The FDA finally released its BPA report. The good news is that the FDA now admits that BPA—the endocrine-disrupting, heart disease-causing ingredient in plastic food packaging and can linings—isn’t entirely safe (contradicting the agency’s statement from 2008 that it was), particularly for infants and children. The bad news? There’s not much the agency can do about it. Here are the immediate, limited steps the FDA feels it can take “to reduce human exposure to BPA in the food supply”:

support the industry’s actions to stop producing BPA-containing baby bottles and infant feeding cups for the U.S. market;

facilitate the development of alternatives to BPA for the linings of infant formula cans;

and support efforts to replace BPA or minimize BPA levels in other food can linings.

In short, BPA can continue to be legally used until further notice, even in baby bottles, and certainly in food and drink can linings. Not exactly the outcome some of us were hoping for. Oh, but don’t worry, the FDA assures us that more studies are forthcoming—as if we don’t have enough data already.

And buried in the report summary is an excuse admission from the FDA that, in essence, its hands are tied:

Current BPA food contact uses were approved under food additive regulations issued more than 40 years ago.  This regulatory structure limits the oversight and flexibility of FDA.  Once a food additive is approved, any manufacturer of food or food packaging may use the food additive in accordance with the regulation.  There is no requirement to notify FDA of that use. For example, today there exist hundreds of different formulations for BPA-containing epoxy linings, which have varying characteristics.  As currently regulated, manufacturers are not required to disclose to FDA the existence or nature of these formulations.  Furthermore, if FDA were to decide to revoke one or more approved uses, FDA would need to undertake what could be a lengthy process of rulemaking to accomplish this goal.

Rulemaking, remember, can take years to complete—even a ban wouldn’t be immediate, the agency claims. There’s a different, more appropriate, law with different requirements—the Food Contact Notification Program of 2000—that the FDA would like to use to regulate BPA. But to do so, companies would need to re-submit BPA for approval. The FDA “will encourage manufacturers to voluntarily submit a food contact notification” for BPA which would then give the agency more leeway to regulate it. Industry has been so helpful to this point what with their authoring of the 2008 safety statement and their attempt to recruit a pregnant woman as a spokesperson for their endocrine-disrupting product that I’m sure they’ll oblige. Further, the agency is concerned that a rush to replace BPA with another chemical might have unintended consequences. And if the history of BPA is any guide, the FDA is probably right that industry can’t exactly be trusted to get it right the second time.

Read a certain way, this report is a bureaucratic cry for help—Congress, after all, can solve this problem with a wave of the President’s pen by passing the Senate’s Feinstein-Schumer bill that would set a strict timeline for ending the use of BPA in food packaging. Alternately, someone could attach a rider to an unrelated bill requiring all companies using BPA to submit it for review under the 2000 food contact notification law.

The takeaway here is that the FDA doesn’t think they really have the authority to ban BPA or even to meaningfully restrict its use. This is another symptom of the attenuated, outdated legal regime that the government must use to protect us from the witch’s brew of industrial chemicals in which we bubble. It seems that only Congress can provide the antidote.

Originally published on Grist

On Friday, leaders from the House of Representatives and the Senate introduced legislation to establish a federal ban on bisphenol A (BPA) in all food and beverage containers. The bills, which are identical, are sponsored by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

BPA—a chemical found in the linings of cans and in polycarbonate plastic, including some sports bottles, food-storage containers and baby bottles—has potential links to a wide range of health effects. The diseases and health effects to which BPA has been linked include an increased risk of diseases or disorders of the brain, reproductive and immune systems.

“The scientific evidence is mounting that BPA poses serious health risks, especially to children, and manufacturers and retailers have already started to pull items from their store shelves,” said Markey, reported Agence France-Presse. “It is time for Congress to act quickly to ban this toxin from all food and beverage containers so that parents can feed their children without worrying that the food contains poisonous chemicals.”

The federal legislation follows the March 3 unanimous decision by the Suffolk County, New York Legislature to ban BPA in all beverage containers for children under the age of three. Today, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy will hold a public hearing on this landmark legislation. Levy has until April 2 to either sign or veto the bill to sign the bill to make Suffolk County the first jurisdiction in the nation to effectively ban BPA.

“This legislation will set a new precedent and sends a strong message to FDA and to industry that consumers, like those in Suffolk County, want change now,” said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Senior Scientist and Policy Analyst, Consumers Union.

Consumers Union has repeatedly called on FDA to ban BPA materials in infant and children’s products and food and beverage contact containers. Recent studies have linked BPA exposure to problems with liver function testing, an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease and interruptions in chemotherapy treatment. A study by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has shown that 93% of Americans excrete some BPA in their urine. New studies also show that BPA seems to stay in the body longer than previously believed.

