Nine consumer and environmental health groups petitioned the Food and Drug Administration this week seeking a ban on the use of certain chemicals in food packaging. The petitions target perchlorate, which is added to sealing gaskets for food containers and to reduce static in dry food packaging, and a family
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EPA Sued to Ban Neurotoxic Insecticide Use on Crops
Last week, the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), asking the court to ban chlorpyrifos, an insecticide that can interfere with the brain development of fetuses, infants and children. Chlorpyrifos can cause nausea, dizziness and confusion,
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NRDC Releases FSIS Inspection Reports on Foster Farms
At first blush, it might seem like overkill to go back five years collecting noncompliance reports (NRs) from USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) for all Foster Farms facilities. That’s exactly what the New York City-based National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) did Thursday in dumping 300 pages of NRs
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Report Identifies Chemicals ‘Quietly Added’ to Food Under GRAS
The “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS, determination for food additives has been getting a lot of attention lately for being a regulatory loophole. The main issue is that GRAS allows companies to decide whether a substance meets the definition of GRAS without mandating a review by the U.S. Food
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Is the GRAS Process Broken?
From spices to preservatives, U.S. food manufacturers have access to thousands of globally sourced substances to enhance the flavor, texture, and appeal of their products. But some question whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) adequately regulates the safety of these abundant substances. Groups such as The Pew Charitable
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NRDC Analysis of FDA Documents Finds Livestock Antibiotics ‘High Risk’ to Humans
According to a safety review conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, penicillin and tetracycline antibiotic feed additives approved for “nontherapeutic use” do not meet the agency’s current safety standards. In a Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report released today, previously undisclosed FDA documents reveal that none of the
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Advocates Ask Foster Farms About Antibiotics Use
More than 30 advocate groups sent a letter to Foster Farms CEO Ron Foster this week asking the company to disclose its use of antibiotics and pledge to avoid routine use of the drugs in raising its chickens. This comes after a Salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 416 was
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Date Labels on Food are Unrelated to Food Safety and Lead to Massive Waste
This originally appeared Sept. 18 on Switchboard, the staff blog for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Forty percent of the food we produce in this country never gets eaten. That’s nearly half our food, wasted – not just on our plates, but in our refrigerators and pantries, in our
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Alar Apples Case Precedence for BPI v. ABC
The most important food product disparagement case to come before Beef Products Inc. v. ABC was dropped into the “in” basket at South Dakota’s First Judicial District in Elk Point, SD. Like this latest case, Auvil v. CBS “60 Minutes” involved a food product being damaged by what was shown
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FDA Ordered to Reconsider Petitions on Antibiotics
A federal judge ruled this week that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration must reconsider previously denied petitions to ban certain medically important antibiotics used in animal agriculture. The order comes just a few days after the FDA issued a notice that it will appeal a magistrate judge’s March ruling,
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