The GE-salmon known variously as the AquAdvantage salmon and a “frankenfish” has been swimming toward approval, but is currently bogged in a heated public comment period. Learn more about the tug-and-pull over what would be the first genetically modified animal to debut on your plate.
Tags: · AquAdvantage, Atlantic salmon, FDA, frankenfish, GE foods, genetic modification, GMOs, labeling, Pacific salmon, safety, Salmon
The looming ‘sequester’ budget cuts would affect virtually all government spending — except Social Security recipients — including Medicare and defense, energy, medical, education, nutrition and agriculture programs. It would even trim money for air traffic controllers. But that’s not the only scary cut on the table…
Tags: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, budget sequester, CSPI, E. coli, FDA, food illnesses, food inspections, food safety, salmonella, USDA
The Food and Drug Administration appears to be within a few weeks of approving genetically modified (GM) salmon, despite a massive public outcry that the engineered fish could be unsafe and consumers do not want it.
Tags: · Aquabounty, FDA, food system, GE foods, genetically altered fish, GM safety, GM salmon, human health
A recall of Sunland Inc.’s peanut butter, and other nut butters, which have been potentially contaminated with salmonella, has been expanded to include raw and roasted peanuts.
Tags: · expanded recall, FDA, nut butters, peanut butter recall, salmonella, Sunland peanuts
The FDA’s call to the livestock industry to voluntarily limit its routine use of antibiotics is tantamount to taking no action, say critics of the FDA’s plan, announced Wednesday.
The agency “is pretending to act while barely acting at all,” said Avinash Kar, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, who was among several public health advocates who scoffed at the idea that pharmaceutical and livestock companies would change their ways in response to government advice that carries no penalties.
Tags: · antibiotics, CAFOs, drug-resistant diseases, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, meat industry
A federal ruling that the Food and Drug Administration must act to control the overuse of antibiotics in animal feed has raised hopes that new stricter rules for these drugs could help preserve them for fighting human diseases.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit by environmental and public health groups that have pleaded with the FDA to address antibiotic overuse in the livestock industry. The groups cited studies showing that the routine and daily administration of antibiotics to animals is triggering “super bugs” resistant to antibiotics.
Tags: · animal feed, antibiotics, drug-resistant bacteria, FDA, livestock antibiotic use, super bugs
A new study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future at the Bloomberg School of Public Health shows that testing of imported seafood by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is inadequate for confirming its safety or identifying risks.
Tags: · David Love, FDA, fish consumption, fish farming, imports, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Calling the fight against cancer “one of the most notorious public health failures of the 20th century” four leading cancer and environmental experts called on Congress and the Obama Administration this week to acknowledge the role environmental carcinogens play in triggering cancer and dedicate more money to cancer prevention.
In a letter to Congressional leaders, the national medical and scientific experts said they were concerned that prevention has received little attention in the Obama Cancer Plan. They noted that health care costs could not be brought under control without a better plan to fight the disease that claims 1,500 American lives daily and costs $89 billion a year to diagnose and treat. (Costs rise to $219 billion annually, when lost productivity and premature death costs are factored in).
Tags: · American Public Health Association, Boston University School of Public Health, breast cancer, Cancer Prevention Coalition, CPSC, David Obey, Edward Kennedy, EPA, FDA, healthcare reform, Henry Waxman, Jerry Lewis, Joe Barton, leukemia, lung cancer, lymphoma, melanoma, Mike Enzi, MIT, National Cancer Institute, Nicholas A. Ashford, Obama cancer plan, OSHA, ovarian cancer, Quentin D. Young, Richard W. Clapp, Samuel S. Epstein, testicular cancer, Thad Cochran, thyroid cancer
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Corn-based ethanol, once a star on the alternative energy scene, has fallen from favor in the past year, battered by reports that raising corn for fuel raids the world’s pantry and that corn ethanol has a heavier carbon footprint than originally thought.
Many now argue over whether the US should continue to grow corn for fuel or make the switch to grasses that can be grown on less desirable land, with fewer pesticides and fertilizers, or use plant waste to make fuel.
Now a new debate looms: Should the US allow genetically altered corn to be grown for use as biofuel?
The Union of Concerned Scientists wants to stop that genie before it leaves the bottle, because it believes that genetically modified corn will inevitably mix with and contaminate corn grown for food products.
Tags: · Amylase Corn, Biofuels, Cellulose, FDA, GMO foods, switch grass, Syngenta, Union of Concerned Scientists, USDA
As if we needed another scare this week, the tainted milk scandal in China continues to slip its moorings, with melamine, an industrial chemical never intended for human consumption, turning up Lipton brand “milk tea powder” products destined for Asian markets as well as in good ol’ Nabisco Ritz cracker cheese sandwiches.
International food giant Unilever announced today it was recalling certain Lipton milk teas from Hong Kong and Macau shelves because internal tests found melamine contamination.
Meanwhile, South Korea officials reported finding melamine in Nabisco’s Ritz cracker cheese sandwiches and said they were banning imports of all Chinese-made food products containing powdered milk. (No calls back yet from Lipton or Nabisco.)
Earlier, Cadbury also recalled 11 chocolate bars after tests found a small amount of melamine in six chocolate samples. Hong Kong authorities declared the contamination to be at a “safe level” – but Cadbury said it was still withdrawing the candy, made in Beijing.
Before that it was Mr. Brown Blend Instant Coffee and Mr. Brown French Vanilla Instant Coffee on the hook for contamination, and…well, the list goes on.
Tags: · baby formula, Cadbury, China, chocolate bars, FDA, Lipton Tea, Melamine, Mr. Brown Coffee, Nabisco, pet food, snacks
After an outbreak of bad publicity earlier this year over bisphenol-A (BPA), the plastic additive which dozens 
of studies identify as a potential carcinogen and endocrine disruptor, the U.S. government promised to take another look. Its conclusion: BPA is safe.
The Federal Drug Administration had previously cleared BPA for use in an array of consumer products, such as clear plastic baby bottles, the resin lining in food cans and many other items. It promised a new review of the science after Canada proposed a ban of BPA in baby bottles and manufacturers of polycarbonate water bottles began voluntarily giving up BPA. All cited concerns over the plastics’ tendency to leach when when warmed and possible harmful effects on humans, particularly children.
Tags: · Bispenol, BPA, Carcinogens, Endocrine Disruptors, FDA, Plastics
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift