EDF Health

Broken GRAS: How a food award competition revealed a secret GRAS ingredient

By Maricel Maffini, PhD, Consultant / Published: June 10, 2024

 

What happened

The Good Food Foundation recently announced its annual awards recognizing foods with both superior taste and responsible business practices, sparking controversy when a plant-based blue ‘cheese’ product was initially a finalist in the cheese category, then was disqualified and removed from the list of finalists. According to the foundation, the product was disqualified because one of the ingredients, kokum butter, had not been designated as GRAS (generally recognized as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration.

 

Why it matters

Kokum butter is derived from the seeds of a kokum tree’s fruit, primarily cultivated in India. The substance is not found in any of FDA’s lists of ingredients either approved or reviewed for safety. Someone somewhere determined that the use of kokum butter in food is GRAS. However, who made that determination, when, and the basis for the decision are unknown.  For example, how much of it is safe to eat? Is it safe for anyone—children, pregnant women, people with preexisting conditions? Could it cause allergic reactions or interfere with medication? Does it leave the body quickly? Does it mimic or interfere with hormones? We just don’t know and neither does FDA.

Here’s  a quick overview of the GRAS system, which we have written about extensively in our Broken GRAS blogs.

  • “General recognition” means that a safety assessment was performed and published, and the scientific community agrees that use in food is safe;
  • GRAS substances are exempted from pre-market approval by FDA;
  • FDA has interpreted the law as allowing manufacturers to independently determine the use of a substance is GRAS without informing the agency;
  • FDA created a voluntary program for manufacturers to submit their chemical’s safety determination in the form of a GRAS notice to the agency for review;
  • Manufacturers can withdraw the request for review at any time and still claim their product is GRAS. See the decision tree below.

 

Our Take

Back in 2022, tara flour, another ingredient of unknown safety, caused more than 400 people to get sick. Like kokum butter, tara flour was not approved or reviewed for safety by FDA.

We applaud the Good Food Foundation for requiring that the ingredients used in foods competing for its awards be reviewed by FDA. It is a matter of protecting public health. We fully support, at minimum, company submissions of GRAS notifications and FDA reviews. Although we have been critical of FDA’s outdated science in safety assessment of chemicals, these notifications provide at least some degree of visibility into the food supply that otherwise is not available to the agency in charge of protecting the public.

 

Next steps

We will continue to engage with FDA to ensure the agency has the tools and resources to strengthen the oversight of companies making GRAS claims without disclosing their safety assessments. The ongoing reorganization of FDA and creation of the Human Food Program is a unique opportunity to fix the broken GRAS program so that all Americans can have confidence in the safety of the food they eat.

 

Posted in Broken GRAS, FDA, Food, General interest / Authors: / Read 1 Response

Broken GRAS: Companies ignore FDA draft guidance; Bias & conflicts of interest prevail in safety determinations

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: September 6, 2023

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals, Klara Matouskova, PhD, Consultant, and Maricel Maffini, PhD, Consultant

What Happened?

In our new study, we evaluated Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) notices—a total of 403 between 2015-2020—that food manufacturers voluntarily submitted to FDA for review. Our goal was to determine whether industry was adhering to FDA’s Guidance on Best Practices for Convening a GRAS Panel.

The guidance was designed to help companies comply with the law and avoid biases and conflicts of interest when determining whether substances added to food are safe and recognized as such by the scientific community. FDA published a draft of the guidance in 2017 and finalized it essentially unchanged in December 2022.Infographic showing how a small group of individuals populate almost half of GRAS review panels. Seven individuals accounted for 46 percent of available panel positions.

Our study found that no GRAS notices followed the draft guidance. Specifically, we also found there were high risks of bias and conflicts of interest because the companies:

  • Had a role—either directly or through a hired third party—in
    selecting panelists that likely resulted in bias and conflicts of interest.
  • Depended on a small pool of experts in which seven individuals occupied 46% of panel positions. The seven often served together, further enhancing risk of bias.
  • Relied on panels that did not realistically reflect the diverse scientific community that evaluates chemical risks to public health—which is needed to comply with the law’s requirement that there be a “general recognition” within that community that a substance is GRAS.

Read More »

Posted in Broken GRAS, Conflict of interest, FDA, Food, Industry influence / Tagged , , , | Authors: / Comments are closed

Broken GRAS: FDA’s lack of post-market oversight continues to create health risks

By Maricel Maffini, PhD, Consultant and Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: July 11, 2023

Brown glass vial surrounded by pepper corns

What Happened?

In April, a company called Prime Research Reports issued a press release in which it claimed FDA had approved THP (tetrahydropiperine) as a Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) substance “for use in food products.” There is no record that FDA has either reviewed or approved THP for use in food.

The report describes Sabinsa as a manufacturer of THP and as “a major player” in that market.[1] The substance, commercially known as Cosmoperine, is derived from a highly purified extract from black pepper; the extract, which is more than 95% piperine, is also made by Sabinsa and is marketed as BioPerine. The company describes piperine as an alkaloid present in black and long pepper.

