BPA | Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health

Everyone Knows BPA Is Toxic—But It’s Still Being Used Anyway!

Tue, 05 Aug 2014 17:00:51 +0000

We’ve got good news and bad news. And very bad news. Action Alert!
The good news: more and more companies and government bodies are concluding that the endocrine-disruptor bisphenol-A (BPA) is bad for you!

China has banned BPA in baby bottles;
the European Union banned use of the chemical entirely;
Canada declared BPA to be a toxic substance;
many states banned BPA from baby products (toys, bottles, sippy cups);
thirteen states currently place restrictions on BPA;
six major companies have voluntarily banned BPA from baby bottles; and
The FDA banned BPA from infant formula packaging, though only because packagers are no longer using it (“this use has been abandoned”)—the agency explicitly said its decision was unrelated to the question of its safety.

BPA has been linked with serious health problems, including cancer, birth defects, and heart disease.
Even with all this movement, BPA is still ubiquitous in production, as the above bans pertain mainly to children’s products. These bans do not extend, however, to the BPA in children’s dental products, where it still exists to an alarming extent: in tooth sealants, composite tooth fillings, and even braces.
A new report has identified 175 “packaging substances” that could pose health risks—and BPA was described as “probably the most prominent” of these. Only a few food manufacturers claim they no longer use BPA in their can linings—which means that one of our most commonly used household items, canned food, still contains BPA. Canned soda and beer often contain at least traces of BPA.
Worse, many of the popular alternatives to BPA are as bad if not worse. According to a 2011 study, almost all the plastics they tested leached synthetic estrogen when exposed to heat or other conditions known to unlock the chemicals. Many BPA alternatives still use chemicals in the bisphenol category, such as BPS and BPAF, and also have estrogenic activity. Opinion is divided: some say the other bisphenols are slightly less dangerous than BPA, while others think they may be every bit as toxic.
A BPA-free plastic called tritan copolyester, used in products made by Nalgene, Rubbermaid, and Tupperware, has been seen as a beacon of hope. It’s free of the all the bisphenols, and according to the manufacturer, Eastman Chemical Company, it has been verified by third-party laboratories as safe and free of estrogenic activity. The Eco Dentistry Association recommends tritan for as a replacement for BPA in dental devices.
Unfortunately, in June 2013, the Washington Spectator reported that Eastman was suing CertiChem to stifle findings that one of tritan’s ingredients, triphenyl phosphate, is just as bad as BPA. A court ruled in favor of Eastman, but it does raise some red flags.
Some other alternatives could be safer than BPA as well. Given that many chemical companies don’t disclose all their data, much more research will be necessary, but it’s nice to know that for now, polyester (also known as PET or #1 plastic), is GRAS, or generally regarded as safe, as are #2 (HDPE), 4 (LDPE) and 5 (polypropylene) plastics. Oleoresin, a plant-based oil and resin, is being used as an alternative to the BPA lining in some cans (for example, Eden Foods uses it to line their bean cans).
When possible, avoid plastic altogether. Glass containers have been used for a long time, are much safer, and don’t leech toxins.
As we have reported previously, one of the most ubiquitous sources of BPA is in thermal cash register receipts. The Environmental Protection Agency reviewed nineteen BPA alternatives specifically for cash register receipts, rating the chemicals on their effects on human health, aquatic toxicity, and environmental fate. No matter how useful the EPA’s data turns out to be in terms of pure research, at least these studies provide a good comparison with BPA. Some chains, such as Whole Foods, use BPA-free receipts already, but unfortunately, some register paper replacements use BPS instead—which, as we noted above, may not be any better than BPA. It’s a good practice not to take a receipt unless you really need it, or at least wash your hands afterward. Many stores also will email receipts to you instead if you ask them to.
Action Alert! A new bill introduced by Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) in the Senate, and Reps. Lois Capps (D-CA) and Grace Meng (D-NY) in the House, would ban BPA in food packaging. “The dangers of BPA have been well demonstrated,” the three wrote in an opinion piece for Roll Call. “Exposure, even at minimal levels, has been linked to numerous health problems, including breast cancer, altered fetal development, infertility and behavioral changes.” The bill, S 2572 and HR 5033, currently has twenty-one sponsors in all. Please contact your legislators immediately and ask them to support the Ban Poisonous Additives Act of 2014, also known as the BPA Act!

