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The Politics of the F.D.A.
A fight over posting calorie counts for popcorn is just one example of the clash between the White House and the agency charged with protecting public health. Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, the F.D.A. commissioner, was forced to scrap plans to have calorie counts posted for foods served in movie theaters and on airplanes after a phone call from the White House deputy chief of staff in 2010. From the article: "White House officials describe
their disagreements with the F.D.A. as part of the normal, constructive give-and-take over policy that has never undermined the agency’s mission.
'Under President Obama’s leadership, the Food and Drug Administration has new authority and resources to help stop kids from smoking, protect our food supply and approve more affordable prescription drugs,' said the White House press secretary, Jay Carney.
The administration also views the agency’s hostility to its oversight as hopelessly naïve, given a 24-hour news cycle and a ferocious political environment that punishes any misstep.
'They want a world that doesn’t exist anymore,' an administration official said."
...what in the world would the downside of having the energy content for movie snacks posted? It's not as if it would be prohibitely difficult or expensive to calculate for the vendors. Even McDonalds are doing it, and their meals are a lot more complex than "1 part dried corn, 1 part oil". The only possible reason is that people might not buy as much of it if they realised how fat it made them. But boosting your sales based on a lack of health information seems rather evil, and surely isn't something that movie theaters would do, right?
Right?
For those who didn't read the article, it's not so much anti science as pro-politics. Making sure the message is not negative: "The Bush administration repeatedly stopped the FDA from issuing rules to prevent contamination of eggs, produce and other foods, though both industry and consumer groups agreed they were needed as the death toll rose from such incidents. Mr. Bushâ(TM)s health department also demanded that it approve all agency press releases.
Much of the agencyâ(TM)s staff assumed that the Obama administration would restore the agencyâ(TM)s independence. [But] a decision that had nothing to do with the F.D.A. proved the turning point in the agencyâ(TM)s relationship with the White House. In the midst of the bitter 2009 battle to pass a law to provide health care to tens of millions of uninsured Americans, the United States Preventive Services Task Force announced in November that most women should not get routine mammograms until age 50 because the risks of the X-ray screens and surgical biopsies that often follow outweighed the benefits in younger women.
Although the task force did not consider cost in its analysis, Republicans charged that its recommendation was the start of health care rationing, an accusation given prominent play on Fox News.
"That scared the bejesus out of everybody," a top F.D.A. official said. The Obama administration became extremely risk averse, fearing further controversies might jeopardize the passage of health care reform, agency and administration officials said. It refused many interview requests for agency officials and scientists until the health law passed.
"To the career people, that was disappointing. Employees here waited eight long years for deliverance that didnâ(TM)t come."
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
...and WTF is the tech angle here?
They had a phone call!
BTW what's wrong with movie popcorn that it needs a label? I eat popcorn almost every day, and it's only ~300 calories. (I guess the theater dobs-on lots of butter.) Such a regulation would increase cost though. And they aren't in the best financial health, what with competition from HDTV and home viewing.
Another interesting quote from the article:
"In February 2011, the F.D.A. approved an application from KV Pharmaceutical to sell 17P, a decades-old drug used to prevent premature births. Since KVâ(TM)s version, called Makena, was the only one officially approved, the F.D.A. would normally have banned the sale of cheaper unapproved ones. To the agency, the only issue was that KVâ(TM)s drug offered guaranteed safety while those made by pharmacists were riskier.
"For years, pharmacists had been making unapproved versions of this injectable form of progesterone for $200 to $400 for a 20-week course. Though F.D.A. officials worried about repeated instances over the years when other pharmacy-made drugs had been found to lack potency or be contaminated with deadly bacteria.
"Once it had won F.D.A. approval, KV announced its price â" $30,000 for a 20-week treatment, a hundredfold increase. Administration officials then stepped in to halt any effort to ban pharmacy-made versions, citing the need to check an exorbitant price increase from a drug company that suddenly found itself with a monopoly, an increase that could burden women who needed the drug. The administration instructed the F.D.A. to issue a press release stating that, "at this time and under this unique situation, F.D.A. does not intend to take enforcement action against pharmacies" that make unapproved versions of 17P. An administration official said that the health department and the F.D.A. worked together on the 17P issue and that the White House was not involved. "The notion that the statement or the action was somehow forced down F.D.A.â(TM)s throat isnâ(TM)t accurate," the administration official said. "F.D.A. officials said they had often been wrongly accused of considering price in drug approval deliberations and had always been able to reply that price was never a factor.
