributors include Kosher.com and GlutenFree.com.

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student John McVoy for preparing this post.

More Children taking Diabetes and Blood Pressure Drugs

According to a recent study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, the number of children taking drugs for diabetes and hypertension is increasing. From a Forbes article:

“[R]esearchers at Caremark, a large supplier of medications to people with heath insurance, used the company's drug database to track prescriptions filled on behalf of children and adolescents…”

After examing 6 million children between the ages of 6 and 18, the study concluded that “Diabetes medications charted a 23 percent rise, and there was a 15 percent jump in pediatric prescriptions for blood pressure medications.”

The head researcher for the study is Joshua N. Liberman, who is Pharmacist and Vice-President of Strategic Research at Caremark. Here is a link to an abstract of the study.

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student, John McVoy, for preparing this post.

No mandatory recall, but . . .

FDA News Release:

FDA Serves Warrant for Inspection of Westco Fruit and Nuts Inc.

New Jersey-based company received peanuts implicated in Salmonella outbreak; refused to provide access to records and refused to recall products At the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Marshals today executed an inspection warrant at Westco Fruit and Nuts Inc. (Westco/Westcott), an Irvington, N.J.-based company. Westco/Westcott did not provide access to distribution documents and declined to recall products after an FDA request. Regulated companies are required by law to grant FDA entry for inspection, as well as provide access to distribution records. The FDA does not have authority to compel companies to recall food products, such as peanuts.

more

US Food Producers File 1 Billion Dollar Lawsuit

A recent release from the Dow Jones Newswire reports that five domestic producers of food products filed a $1 billion lawsuit seeking class-action status against a handful of major insurance companies and the U.S. government for alleged damages caused by dumped Chinese food products.

The complaint alleges the insurers' negligent issuance of customs surety bonds, and the subsequent refusal to pay under the bonds, allowed the sale of "huge amounts of competing food imports" from China at below cost, or "dumped" prices.

The complaint alleges that for eight years, the insurers negligently issued hundreds of customs surety bonds that guaranteed the payment of any dumping duties the government might determine were owed by U.S. importers for the specified Chinese goods.

The five producers - Sioux Honey Association, Adee Honey Farms, Monterey Mushrooms Inc., The Garlic Co. and Beaucoup Crawfish of Eunice Inc. - say the alleged action caused "severe financial damages."

Read the article.

Michael Coursey of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, the firm representing the food producers, said:

“Without these customs surety bonds, the importers could not have brought in and sold the Chinese goods in the U.S. market at steeply dumped prices. The dumping of these imports forced the domestic producers to significantly lower the prices for their competing products, causing the producers to lose hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Michael Coursey, a partner in Kelley Drye’s

Read more.

Renewed commitment to banning ‘Downer' cows from the US food supply

[Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student, Brooke Mengel, for preparing this post.]

‘Downer' cows will be banned from the US food supply. In his March 14, 2009, weekly address, President Barack Obama announced that the Department of Agriculture would prevent cows that collapse before and after inspection from entering the food supply. The Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture will implement these changes.

News sources imply this announcement was made in reaction to the January 2008 Humane Society undercover investigation of downer cows.

Link to the transcript and video of the weekly address: transcript, video

Link to the Humane Society undercover investigation of downer cows

A Change From Fast to Slow Food:

[Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student, Blake Sandven, for preparing this post.]

I was watching an episode of CBS’s 60 Minutes recently and something food related caught my eye. The segment talked about Alice Waters, the so-called “Mother of Slow Food”. The idea of slow food came about in direct response to America’s reliance on the fast food industry. Instead of having frozen food shipped from all over the world, slow food relies on fresh, local foods that are often served the very day they are harvested. Alice Waters is at the forefront of this movement with her restaurant Chez Panisse, which includes such fresh dishes as grilled marin sun grass-fed beef rib eye with bordelaise sauce, straw potato cake, and green asparagus with spring onions. Follow this entrée perhaps with a pineapple soup including mango and kiwi sherbets.