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Baby-Bottle Makers Ban BPA.

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:16:08 +0000

While the FDA dillydallied on reviewing its earlier ruling that bisphenol A (BPA) poses no threat to health, researchers at the National Institutes of Health — basing their findings on 2009 findings — linked BPA to the interference of brain development both in newborns and the unborn. As a result, the attorneys general of Connecticut, New Jersey and Delaware wrote a joint letter to the six primary manufacturers of baby bottles, urging them to stop using BPA in their products.
The six companies — Avent, Disney First Years, Gerber, Dr. Brown, Playtex and Evenflow — have now volunteered to ban BPA from their baby bottles. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has called the action “a major public-health victory”.
The European Food Safety Authority and the FDA still maintain that BPA poses no harm to humans. Nearly one year after American Association for Health Freedom (ANH-USA) petitioned the FDA to remove BPA from dental sealants and composite fillings used in children’s mouths, the agency has yet to respond.

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FDA Tries to Wiggle Out of BPA Problem with Doublespeak and a Partial Ban

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 17:00:02 +0000

Even this limited action is taken only at industry request.

The US Food and Drug Administration has amended food additive rules to “no longer provide for the use” of BPA (bisphenol-A) in infant bottles and children’s sippy cups. BPA is a common ingredient in polycarbonate plastics and, as regular Pulse readers know, an endocrine-disrupting chemical that has been linked with serious health problems, including cancer, birth defects, and heart disease. China banned BPA in baby bottles last year; the European Union banned it two years ago, and Canada declared BPA to be a toxic substance.
What the FDA is doing is indirectly banning the substance in this one application, without having to say so explicitly or even take a strong position on the subject! Moreover, FDA is being careful not to make any statement on BPA’s safety. All of this came in response to a request from the American Chemistry Council, which is seeking to even the playing field of their producers’ market share.
What does this mean? We think this means that some producers are complaining about the cost of using substitute ingredients because of a consumer backlash against BPA, and no longer want their competitors to be able to use it.
We and others in the nonprofit world have been working on the BPA issue for years. It is not at all surprising that we actually got what we wanted, after numerous rejections from FDA—but only because industry eventually joined our side for profit reasons. Is there nothing FDA won’t do for them? Big Business says, “Jump!” and FDA asks, “How high?”
BPA is not a substance that is Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). So several years ago, companies had to seek FDA approval to use BPA, and FDA put it on the official list of approved food additives. Now FDA has amended that list “to no longer provide for the use of polycarbonate (PC) resins in infant feeding bottles (baby bottles) and spill-proof cups, including their closures and lids, designed to help train babies and toddlers to drink from cups (sippy cups) because these uses have been abandoned” by industry, so baby bottles and cups using BPA-laced polycarbonate will be considered adulterated if they contain BPA.
Another factor behind the industry’s change of heart is the slew of state bills that have been introduced and passed banning the use of BPA. In fact, eleven states so far have banned BPA in children’s products.
Furthermore, if the ACC is petitioning for the removal of BPA, it is worrying to think about what they are using in its place—since, as we noted a few weeks ago, many products that now boast they’re “BPA-free” have simply switched to a BPA relative that may be equally toxic!
FDA’s ban on BPA in baby products is another blessing for the chemical industry: it mitigates the urgency of banning BPA in other products. Because the petition was based on an assertion of “abandonment,” FDA did not request comments on the safety of the use of polycarbonate (PC) resins, which use BPA in their manufacturing process: “Such safety information is not relevant to abandonment and, therefore, any comments addressing the safety of PC resins were not considered in the Agency’s evaluation of this petition.” How convenient! By sidestepping the issue of safety, FDA is protecting the chemical industry’s stake in using BPA in other applications—or liability for past use in baby products.
While we are pleased that infants will no longer be exposed to BPA in their bottles and cups, we would argue that this ban doesn’t go nearly far enough. FDA is not considering other things that children can put in their mouths, such as pacifiers, teethers, tableware, or items that may come in contact with breast milk, such as breast pumps, pumping supplies, or breast milk storage kits—not to mention children’s dental sealants, fillings, and dental devices.
BPA should banned in all products, though the government has been deaf to its citizens’ requests:

ANH-USA filed a petition with the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban BPA in thermal cash register receipts, the principal means by which BPA appears to enter mothers’ bodies. Our petition was denied. We still have a request pending with OSHA.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a petition with FDA to have BPA banned from food and beverage containers (most tin cans are lined with BPA). After the request was left hanging in limbo for three years, NRDC filed a lawsuit to force a response. FDA finally ruled against the petition.
Even Rep. Ed Markey petitioned FDA to ban BPA, though FDA has yet to respond.