In August 2008, the federal agency said BPA was safe for humans. But the agency only considered studies that had been financed by the plastics industry. At last month’s Science Board Hearing, FDA tacitly acknowledged the serious health concerns regarding BPA, but the agency continues to maintain the position that no public health safeguards should be implemented at this time.

Steven Stern, the Suffolk County legislator who sponsored the ban in that county, told the Associated Press that the FDA review prompted him to act. “We can’t wait. We don’t know how long it’s going to take.”

Several states, such as Oregon, Washington and California, and cities, such as Chicago, are also considering BPA bans as the FDA continues to research BPA while allowing the product to remain on the market. In 2008, the Canadian government banned its use in baby bottles. Major U.S. retailers, including Toys ‘R’ Us Inc. and Wal-Mart, already have removed products containing BPA from their shelves because of the growing controversy.

Shortly after the Suffolk County Legislature made its decision, six of the largest manufacturers of baby bottles—Avent, Disney First Years, Gerber, Dr. Brown, Playtex and Evenflow—decided they will no longer sell bottles made with BPA. The decision by manufacturers came after Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, joined by attorneys general of Delaware and New Jersey, wrote to the baby bottle companies urging them to stop using BPA because studies have linked the chemical to health problems in infants, including damage to reproductive, neurological and immune systems.

Almost immediately after this decision, gas and chemical giant Sunoco, acknowledging the safety concerns about BPA, announced they would restrict the sales of the controversial chemical in baby bottles and food containers for children under three. “We will no longer sell BPA to [Sunoco’s] customers who cannot make this promise,” Thomas Golembeski, head of public relations, wrote in a letter to two investors, according to the Associated Press.

While scientists continue to assess the health risks of BPA to consumers, the FDA is taking on a bigger risk by taking no action to protect the health and safety of consumers. Given the currently existing body of scientific knowledge about the health risks of BPA to consumers—and the growing consumer and industry movement again this chemical—the FDA should act immediately to protect high risk populations, such as children and babies, while it gathers more data.

Image: thesoftlanding

And anyone that eats can attest to the utter confusion that our food supply has become. As headlines swirl about beef recalls large enough to feed every American two hamburgers, baby formula laced with melamine, and controversial additives used to preserve processed foods, eaters can’t help but yearn for the days when all we had to worry about was contaminated spinach.

To be candid, I was never much of a foodie. When I heard about Michael Pollan’s PBS Interview with Bill Moyers, I couldn’t relate when he said that his “path was through the garden.” My path was through the aisles at Costco and the tubes of blue yogurt, since I saw the organic thing as a lifestyle choice that I couldn’t afford.

But as 2008 headlines exposed our tainted financial system, stories followed about our tainted food supply. As I read about baby formulas and jars of salsa laced with who-knows-what, I was left slack-jawed as I learned that the financial industry wasn’t the only industry that had experienced deregulation, lack of transparency and failed oversight.

In the last eight years, the Food and Drug Administration, charged with safeguarding the health of our nation’s 300 million eaters, has not only seen its budget decline but has also seen its staffing levels fall behind its workload.

From 2003 to 2006, the number of food safety inspections conducted by the agency dropped by 47 percent, leading its own Science Board, chaired by Barbara McNeil, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Department of Health Policy at Harvard Medical School and a radiologist at the Brigham and Women’s in Boston, to declare that the agency could “no longer fulfill its mission without substantial and sustained additional appropriations.”

In “an alarming report,” the New York Times stated that the FDA had also declared that “American lives at risk” and that the FDA lacks resources and “can no longer ensure the safety of the food supply.”

And I thought all I had to worry about was the declining stock market and sick kids.

As I dug into additional research from organizations like the Cato Institute, the Environmental Working Group and the Royal Society of Chemistry, I learned that a lot of the scientific data highlighted in the press has been funded by the food industry and propagated by groups with legitimate sounding names like the American Council on Science and Health. I also learned that in the last ten years, our food supply had been chemically engineered in order to enhance product shelf life, productivity and profitability of food corporations.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the United States is the world’s largest corporate producer of genetically engineered organisms. Since the introduction of these bio-engineered ingredients into our food just over ten years ago, we are also one of the only developed countries allowing these ingredients into our food supply (stats from USDA/ERS: Rapid growth of adoption of genetically engineered crops continues in the US).

As I continued to learn more from the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, I also learned that no human trials had been conducted to assess the safety of consuming these genetically modified and bio-engineered foods, prompting government agencies around the world – from Europe to Russia to Australia – to either ban or label these ingredients due to the health risks that they may present.

Through documentaries like The Future of Food and a May 2008 Vanity Fair investigative story, which detail the remarkable relationship that the agrichemical, food corporations have with our government, I learned about a “revolving door” that exists between the food industry and our government agencies. Candidly, the stories read much like a James Bond movie or George Clooney’s Michael Clayton and reminded me of a recent New York Times piece titled “The Guys From Government Sachs” about the “revolving door” between the investment banking industry and our government.