The idea of slow food has even reached as far as the White House. The First-Lady was recently spotted breaking ground for a garden located on the south lawn of the premises. This garden, which is reported to be ready with food by July, will feature an assortment of fruits and vegetables.

When asked if Americans can afford this new slow food movement, Alice Waters stated, America can’t afford not to change their eating habits.

What’s In Your Milk Fat?

Sales in the organic milk market are increasing dramatically. That’s because organic milk means the milk came from cows raised humanely with access to pasture, who were never treated with artificial growth hormones and never ate feed treated with fertilizer. However, this explosion in the organic milk market has prompted some unscrupulous dairy producers recently to exploit this market and present non-organic milk as organic milk.

Scientists in Germany, though, believe they have developed an accurate test to determine whether milk was produced according to organic standards. The scientists analyze the milk fat’s “stable isotopes of carbon,” which they say are higher in cows raised on feed containing a higher ration of corn. More corn means the more likely the cows were raised by conventional milk production standards. Consequently, organically raised cows are fed more pasture feed, and the isotopes of carbon are significantly less. The scientists also look at the milk fat’s “alpha linolenic acid content,” which is typically quite higher in organic milk.

Read the scientist’s actual study: “Authentication of Organic Milk Using d13C and the a-Linolenic Acid Content of Milk Fat,” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Also, just for fun, see Cornucopia’s ratings of organic milk in the market place.

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student, Mark Johnson, for preparing this post.

There’s ‘nut’ting like a good recall…

We've blogged about the pistachio recall a couple of times now (here and here). This post has a link to the recalled products too.

In the ever expanding list of things not to eat because of Salmonella risks, we now add pistachios. The FDA released a consumer alert on Tuesday of this week, noting that Kraft found Salmonella in some of its trail mix and traced it back to a California pistachio company - Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc, Calif. And of course, as with the peanuts, it’s not just the packaged nuts themselves that are the focus of the concern, but also foods that use the pistachios as ingredients.

Seventy three products have been identified so far as being at risk and included in the voluntary recall. The list of products can be found at the following link: Recalled pistachio products

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student, Sheila Vanney, for preparing this post.

PLEASE DON’T TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME!!

WASHINGTON, March 25, 2009 – It’s spring time! That’s right! Time for baseball and recalled frankfurters! The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service announced that Sara Lee North American Retail is recalling approximately 1,728 pounds of cheese frank products. The Health Risk is rated at “HIGH,” as this is a Class I Recall. A Class I recall involves a reasonable probability that eating the food will cause health problems / death. When there is reason to believe that a misbranded product has entered the marketplace, the FSIS Recall Management Division convenes the Recall Committee, then, confers with the company about the need for a recall. Besides determining the class of the recall, the Recall Committee verifies that the company has adequate information to facilitate the recall of the product.

The following product is subject to recall: 1-pound packages of "Ball Park BRAND BEEF FRANKS," dated "May 07 09 P8740A" as well as a UPC code of "5450010002." The Ball Park franks in question were produced on Feb. 12, 2009, and mistakenly packaged with beef frank labels; they contained undeclared allergens, like cheese and milk, bad news for the lactose intolerant. But the good news (so far) is that FSIS has received no reports of illness due to the mislabeling of these products.

See the recalled label See USDA news release See relevant Food Drug Cosmetic Act sections: • Unlabeled allergens: 21 USC 343 (w) • Misbranded food, in general: 21 USC 343

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student, Michael Fahy, for preparing this post.

FDA Adds Pet Foods to List of Recalled Products Containing Peanuts

Well folks, here’s some more ‘food for thought.’ According to the FDA, pet food products containing peanuts are being recalled because of concern over salmonella. Apparently Fido is in the same boat as his owners…

From a New York Daily News article :

“Dogs and cats may suffer salmonellosis as a ‘reverse zoonosis,’ with infection transmitted from human-to-dog and subsequently back to other humans,” researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine said last year in a report (according to MSNBC). “Similarly, outbreaks of salmonella infections in large animal teaching hospitals have been linked to the introduction of bacteria from infected human personnel, with subsequent spread to animals and then back to other human workers.”