A recent study indicates that BPA may affect memory and alter brain structure in adults. Another study shows that BPA’s estrogenic effects can encourage insulin release, which promotes diabetes.
It is clear from what has just happened that the only way BPA will be removed from other products is for consumers to refuse to buy them. The FDA couldn’t care less.

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Is “BPA-Free” a Lie?

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:00:27 +0000

Close. Many products that now boast they’re “BPA-free” have simply switched to a BPA relative that may be equally toxic!

Regular readers will be aware of our campaign against BPA. Bisphenol-A is a dangerous, endocrine-disrupting chemical found in many polycarbonate plastics. It has been linked with serious health problems, including cancer, birth defects, and heart disease, but has been used in baby bottles, children’s dental sealants and fillings, and cash register receipts.
Some unscrupulous manufacturers, responding to the controversy, have switched BPA in their products with bisphenol-S (BPS), a BPA analogue in the same bisphenol chemical class—which may be every bit as toxic. This allows them to trumpet that their products are now “BPA-free,” and technically, they are: but they still contain bisphenol.
BPA has become a concern worldwide, and many countries have banned it in baby bottles and other applications. In the US, several states now prevent BPA from being used in children’s products, and consumers are demanding that their products no longer contain BPA—which is why substituting BPA with BPS seems like such a devious shell game to us.
Two studies published recently in the journal Environmental Science and Technology discuss how BPS is increasingly being substituted for BPA. BPS was found in thermal cash register receipts in the US, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam in similar concentrations to original BPA. BPS was also found in 87% of paper currency from 21 countries. And BPS was found in the same concentrations as BPA in individuals from eight countries.
The health effects of BPS have been studied less than with BPA, but a growing body of additional research indicates that BPS is an artificial estrogen just like BPA, with clear potential for carcinogenic effects and damage to reproductive health.
Many companies simply do not disclose the chemical used in their plastic. For example, the famous Nalgene water bottle is made with “co-polyester” plastic. While they claim to be “BPA-free,” they do not disclose what chemical they are using instead!
Bisphenols are part of a broad family of chemicals, each with different properties but all, it seems, potentially dangerous to humans. Bisphenol AF is used in electronic devices, optical fibers, etc., and studies show it to be an even more potent endocrine disrupter than BPA. Bisphenol B and F are also frequently substituted for BPA. Bisphenol B is potentially more potent than BPA in stimulating breast cancer cells.
However, most of the best research concerns BPA rather than its lesser-known siblings. New reports show that:

This chemical can encourage cells in the pancreas to secrete insulin inappropriately, supporting a link between type 2 diabetes and exposure to low doses of BPA.
Mothers who expose their fetuses to BPA risk having obese children because BPA can alter the development of stem cells, affecting both the DNA and the number of fat cells a person will have.
And BPA may impair memory, according to study in published in Behavioral Neuroscience. Adult rats exposed to a single dose of BPA had trouble recognizing objects or remembering their location only a few hours later.

This is all in addition to the risk to reproductive health outlined in the groundbreaking book Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival? by Theo Colborn et al.
Despite the chemical’s demonstrative dangers, FDA has refused to ban BPA in food packaging, claiming that “there is not compelling scientific evidence to justify new restrictions” on the chemical. In the past, FDA has relied on industry studies in reaching its decisions.

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No More “Pinkwashing”! Support an Integrative Approach to Breast Cancer

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:43:42 +0000

Increasingly, breast cancer fundraising means playing ball with companies whose products actually cause cancer.
Susan G. Komen for the Cure, formerly known as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, is the largest and most heavily funded breast cancer organization in the US. (Last year alone it took in about $420 million.)
Komen recently denied that BPA increases the risk of breast cancer, despite mounting evidence to the contrary! We wish we could say that we were surprised. But this is all too characteristic of the Komen modus operandi.
As you know, bisphenol A (BPA) is a common ingredient in polycarbonate plastics. It’s also a known hormone disruptor that has been linked with serious health problems: birth defects, heart disease—and breast cancer.
Why would Komen make such a reckless statement? One possible reason: their corporate sponsors are too heavily invested in products that contain BPA, though Komen denies the charge.

