At least four years in the making: Draft FDA guidelines on nanotechnology in food and cosmetics

Used under creative commons license from kun0me.

Titanium dioxide nanowire, magnified 200,000 times.

On April 20, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released for public comment two draft guidance to industry documents, about 25 pages each, on the use of nanotechnology in food and cosmetics products respectively. The incorporation of atomic to molecular-sized Engineered Nanoscale Materials (ENMs) into FDA regulated products is supposed to have benefits both for food manufacturers and consumers. For example, coating food conveyer belts with nano-silicon dioxide should, in theory, prevent pathogen growth, make the belts easier to clean, and reduce the likelihood of contamination of the food carried on the conveyor belts.

Despite manufacturer identified evidence that use of ENMs in consumer products, including food, continues to increase, and despite scientific literature that indicates ENMs may pose significant health risks, the FDA currently does not yet regulate ENMs. Strong final guidance documents can become a basis for subsequent mandatory regulation.

These guidance documents do not respond explicitly to a lawsuit filed by the International Center for Technology (ICTA) assessment, in which IATP is a co-plaintiff. The complaint requires FDA to respond to the May 2006 ICTA, et al. petition to regulate the use of nano-titanium dioxide in sunscreens and other FDA regulated products, including processed foods. On the same day that FDA responded to the lawsuit by finally responding to the petition, it also released the guidances.

» Read the full post

Breaking down the science: Common questions and answers about exploring links between food and autism

Used under creative commons license from Patrick Hoesly.

The use of a puzzle piece to symbolize autism was initiated in 1963 by the National Autistic Society.

 

On April 12, IATP staffer Dr. David Wallinga co-published a study online that explores the links between food and autism.

The paper proposes a macroepigenetic model as one scientific approach that allows us as researchers to consider multiple factors, including nutrition and environmental exposure to toxins, and how they can impact our health. Because this is a new approach, we’ve prepared a brief Q & A we hope will address many potential questions.

Q: What causes autism?

A: There is no one cause of autism. Multiple factors in our food and broader environment combine with inherited factors to contribute to autism. All of these factors can play different roles, and can take on various levels of significance in different individuals—all of us are unique in our susceptibility to diseases and disorders, like autism.

In the real world, we are exposed to a complex equation of factors that can ultimately influence our health. As Harvard pediatric neurologist Martha Herbert, M.D. puts it, there is an important difference between “cause” and “risk.” It isn’t even appropriate to talk about a “cause” of autism. Instead, it is more fitting to talk about multiple, interactive risks in our broader environment that may accumulate and contribute to autism. In any child these environmental factors have the potential to modify the genetic susceptibility she or he is born with.

Q: Does consumption of HFCS cause autism?

» Read the full post

Draft report on food security and climate change falls short

Used under creative commons license from farmingmatters.

Agroecological methods pay attention to soil health, through practices that increase soil fertility as well as soil’s water-holding and infiltration capacities.

Climate change will have significant impacts on world food security in our lifetimes. Indeed, we have already begun to feel the impacts from extreme events—droughts, heat waves, torrential rains leading to floods, with consequent impacts on crop production in Russia, Texas and the U.S. Midwest, Pakistan, Thailand, to name a few recent high-profile locations. Scientists predict that in the changing climate, extreme events such as these will increase in frequency and magnitude.

More insidious and potentially more threatening are slow onset events that over time will incrementally diminish or eliminate crop production in some parts of the world. These slow onset events—temperature rise, salt-water intrusion, loss of soil moisture and water supplies, loss of productive coastal areas due to sea level rise—will reduce crop yields and eliminate agriculture as a livelihood strategy for many.

So the decision by the newly reformed Committee on World Food Security to request its High-level Panel of Experts (HLPE) to conduct a study on climate change and food security was welcomed enthusiastically, especially by many of the civil society organizations working on food and climate change. At the end of 2011, the HLPE established a project team of experts from around the world to write the report. The mandate given to the team was to “review existing assessments and initiatives on the effects of climate change on the most affected and vulnerable regions and populations and the interface between climate change and agricultural productivity, including the challenges and opportunities of adaptation and mitigation policies and actions for food security and nutrition.”

» Read the full post

Exporting obesity: The role of trade

Used under creative commons license from sierralx.

The U.S. is, by far, the largest exporter of snack foods to Mexico.

The effects of trade liberalization (so-called free trade agreements like NAFTA) on the economy, jobs, the environment and even food security have all been studied closely, but as more and more governments start to confront the large and growing costs of poor diets on human health, new questions are emerging about the relationship between free trade agreements and the growing global obesity epidemic. When countries agree to liberalize the exchange of goods and capital among themselves, are they unwittingly also agreeing to share chronic diseases?

In a new article in the latest issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, IATP takes a hard look at how the deregulation of trade and investment undermines human health. The article is co-authored by three IATP staff, Dr. David Wallinga, Karen Hansen-Kuhn and Sophia Murphy, together with Sarah Clarke, a graduate student at Tufts University and Corinna Hawkes, an environmental geographer with an extensive background on the links between health, food and global trade and finance.

The article looks at how NAFTA contributed to what nutritional experts call an “obesogenic environment” in Mexico. An explosion in the availability of low-quality, calorie-dense foods in Mexico in the wake of NAFTA coincided with Mexico going to second place worldwide for the highest percentage of overweight and obese people in its population (the USA takes first place).

» Read the full post