In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we are joined by Brian Ronholm, Director of Food Policy for Consumer Reports, who lends his insight as a consumer advocate and former regulator to a discussion around food regulatory policy and food safety legislation. We dissect a variety of current events in food safety, such as toxic heavy metals in baby foods and food additives legislation, from multiple perspectives, including industry, consumer, regulatory, and consumer advocate.
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) has proposed to set a limit for ethylene oxide in all food additives in line with EU regulations and is calling for stakeholder feedback, alongside a public consultation on several regulated product applications.
Following the California Food Safety Act’s precedent, Illinois Senate Bill 2637, dubbed the Illinois Food Safety Act, aims to ban brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, and red dye 3 from foods sold in the state.
In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we are joined by Brian Sylvester, J.D., Partner in Perkins Coie LLP's Washington D.C. office and former U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Attorney-Advisor, to talk about the nationwide ramifications and precedent set by the recently passed California Food Safety Act banning four major food additives in the state.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has filed two petitions by the Environmental Defense Fund, Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, the Center for Environmental Health, and Environmental Working Group (EWG) to rescind its approvals for four carcinogenic chemicals used as food additives and color additives—benzene, trichloroethylene (TCE), methylene chloride, and ethylene dichloride.
After reassessing the food safety of the popular zero-calorie sweetener erythritol, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has lowered the acceptable daily intake (ADI) for the additive and reported that, for all groups the EU included in the assessment, acute and chronic exposure to erythritol is above the newly set ADI.
The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) recently reaffirmed a “not specified” acceptable daily intake (ADI) for titanium dioxide, as well as concluded that there is no safety concern for and established the specifications for 21 flavoring agents.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recently assessed the food safety of eight smoke flavorings on the EU market, the authorization for which were due for renewal, and were unable to rule out concerns of genotoxicity.
Due to concerns about harms to human health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed to revoke the regulation that authorizes the use of brominated vegetable oil (BVO) in food. The agency also announced its intent to review three other possibly toxic, FDA-regulated food additives that were recently banned in the state of California, and announced that a decision about red dye 3 is forthcoming.
The European Commission has set significantly stricter limits for the use of nitrites and nitrates as food additives to reduce consumer exposure to carcinogenic nitrosamines. EU food business operators have two years to adapt to the new limits.