Coca-Cola, which sponsors Komen grants, lines its soda cans with BPA. The company doesn’t deny it, either—but simply says “it’s not enough to hurt anyone.” In fact, research suggests that even tiny amounts of BPA will hurt you.
General Mills uses BPA in its canned foods (bowing to consumer pressure on its Muir Glen canned tomatoes but keeping them in other canned foods), and Georgia-Pacific manufactures epoxy resins that contain BPA. Both are Komen corporate sponsors.

It’s called “pinkwashing”—claiming to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink ribbon product, while producing or selling other products that are linked to the disease.
Komen doesn’t just support big companies. It sells products itself. Komen’s “Promise Me” perfume line contains chemicals that are categorized as toxic and hazardous. Last month, Breast Cancer Action announced that independent laboratory testing conducted on their behalf discovered that the perfume contained galaxolide, a synthetic musk that works as a hormone disruptor and is detected in blood, breast milk, and even newborns; and toluene, a potent neurotoxicant that is banned by the International Fragrance Association (IFRA).
Of course, Komen also says that electromagnetic fields and organochloride pesticides like DDT do not increase cancer risk, and that to date no environmental pollutants that can increase breast cancer have been found. Only about 10 percent of cases of breast cancer in the US can be traced to hereditary factors, indicating that environment plays an important role—one that Komen chooses to ignore lest it upset its corporate sponsors.
Komen spends millions of dollars on finding “the cure,” yet promotes the corporate-driven medical mainstream status quo. This status quo includes oncologists getting rich by selling high priced chemo themselves, as well as annual mammograms which may do as much harm as good (the New York Times noted this week that “Pink Ribbon” campaigns and patient testimonials have imbued the mammogram with a kind of magic it doesn’t have)—while ignoring the contribution of integrative medicine, which focuses on prevention and root causes.
A recent Norwegian study found that mastectomy rates climb higher as more women have mammograms—that mammograms can lead to “cancer overdiagnosis” and potentially unnecessary invasive treatment. The study found that at best mammograms reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer by no more than 10 percent.
More disturbing is the fact that taking four films of each breast annually results in an exposure of approximately 1 rad (radiation-absorbed dose), which is about 1,000 times greater than that from a chest x-ray—which greatly raises the risk of breast cancer.
New data suggest that mammograms also increase the risk of false positives, and may miss up to a third or more of all breast cancers, depending on the type of cancer and the composition of the breast tissue.
Going against the Komen-led “pink” juggernaut can be difficult—California governor Jerry Brown questioned the efficacy of mammograms in the past and received a lot of negative backlash. But there are good alternative approaches to mammograms. Thermography and some forms of ultrasound are safer and may be more accurate when it comes to screening.
And much more can be done to prevent breast cancers, such as eating right, especially including some cruciferous vegetables; sleeping right, including the avoidance of blue lights at night; and taking fish oil, supplemental iodine, vitamin D, and selenium. And one should consider environmental factors, too. Cornell has a database on breast cancer and environmental risk factors.
Another vital preventive measure is controlling weight and blood sugar through exercise. The one thing we like about the Komen approach is their idea of getting out doors, even if it is to raise more money for Komen.
We thought we would offer an alternative: we would have our own fundraising event for integrative medicine research!

We are asking you to walk, run, hike, bike ride, or do some other physical activity—on Sunday, December 4. The event will support integrative medicine research and continued access to important alternative treatments for breast cancer. We’re asking our readers to organize some favorite physical activity, then get their friends to sponsor them through peer-to-peer fundraising .

The ANH-USA office will organize its own walk in Washington, DC, and DC-area members and readers welcome to join us! We’ll create our own fundraising page so folks can see our example.
Just go to the “Promote Integrative Medicine” event page and click the black button on the right that says, “Fundraise for this Event.” Choose whether you want to to sign up as an individual, start a new team, or join an existing team. If you start a new team, you’ll be able to invite friends to join your team as well. If you wish, you can even set a monetary goal for your fundraising event!
The main event page will have a leaderboard showing which teams and individuals have raised the most money so far, so you can compete with others!
ANH-USA staff’s team page will have details of our own 10-mile hike in Washington, DC. If you’d like to join them, email office@anh-usa.org with the subject “Integrative Medicine Hike,” and they’ll send you details (including the hiking route) closer to the day of the event. We will also be posting the details on the staff’s team page.