"We canâ(TM)t say that anymore," a top F.D.A. official said unhappily. Four months later, the White House approved a requirement that sunscreens protect equally against two kinds of the sunâ(TM)s radiation, UVB and UVA, to earn the coveted designation of offering broad spectrum protection.
"Top F.D.A. officials wanted to prohibit lotions with sun protection factors, or SPFs, of less than 15 from being called sunscreens because they do not protect against cancer or skin aging, while the administration insisted they could still be called sunscreens as long as they carried a label that said such lotions were ineffective."
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Great now we've got calorie denialists. Awesome.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You don't have an unimpinged right to choose if you're prevented from getting all the facts, fuckwit. This is an attempt to let consumers have the facts SO THEY CAN MAKE INFORMED CHOICES.
You are entitled to your own opinions. You are *not* entitled to your own facts.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
A free market only works if the consumer is making informed decisions about what they are buying. Adding calorie/nutrition information to food products gives them that information. Publishing reports about Foxconn workers committing suicides also helps consumers be informed.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
how can the choice be truly free if you don't have access to information about your choice? And how is legislating access to information impinging on your freedom? You can still eat a 1500kcal popcorn bucket if you so choose, nobody is forcing you to look at the nutritional information label.
It's just like if all food also had a carbon impact value as part of its labeling, you could still easily decide to buy fresh fruit from out of season imported from halfway around the world, or buy that coffee table you like so much made from rainforest wood, you just would be fully aware of the ramifications of your choice.
Or are you saying that having the information available infringes your right to be ignorant? in that case do you really believe your choice is free when you don't know if it's right/wrong for you/society (regardless if you want to choose right or wrong)? and what about the right of people that actually *do* want to make informed choices and so need the carbon/environmental/calorie data, shouldn't their rights be protected?
-- the cake is a lie
Calorie denialism is just another symptom of the Republicans needing to disagree with the Other at every turn.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
There are medical researchers finding that high sugar intake fosters cancer growth, finding this to be particularly evident in those who have cancer. Will the FDA ever label sugar appropriately? Nope. There's even less a chance they'll do this with corn syrup, given the corn lobbyists.
Speaking of corn, imagine having a corn allergy. Actually, it's not necessarily corn per se, but expressions of certain genetic modifications and some of the molds that grow on corn. But basically every processed food has corn derivatives in it. You name it, it's derived from corn. Citric acid (a common preservative used in just about everything), ascorbic acid, microcrystaline cellulose, xanthan gum (a common thickener, derived from an organism grown on corn), fructose, dextrose, "natural flavors", MSG, etc. And they're added to everything from table salt to orange juice. (Why the hell they would need to add corn-derived citric acid to orange juice beats the hell out of me.) And if you search the web for "corn allergy", you'll get the impression that a corn allergy isn't incredibly rare, and there are communities of people who work really hard to figure out which food products aren't treated with corn products. Imagine being unable to buy CHICKEN without being at risk. That's right, almost all chicken sold in grocery stores has corn-based additives. A corn allergy may be rare, but the sheer ubiquity of corn products makes it so that absolutely everyone with a corn allergy in the U.S. will suffer. Nevertheless, the FDA flatly refuses to even create a legal definition of corn, let alone require products to mention it on the label. Even organic farmers spray their produce with corn derivatives as a sort of non-toxic enrivonmentally friendly pest deterrent.
If you have a corn allergy, you are royally fucked.
Bill Maher is an outright germ theory denier. Most of the Republican party denies evolution and global warming. The Democrats are slightly better, in my opinion, but they've still got a bunch of flakes who have elevated a good idea (organic food) into some kind of pseudo-religion. My sister is like that. She thinks that organic food has magical properties that make it somehow better than any other food. She also refuses to give her kids vaccines. It's funny, because she'll rant about how anti-science the Republicans are in one breath, then rant about some bizarre anti-vaccine conspiracy theory in the next.
People are hypocritical, ignorant morons. That includes you, me, and everyone else. Thinking that you're immune to this kind of cognitive bias is yet another form of cognitive bias (known as bias blind spot).