As I struggled to reconcile what I was learning about these corporations, their profit-driven strategies, our government and the global food crisis, I was fascinated by an article by Michael Pollan, “Playing God in the Garden” and a recent Catholic News document from the Vatican stating that “the responsibility for the food crisis “is in the hands of unscrupulous people who focus only on profit and certainly not on the well-being of all people. If one wants to pursue GMOs (genetically modified organisms) one can freely do so, but without hiding that it’s a way to make more profits” given that “a more just system of distribution and not the manufacturing of genetically modified foods is the key to addressing the problem.”

According to the Wall Street Journal‘s Money and Investing section, one of these corporations has recently seen their stock price rise 170 percent.

As the Vatican cries “moral foul”, is this a signal that there’s more fire than smoke on the horizon? We will have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I may listen to a few earnings’ calls as evidence continues to mount regarding health risks like infertility that these bio-engineered foods present. I may also clean out my cabinets in an effort to reduce my family’s exposure to these genetically engineered organisms now found in conventional corn, soy and milk in the United States.

And as I do, I will reflect on the headlines of 2008, The Audacity of Greed, and the impact that the corporations, lobbyists and bankers spinning through the “revolving door” have on our policy decisions, while the theme song from Donald Trump’s TV show, The Apprentice, runs through my head:

“Money, Money, Money, Mon-ey, MON-EY!”

Given this obvious connection between food production and health, it is surprising how few in the health field are interested in food, much less the system that produces that food.  Recently, thanks to the strength of the sustainable agriculture movement, there have been some promising signs that this is changing: Health Care Without Harm, a multinational not-for-profit, has spearheaded a healthy food in hospitals program and so far 168 hospitals across the country have pledged to buy regional foods whenever possible. And for the first time, in 2007, health care professionals began to take an interest in the content of our Farm Bill. But even so, a large fissure remains between the system that is supposed to feed us, and that which is supposed to keep us healthy.

This fissure is seen at every level: Historically the department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Welfare have had little to do with each other. Similarly, the American Medical Association has hardly concerned itself with issues of agriculture and food production. While most state and city health departments do have programs to help low income families gain access to food, disinterest or red tape has hobbled most efforts to require that these foods be from a local source. And when I discuss sustainable agriculture with medical colleagues, especially those that work with under-served patients, I am often told that this is an elite issue or simply an environmental concern with negligible heath implications. I wonder if this latest round of Salmonella poisonings might finally prompt us all to reassess; after all, physicians across the country are seeing the damage that can be wrought by one peanut processing plant in Georgia and our business-as-usual food chain.

My neighborhood market sells locally roasted peanuts and provides a mill so that customers can grind their own peanut butter. Suddenly this seems less like a frivolous foodie activity and more like a prudent public health measure. Would it not be similarly advisable to use this fresh-ground peanut butter to prepare my own Thai style chicken satay rather than selecting a prepackaged brand from the freezer case? And maybe an in-season apple would be a better snack choice than that Clif Bar. In fact, I can safely say that anyone making food choices based on the principles of “fresh and local” would have nicely side-stepped all the recent major outbreaks of salmonella, listeria, botulism and E coli.

Of course, there are many reasons beyond the threat of food-borne illness why health officials should join the effort to build a sustainable agricultural system. A large body of research now identifies regionally produced foods as being more nutrient rich, less chemical-laden and more affordable. Furthermore, there is ample evidence that populations around the world who still eat their local foods are relatively free of most modern chronic diseases.

Who knows. Perhaps this latest outbreak of salmonella, along with a will for change, is finally the catalyst we need. We will become a much healthier nation if our community health programs and community food systems team up, if our family doctors and family farmers link arms and, most importantly, if the two Toms, our Secretary of Health and our Secretary of Agriculture, take each other out for lunch and discuss ways to collaborate—hold the chicken satay, please.

As the U.S. faces continued peanut butter product food recalls and seven deaths due to the recent salmonella outbreak stemming from Georgia-based Peanut Corporation of America, other bad news about our failing food system broke in the heartland. Last week, University of Iowa researchers published the first study documenting methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in swine and swine workers in the United States.

The study, published online in PLoS ONE, a journal for peer-reviewed scientific and medical research, tested 299 pigs and 20 workers from pig farms in Iowa and Illinois and found a strain of MRSA, known as ST398, in 49 percent of the animals and in 45 percent of the humans caring for them.

Staphylococcus aureus, often called staph, are bacteria commonly carried on the skin or in the nose of healthy people. According to the Mayo Clinic, MRSA, a superbug, is a type of staph that is resistant to the broad-spectrum antibiotics commonly used to treat it. Deaths from MRSA infections in the U.S. have eclipsed those from many other infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS, and recent data show that MRSA caused 94,000 infections and over 18,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2005.