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You Did It! You Helped Ban BPA in Delaware!

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:00:03 +0000

A few weeks ago we issued an Action Alert to help pass an important bill to fight BPA in Delaware. Thanks to your activism, Delaware’s children will be healthier.

Bisphenol A (BPA) was created as a synthetic sex hormone. Today it is widely used in certain kinds of plastics and epoxy resins, including those commonly found in baby bottles and infant formula cans, and cash register receipts. But BPA is a known hormone disruptor. NIH is concerned that BPA exposure in children may lead to problems with brain development, behavior, early puberty, breast cancer, and prostate cancer. New research has also suggested that BPA may interfere with metabolism and lead to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes in humans.

Out of concern for children’s safety, Canada has banned the use of BPA in baby bottles and is restricting its use in infant formula cans, as has China and the European Union.

Delaware’s bill, SB 70, was created to protect the health of young children by prohibiting the chemical bisphenol-A in certain children’s products such as bottles, cups, and other containers used for food or beverages. The state Senate passed the bill on June 8, and the House passed it on June 22. Here’s the best part—the vote was unanimous in both chambers!

We applaud the progress in Delaware but still have a long road ahead. To that end, ANH-USA is filing a petition with OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, to ban BPA in receipts. We are filing it as an adjunct to the petition we filed with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), since CPSC keeps telling us that OSHA is the agency with jurisdiction. We disagree with their assessment, but we will follow strict procedure by filing with OSHA as well. CPSC says OSHA can do something about BPA, so let’s see if they really can!

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BPA: It’s Time for the Federal Government to Catch Up!

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 17:00:39 +0000

The world knows how dangerous BPA is. Even China, following the lead of Europe and Canada, has now banned BPA in baby bottles. In the absence of leadership from the federal government, many states have also started to take action.

The endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) is a common ingredient in polycarbonate plastics; as we have reported numerous times, BPA has been linked with serious health problems, including cancer, birth defects, and heart disease. In China, the Ministry of Health, in conjunction with five other government bodies, has banned the manufacture of infant bottles that contain BPA as of June 1; the ban on all imports and sales of BPA-laced bottles begins September 1. China joins the European Union, which announced at the end of last year that it was banning the manufacture of BPA in baby bottles as of March 1 and importation and sales as of June 1, and Canada, which last October formally declared BPA to be a toxic substance.

In May we told you about SB 210, a bill before the Connecticut legislature to ban BPA in thermal cash register receipts and require the Chemical Innovations Institute to develop an annual list of chemicals of high toxic concern. On June 8, the bill passed in both the House and the Senate of Connecticut, and is on its way to be signed by the governor!

We had similar success in Maryland. HB4, a bill to prohibit more than 0.5 parts per billion of BPA in containers of infant formula, passed and was signed into law by the governor.

There are new bills in California, Delaware, and New York that seek to ban BPA in various products. If you are a citizen of these states, please contact your legislators immediately and ask them to support these important bills!

Click here for the California Action Alert

Click here for the Delaware Action Alert

Click here for the New York Action Alert

By contrast, the Federal government still doesn’t get the message. Last August, ANH-USA filed a Citizen Petition with the Consumer Products Safety Commission to have BPA banned from cash register receipts, the little-known but most common pathway of BPA into your body. We re-filed this past March, demanding that the agency fully consider our petition and assess it on the legal grounds and evidence that we presented to them, but the CPSC refused to consider our petition for a second time, citing OSHA as the appropriate venue.

However, CSPC let us know that the agency is in the process of working through an approach on BPA with the Environmental Protection Agency, to move toward alternatives to BPA that could be used in thermal paper for cash register receipts. EPA intends to post a “draft evaluation of ecological and human health hazards and environmental fate of BPA and alternate developers“ for public review and comment in September. We plan to wait and see the result before we consider litigation.