Holy fuck, dude, wtf is wrong with posting calories in food? It's meaningless to me, as I have no weight problem (I have problems putting it on, not taking it off), but I know a lot of fatasses who could use all the help they can get shedding pounds.
Nobody's saying "fattening foods are illegal". What it is is simple education -- popcorn's not supposed to make you fat. But a whole bucketful of it swimming in trans fats? Hell yes a whole bucketful is fattening, print the "10,000 calories, 9,000 from trans fat" on the tub.
I'd like to see a truth in labeling law. I worked at a drive in theater when I was a teenager, and the "butter" for the popcorn was hydrogenated soybean oil. So someone thinks they're getting butter (caloric but good cholesterol) when they're raising their bad cholesterol.
Jesus H Christ, you want the freedom to rip me off and poison me? Typical right wing... corporate rights foremost, human beings' rights don't matter. I should have the right to know what I'm eating. Making you print the damned TRUTH about what you're selling is hardly something to get bent out of shape about.
Free Martian Whores!
Bill Maher's like the left-wing Rush Limbaugh from what I understand.
Except people actually listen to Rush Limbaugh.
> BTW what's wrong with movie popcorn that it needs a label?
Because some theaters use really bad oils to save money.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2009/11/19/popcorn-movie-theatre-salt-fat.html
Money quote: "You can get one kind of popcorn with three grams of saturated fat and roughly the same size at another theatre with 38 grams of saturated fat. That's just a phenomenal difference," said Bill Jeffery of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest in Ottawa. "These are things that you can't tell by tasting."
You've obviously never worked at a job where you face and have to deal with the general public.
Growing up, and early in school, I worked as a busboy in restaurants, when old enough a waiter and bartender. I've also worked retails....and from those experiences, you basically understand that about 90% of the people out there are pretty much fucked in the head...stupid....idiots.
I don't say that lightly...but when you deal with the avg "joe" on a daily basis, it really just kills you to see the ignorance and just general lack of display of intelligence out there. This was pretty far back for me, and I have to imagine in this day in age....it is even worse.
As hard as it is to believe, yes...there are a LOT of people out there, that do not comprehend that eating McD burgers and fries multiple times a week (hell, multiple times a DAY), washing it down with full sugar cokes....and having Twinkies as snacks in between those meals...will kill them and make them fat.
Yes, there are a lot of them out there, that are that stupid.
I know I come off sounding very elitist when I mention things like this....but after working those jobs, and talking to others that have done the same for any significant length of time, you sadly have to admit it is true. And when you understand that, well, I just am not surprised that much anymore by any strange news report, or anything 'interesting' I come across while observing the common man in the street.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~lhom/organictext.html
Contrary to what most people believe, "organic" does not automatically mean "pesticide-free" or "chemical-free". In fact, under the laws of most states, organic farmers are allowed to use a wide variety of chemical sprays and powders on their crops.
So what does organic mean? It means that these pesticides, if used, must be derived from natural sources, not synthetically manufactured. Also, these pesticides must be applied using equipment that has not been used to apply any synthetic materials for the past three years, and the land being planted cannot have been treated with synthetic materials for that period either.
Most organic farmers (and even some conventional farmers, too) employ mechanical and cultural tools to help control pests. These include insect traps, careful crop selection (there are a growing number of disease-resistant varieties), and biological controls (such as predator insects and beneficial microorganisms).
ORGANIC PRODUCE AND PERSONAL HEALTH
When you test synthetic chemicals for their ability to cause cancer, you find that about half of them are carcinogenic.
Until recently, nobody bothered to look at natural chemicals (such as organic pesticides), because it was assumed that they posed little risk. But when the studies were done, the results were somewhat shocking: you find that about half of the natural chemicals studied are carcinogenic as well.
This is a case where everyone (consumers, farmers, researchers) made the same, dangerous mistake. We assumed that "natural" chemicals were automatically better and safer than synthetic materials, and we were wrong. It's important that we be more prudent in our acceptance of "natural" as being innocuous and harmless.
Denial Denialism?
Where does that get fun?
When you turn it into the Nile De-nihilism and accidentally start a literary movement about re-instantiating a dried-up river in a post-apocalyptic world?
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!