Most MRSA infections occur in hospitals or other health care settings, such as nursing homes. Older adults and people with weakened immune systems are most at risk, but more recently, otherwise healthy folks have been hit as a different strain of MRSA has surfaced in gyms and nursery schools.

Dr. Tara Smith, an associate professor of epidemiology in the University of Iowa College of Public Health and lead author of the study noted that because ST398 was found in both animals and humans, it suggests transmission between the two. She warns that the findings suggest that once MRSA is introduced, it may spread broadly among both swine and their caretakers.

As Iowa ranks first in the nation in pig production, the researchers recommend surveying retail meat products for MRSA contamination, studying larger populations of swine and humans to define the epidemiology of MRSA within swine operations, and assessing MRSA carriage rates in other livestock.

Smith told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that a national survey of meat products should be conducted and other animals like beef, poultry, lamb and goat should also be checked out for MRSA. Smith added that her study reinforces the importance of vigilance in food handling and cooking procedures. “It’s likely that cooking will kill any MRSA present on the surface of meats, but anyone handling raw meats should be careful about cross-contamination of cooking areas or other food products, and should make sure hands are washed before touching one’s face, nose, lips, etc.”

Photo: Gretchen Rolland

An increasing amount of our food is sourced from around the globe and sent to processing plants too big to keep clean. But the world is not a sterile environment and neither is the human body nor the foods we need to live. Attention and care is needed to establish an equilibrium between the necessary helpful bacteria and those that are harmful. Because this balance cannot be maintained in giant processing plants, ad-hoc solutions are used just to keep food from being lethal. Lucky for the food manufacturers, the additional steps needed to maintain a food system of such magnitude are just as profitable as the system itself.

Moving food around, applying sterilization mechanisms, producing dietary supplements to make up for nutrient loss from processing, pasteurization, and even irradiation, all are primarily economic activities, encouraging a chain of fixes during the production process rather than getting at the root of the problem: industrial food.

Why else would we be exporting the same or similar goods to China that we import? The costs of such an irrational system are often justified by the profits gained by the huge amounts of food sold. For example, the Mars Co. can sell a candy bar, whose ingredients are as well traveled as Rick Steves, for roughly 65 cents and still earn a 2 billion dollar profit. There is no question that scale pays.

This scale of operation has led to our food being exposed to many processes never before seen in the history of man.  There is food that contains harmful chemicals added through cutting corners in production practices to make a profit — such as  Melamine in milk and other processed products from China (including feed for farmed fish) and antibiotics in meat that makes its way into vegetables through cheap CAFO manure. One could also argue that the use of pesticides is a short-cut by design, leaving behind potentially harmful residues.  There are also foods which, due to the convoluted process of large scale production and distribution methods, have a lot of harmful microbes and make people sick.  Related, but not as acutely dangerous, are foods that contain lower levels of harmful substances due the nature of industrial processing (melamine is found in infant formula produced in the US via inherent contamination in the processing plant or user-end packaging, for example).

The problem of antibiotics absorption by crops is alarming — not least because the study found that some organic produce was affected — but also because it is difficult to determine if the vegetables you buy are contaminated.

While organic farms are not free from contamination, compost and manure come from the produce and animals living on the farm, creating a closed system that could be arguably safer, and builds nutrient rich soil that is also filled with living organisms.  As small-scale farmer Allen Balliett describes it, “The basis of all good organic farming is promoting the diversity of the beneficial microbial community which inevitably leads to the suppression of pathological organisms.”

The nature of large scale operations means it is very difficult to change the system, particularly because of trade policy and the policies of other nations that undermine our own food production standards.  Additionally, because many of the contamination issues come from problems of federal regulation and the practices of giant food companies (like Cargill which is in charge of much of the buying, selling, growing, and processing of food. Read more about the ag firm here) voting with our fork is our most practical tool in speaking out against food contamination.

While policy changes are ideal, consumer spending patterns are powerful motivators for change. Stricter standards for the source of manure organic growers can use would be best, but the more you buy organic meat the less demand there will be for animals that undergo antibiotic treatments that provide the contaminated fertilizer. And meeting your producer at the farmer’s market can be a direct source of information on agricultural methods.

The power of consumer spending is a compelling reason not to get discouraged about food contamination findings but to be encouraged to support those who are engaged in practices that guarantee healthy, safe food. For the most part that means local producers and processors, particularly you in your own kitchen. If you can’t find a food you are looking for from your community, state, or even somewhere in the U.S., try something new.

It is important to stay proactive in the face of disconcerting information. We must support solutions that do not diminish the nutritional value of food or only provide what are essentially lazy fixes to a large and unclean production process. The more locally you source your food and the more transparent and accountable your source is, the more assured you can be that you are safe from contamination and that you are supporting a rational and healthy food system.