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BPA in Cash Register Receipts Still Poisoning Americans—and the Government Won’t Do Anything About It

Mon, 02 May 2011 18:30:19 +0000

A government agency doesn’t think your family is worth protecting from BPA in cash register receipts—that workers may be affected by it, but not consumers. Huh? Doesn’t the cashier put the receipt right into your hand? Tell them this is ridiculous with our new Action Alert!

Last August, ANH-USA filed a Citizen Petition with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to have the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) banned from thermal cash register receipts. Cash register receipts are the little-known but most common pathway for BPA into your body.
The CPSC responded by refusing to consider our petition, claiming that it did not meet their requirements based on some very flimsy reasoning: that the regulation of cash register receipts should be under the jurisdiction of worker safety (OSHA) and not consumer safety.
In early March we once again sent CPSC our petition, accompanied by a letter demanding that the agency fully consider our petition and assess it on the legal grounds and evidence that we presented to them. Their reasoning seemed especially absurd since both workers and consumers handle receipts. Anyone who handles the receipts is at risk, including consumers—so it’s not just OSHA’s territory.
CPSC has still not responded to our petition.
Meanwhile, the Connecticut legislature has introduced its own bill to ban BPA on thermal cash register receipts and require the Chemical Innovations Institute to develop an annual list of chemicals of high toxic concern.
Consumers are speaking out against BPA, and company shareholders are noticing. Twenty-six percent of Coca-Cola’s shareholders called for the company to publish a report to address consumer concerns about BPA in the epoxy linings of their cans. However, at Coke’s annual general meeting Wednesday, the CEO told shareholders that there was not enough evidence to stop using BPA in their cans. “If we had any sliver of doubt about the safety of our packaging, we would not continue to use (BPA),” he said. He used this phrase—“not a sliver of doubt”—despite the worldwide outcry against BPA , the government of Canada declaring BPA a toxic substance, and various bans in Europe.
Please contact the Consumer Product Safety Commission and ask them to reconsider our petition, and to stop giving us the runaround.

TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO THE CPSC

Click THIS LINK to go to the Action Alert page. Once there, fill out the form with your name and address, etc., and customize your letter. We have a suggested message for you, but please feel free to add your own comments to the letter.

We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress, the FDA, etc.

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Canada Declares BPA Toxic

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 19:34:33 +0000

Last week, the government of Canada formally declared bisphenol A (BPA) to be a toxic substance. The US still denies it.

This comes after Canada’s first national physical study on BPA revealed that 91% of Canadians have the chemical in their bodies, with teenagers having the highest concentrations.
As we have noted in numerous Pulse articles and Action Alerts, there are serious health risks from exposure to the endocrine-disrupting chemical BPA. As a result, there have been nationwide efforts to ban it from food and beverage containers, especially those used by babies and children. ANH-USA has petitioned the FDA to review the widespread use of BPA in children’s dental products, but the Agency has not deigned to respond.
Animal tests show that BPA, a plastics hardener that is also a synthetic estrogen, can cause reproductive and behavioral abnormalities and lower intellectual ability, and sets the stage for cancers, obesity, diabetes, asthma, and heart disease.
The New York Times reports that Canada’s move was strenuously fought by its chemical industry. Designating BPA as toxic will make it easier to ban the use of BPA in specific products through regulations rather than by amending legislation, a cumbersome and slow process, according to an official at Environment Canada.

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What is Happening with the Leahy Bill? A New Action Alert

