Author Archives: FletaQYMGpzy

Big food companies want to call GMO foods “natural”

by FletaQYMGpzy Posted on December 20, 2013

Big food companies want to call GMO foods “natural”

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Is genetically engineered food natural? The Grocery Manufacturers Association, a trade group representing some of the world’s biggest food and food-related companies, including ConAgra Foods, Bayer CropScience, and the Coca-Cola Company, thinks so.

And it’s pressing the Food and Drug Administration to see things its way. From a Dec. 5 letter to the feds:

GMA’s members have a strong interest in “natural” labeling for foods containing ingredients derived from biotechnology. Several of the most common ingredients derived from biotechnology are from crops such as soy, corn, canola, and sugar beets. …

[T]here are approximately 65 class action lawsuits that have been filed against food manufacturers over whether foods with ingredients allegedly derived from biotechnology can be labeled “natural.” …

GMA intends to file a Citizen Petition solely direct at asking FDA to issue a regulation authorizing foods containing foods derived from biotechnology to be labeled as “natural.”

An Environmental Working Group rep told The New York Times that the association’s request is “audacious.” The Center for Food Safety is also appalled. “There is nothing natural about genetic engineering,” said Colin O’Neil, the center’s government affairs director, in a press release:

Genetic engineering, by its very definition, is not a natural process. It is an artificial and novel process, which often involves inserting foreign (often bacterial) genetic material into a food plant, crop or animal. The U.S. Patent Office has granted numerous patents on genetically engineered plants, finding that they and novel elements in them are not naturally occurring.

According to FDA policy, food labels can’t be false or misleading. A reasonable consumer would not expect foods labeled “natural” to contain GE ingredients. As such, labeling GE foods with the word “natural” would be exceptionally misleading to consumers.

The same agro-corporations and food manufacturers that want to put the word “natural” on their GMO products are aggressively opposed to putting the word “GMO” on their GMO products. Some labeling is OK, but only if Big Food gets to choose the labels.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

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Big food companies want to call GMO foods “natural”

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Fight over frac-sand mining heads to the polls

by FletaQYMGpzy Posted on December 17, 2013

Fight over frac-sand mining heads to the polls

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Glenwood City, Wis., is home to just 1,200 people, but on Tuesday the voices of the town’s residents will reverberate statewide. They’ll be casting ballots dealing with one of Wisconsin’s fastest-growing environmental threats: mining for sand that’s used by the fracking industry.

Mayor John Larson is among the members of the city council who want to redraw the city’s borders, annexing silica-rich farmland into city limits and allowing a Texan company, Vista Sand, to mine it. Larson believes a frac-sand mine could help solve the city’s economic woes. “We have a beautiful little town,” Larson told The Dunn County News. “But we educate our kids, then watch them move away because there are no jobs.”

Larson refused to put the annexation and mine proposal up for a citywide referendum, opting instead to negotiate with mine company officials during closed-door meetings. That sparked a lot of anger among townsfolk worried about the air pollution, heavy truck traffic, noise, and water contamination that so often accompany frac-sand mining.

So Glenwood City residents started a recall campaign against Larson and two of his pro-mine colleagues on the city council. More than half of the city’s voters signed a petition triggering a recall election scheduled for Tuesday.

“The location of this mine would be a half mile from my home, but, more importantly, a half mile from our K-12 school and … our nursing home,” resident Deanna Schone told Grist. She helped gather the signatures that triggered the recall election, and her husband is running to replace a council member. “The population’s interest and opinion has been ignored by our representatives,” she said.


Source
Voters to Speak on Frac Sand; Recall Election Tuesday in Glenwood, WIvoices.org
City’s frac sand mine battle spurs recalls, The Dunn County News

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Fight over frac-sand mining heads to the polls

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State Attorneys General to FDA: What Were You Thinking When You Approved Powerful New Painkiller?

by FletaQYMGpzy Posted on December 13, 2013

Mother Jones

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Last month, Mother Jones reported that the Food and Drug Administration had approved a powerful new painkiller called Zohydro over the objections of its advisory board, which voted 11-2 against approving the drug. Now Attorneys General from 28 states (and the US territory of Guam) have asked the FDA to reconsider its approval of Zohydro. In a letter to the agency, the AGs raise many of the same concerns that the advisory panel did, noting that the drug lacks adequate safeguards to prevent it from being abused and could exacerbate America’s epidemic of painkiller deaths. Here’s an excerpt from the AGs letter, which was dated December 10:

State Attorneys General do not want a repeat of the recent past when potent prescription painkilling drugs entered the market without abuse-deterrent qualities and without clear guidance on how they were to be prescribed. This created an environment whereby our nation witnessed a vicious cycle of overzealous pharmaceutical sales, doctors over-prescribing the narcotics, and patients tampering with these drugs, ultimately resulting in a nationwide prescription drug epidemic claiming thousands of lives.

Zohydro, which is made by a company called Zogenix, is five to ten times stronger than Vicodin, making it very similar in potency to OxyContin, a widely abused prescription drug that has contributed to the tens of thousands of painkiller-related deaths in the United States. OxyContin, however, now includes a gel that prevents the drug from being crushed and snorted. Zohydro was approved without that measure. Zogenix has entered into a $750,000 agreement with a Montreal-based company, Altus Formulation Inc, to help make the drug abuse-deterrent, but it’s unclear whether the formula will be ready by the time Zohydro hits the market in a few months.

The Attorneys General don’t think that’s sufficient. “We hope that the FDA either reconsiders its approval of Zohydro ER, or sets a rigorous timeline for Zohydro ER to be reformulated to be abuse-deterrent while working with other federal agencies to impose restrictions on how Zohydro ER can be marketed and prescribed,” they wrote in their letter.

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State Attorneys General to FDA: What Were You Thinking When You Approved Powerful New Painkiller?

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