Here’s the list of pet food products being recalled (also available on the FDA website.

Aggieville USA,
Mountain Grove,
MO American Nutrition, Inc.
Carolina Prime
Carolina Prime Pet Farm Style
Grreat Choice
Happy Tails
Healthy Hide
Healthy-hide Deli-wrap
Hill Country Fare
Integrity
Mill Creek
Next Gen Pet Products
Northwest Royal
Premium
Salix
Shoppers Valu
Springfield Prize
Vita Bone Flavors
Vita Snacks
Western Family Biscuits
Western Trade Group, Inc.
Yeaster

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student, Sheila Vanney, for preparing this post.

Voluntary Testing Makes Difference

The Food and Drug Administration released a press release on March 30, 2009, warning consumers of a salmonella contamination found in pistachio products sold by Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc., California.

According to sources in an April 2, 2009, Associated Press article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the pistachio-salmonella scare may have been a lot worse if Kraft nad not voluntarily tested its products and reported the results of its testing to the FDA. As a result of voluntary testing (i.e., testing not required by the FDA), Kraft detected salmonella in its Planters Back to Nature products. Since the contamination, two million pounds of pistachio products have been recalled. Nobody has gotten sick. Click here to read Kraft’s news release.

It is clear that lives were probably saved by Kraft’s voluntary testing and reporting. This is a striking contrast from the recent peanut-salmonella outbreak, which took many lives. Here is the FDA website on the peanut outbreak.

The next big question is whether to make such testing mandatory in the future.

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student, Emily Babcock, for preparing this post.

Mad Cow Disease Specialist Literally Consumed by His Work

Mad Cow disease has claimed another human life in Spain. Ironically, this victim was a pathologist who specialized in a human strain of mad cow disease. The pathologist died Saturday, and officials suspect the disease played a role in his death. From a CNN News Article.

“The doctor was the head of the anatomy pathology section at the University Hostpial Principe de Asutrias in Alcala de Henares, outside of Madrid.” He was well known in and outside of Spain for his work in the pathology field, specifically the “human strain of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.” Although the doctor’s name has not yet been relased, several samples of his tissue have been sent to lab for a determination of the cause of death.

It is not known how the doctor contracted Mad Cow disease, but the health office said it was not through ingestion of contaminated meat. Authorities suspect that the doctor had been exposed to contaminated human tissue through his work.

According to the World Health Organisation, “since 2001, 702 Creutzfeldt-Jakob cases have been reported in Spain, of which 87 have been reported in Madrid.” The disease has killed 5 of its victims since 2001, now adding a specialist attempting to prevent and eliminate the disease.

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student, Colleen Berryman, for preparing this post.

Fish Fraud? US Government Study Finds Seafood Scamming

According to a report published in February 2009 by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), fraudulent mislabeling of fish is a serious problem for US consumers. Investigators found there are three ways that consumers are commonly cheated: the product portions are smaller than labeled, the product is labeled as a different kind of seafood, or the product is shipped through an intermediary country to avoid “country specific taxes.”

Fish fraud not only shortchanges consumers, it can have health consequences as well. The GAO report cites a case in 2007 in which two consumers fell ill after eating a product labeled as monkfish. “They had actually eaten puffer fish, which contains a potentially deadly toxin called tetrodotoxin.”

The Scripps News article and the GAO report cite poor oversight by the FDA, partly resulting from a lack of funding and resources. The GAO report indicates that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) examines only two percent of seafood imports. When the FDA does inspect seafood imports, the FDA only searches for “food safety issues” and neglects to determine if seafood is correctly labeled in terms of species and origin.

Excerpt is from “’Fish fraud’ rampant in U.S., government auditors say” by Isaac Wolf of Scripps Howard News Service.

Read the wholeUnited States Government Accountability Office Report .

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student, David Gibson, for preparing this report.