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 21:05:34 +0000

At one point we almost lost—it’s still touch and go—but there is some good news to report.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–NV) attempted a procedural maneuver last week—a unanimous consent agreement to bring the Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) to the Senate floor with Leahy’s original bill (S. 3767) and Sen. Diane Feinstein’s BPA amendment attached for consideration. ANH supporters will appreciate the irony of this. We were fighting tooth and nail against the Leahy bill, a dagger aimed at natural food and supplement producers, but have supported the Feinstein amendment aimed to get BPA out of water bottles. The choice, however, was clear. It was much more important to stop Leahy than to win on Feinstein.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R–OK) objected to Reid’s proposed unanimous consent agreement, raising concerns relating to the financing of the bill. The Food Safety Bill is stalled at this point, although it is always possible that Coburn and Reid will work out their disagreement behind the scenes, setting the stage to bring it to the Senate floor.
Meanwhile, Leahy’s bill still exists on its own, since the effort to attach it without changes to the Food Safety Bill failed. But there is some good news to report. Thanks to all the messages opposing the bill that have poured in—that is, thanks to your efforts the Judiciary Committee amended it. Click here to send our new Action Alert.
The new language now fines or jails for up to ten years “any person who knowingly [adulterates or misbrands food or supplements] with conscious or reckless disregard of a risk of death or serious bodily injury.” This is a big improvement! If interpreted correctly by the FDA, it means that a producer cannot be threatened with a long jail term simply for citing leading university scientific research in its advertising.
The amended language is an important victory. Let’s give Senator Leahy credit for making the change. We spoke to the senator’s office this week, and there is no doubt that he considers himself a supporter of natural health, as demonstrated by his opposition to GMO and his writing the organic farm bill. We wish we could now support his bill, but we still can’t.
Why not? The language, even as amended, leaves wiggle room—it does not require that any actual harm or death occur. It only speaks of a vague “conscious or reckless disregard of a risk of death or serious bodily injury.” It would be too easy for the FDA to claim anything it wants to claim about what this bill is really saying. The FDA likes to intimidate. A ten-year jail term is a powerful weapon of intimidation if misused, and we think it is likely to be misused.
The real problem with attaching long jail sentences to the terms “adulteration” and “misbranding,” especially the latter, is that these terms have been so distorted by the FDA.
To our ears, “adulterated” means that it doesn’t meet good manufacturing practices, that the food itself is somehow tainted or injurious to health, or contains an ingredient that presents a significant or unreasonable risk of illness. And “misbranded” suggests deliberate and harmful misstatements about a product.
But as interpreted by the FDA, a food or supplement may be “adulterated” if some vague FDA rule is deemed by the FDA not to have been followed. “Misbranded” can mean that the producer makes a completely true statement about the product but without FDA permission. A cherry producer who cites peer-reviewed scientific research from prestigious universities on the health benefits of cherries would, in FDA-speak, have engaged in “false” and actionable “misbranding” which suddenly turns the cherries into drugs. Producers, of course, have the right to take cherries through the new drug approval process!
Until Congress fixes these interpretations of “adulteration” and “misbranding,” extreme care needs to be taken in legislating long jail terms connected to them. In the case of Leahy’s bill, more amending is needed. For such draconian jail terms to apply, the bill should require both Leahy’s new language (“conscious or reckless disregard of a risk of death or serious bodily injury”) and the actual subsequent occurrence of death or serious bodily injury.
And there is another problem with the Leahy bill that the recent amendment doesn’t change. The Leahy bill, if passed, will be attached to the Senate Food Safety Bill. It will then go into conference to be melded with the House Food Safety Bill. The House bill also has long new jail terms, but applies them to any so-called adulteration or misbranding without requiring “conscious or reckless disregard of a risk of death or serious bodily injury.” It would be the easiest thing in the world to meld the two bills by dropping the language that Senator Leahy has just added to his bill.
Keep this in mind: the Leahy bill almost certainly came into existence because new long prison terms were intentionally kept out of the Senate Food Safety Bill. Who is it that wants them back in so badly that the Leahy bill had to be created at the last moment? Although it’s a speculation, this may trace back to Congressman Waxman, the chair of the House Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over food safety. If there are jail terms in the Senate bill, Waxman would be expected to fight hard to remove the new qualifiers in order to get his version of the bill adopted—the version that would give the FDA a huge new club with which to threaten and intimidate natural health producers.
Do others agree with us that there are risks to passing the amended Leahy bill? Yes. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R–UT), a champion of natural health, has issued a statement for the record on the bill: “I believe this bill could have potential negative ramifications on the food and dietary supplement industries. One of those concerns would be the over-criminalization of some violations that could affect the affordability and accessibility of certain food and dietary products.”
We are very pleased that, thanks to your actions, the Leahy bill has been amended and much improved. We also recognize that the odds of it passing have now improved—but it is still a bad bill, even amended. We must keep the pressure on to defeat it. We have changed our Action Alert to reflect the change in the bill.

Please take action now.

Even if you wrote to your senators last week, please do so again. We have a new sample letter explaining why the amended bill is still a bad law. And if you have not yet written your senators, please take a moment and do so today!

The post What is Happening with the Leahy Bill? A New Action Alert first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.