Read More »

Posted in Adverse health effects, Broken GRAS, FDA, Food, Health hazards, Industry influence, Risk assessment, Risk evaluation / Tagged , , , , , , , | Authors: , / Read 1 Response

Broken GRAS: FDA’s half-step to limit bias and conflicts of interest in GRAS determinations may backfire

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: March 15, 2023

Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director and Maricel Maffini, consultant

What Happened? FDA finalized a long awaited guidance for industry in December to help reduce conflicts of interest and bias when a chemical manufacturer chooses to convene an expert panel to assess whether a new chemical additive is generally recognized as safe (GRAS).

Why It Matters: As written, FDA’s Best Practices for Convening a GRAS Panel guidance is excellent. If food companies convene GRAS panels consistent with the guidance, the panels’ evaluations will be more credible because they should have less of the pervasive bias and conflicts of interest that plague the current system and all too often result in unsafe chemicals being added to food. But that’s a big if.

Our Take: Unfortunately, we think the guidance is likely to backfire because of the limited scope — FDA explicitly makes GRAS panels optional – a choice the agency made when it finalized the GRAS rule in 2016. Chemical manufacturers will simply avoid convening GRAS panels, relying solely on their employees or a consulting firm they hire to conduct these safety evaluations. These employees and consultants typically have significant bias and conflicts of interest because positive opinions help their employer or client. We raised this issue in comments to FDA, calling for the best practices to apply to everyone involved in the safety evaluation process. FDA did not address our comments in their recommended best practices in the revised final guidance.

While making GRAS panels optional is a serious problem, a more fundamental concern is that FDA may not have an opportunity to review the GRAS safety evaluations made by employees or hire consultants because the company chooses not to notify the agency. FDA’s Office of Food Additive Safety fails to consider just how often companies choose not to tell the agency that a new chemical is being added to food. In our Broken GRAS series, we provided six examples of the serious risk posed by the GRAS system, the most public being hundreds of people sickened due to consumption of tara flour, an ingredient in a Daily Harvest frozen meal. Last November, using marketing materials we showed FDA that the number of new chemicals bypassing its review likely outnumber those voluntarily submitted to the agency.

We see no evidence that the agency systematically investigates or even audits the GRAS determinations that bypass their review despite promises made by the agency over the years and a scathing 2010 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office calling for action.

Next Steps: In his effort to reform FDA’s dysfunctional food safety program, FDA Commissioner Califf told a reporter that “I want to throw in chemical safety as another really, really important area for the future – for humankind, really – and where science is evolving rapidly.”[1] If he follows through, fixing GRAS is an important step to rebuild consumer confidence and reduce the ongoing risk to public health. If he fails, the agency will continue to be hamstrung in preventing health risks posed by chemicals of unknown safety.

Go deeper: Broken GRAS series, Neltner et al (2013) Conflicts of Interest in Approvals of Additives to Food Determined to Be Generally Recognized as Safe: Out of Balance; Toxic Free Act; Food Chemical Reassessment Act.

[1] FoodFix, January 31, 2023 edition.

Updated April 9, 2023 to add link for Broken GRAS series.

Posted in Broken GRAS, Conflict of interest, FDA / Tagged , , , , | Authors: / Read 1 Response

Broken GRAS: FDA must declare abandoned uses of ortho-phthalates are not GRAS.

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: August 25, 2022

Maricel Maffini, EDF consultant and Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director

This blog is the sixth in our Broken GRAS series where we explore the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) voluntary notification system for novel chemicals added to food.

In May, FDA removed its approval for all uses of 19 ortho-phthalates (aka phthalates) and some uses for two more because it agreed with the industry petition claiming the uses had been abandoned. During the comment period when the petition was filed and again when the decision was published, Earthjustice, EDF, and others warned FDA that despite the removal of approvals, a company could still use any of the abandoned phthalates without the agency’s knowledge by determining on its own that the use was Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS).

In its decision, FDA implicitly acknowledged that this could indeed happen. After explaining what a GRAS safety determination[1] entails and how its voluntary GRAS notification program[2] works, the agency said:

In the future, if a manufacturer wishes to establish safe conditions of use for one or more of these substances in food contact applications, we expect the manufacturer to submit either a food additive petition or a food contact substance notification prior to market entry because these intended uses were previously authorized under section 409 of the FD&C Act.[3]

Since the agency has no way of knowing that a company determined a substance’s use was GRAS or that it was actually in use, FDA’s expectation is little more than a hope. The agency’s own studies show that the abandoned phthalates show up in food and in food contact materials. Many other studies have shown the same thing, including one that found an unapproved phthalate in fast food.

Read More »

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Tara Flour: A Reminder of the Real-Life Consequences of Broken GRAS

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: August 10, 2022

Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals and Maricel Maffini, EDF consultant

This blog is the fifth in our Broken GRAS series where we explore the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) system for novel chemicals added to food.

In the spring, folks who ordered from a company that sells pre-assembled smoothies and other frozen foods for home delivery, started getting sick—really sick—after consuming an item called “French Lentil and Leek Crumbles” (Crumbles). Daily Harvest, the manufacturer, recalled the product on June 17. A month later, Daily Harvest said it had ruled out various food-borne pathogens, mycotoxins, heavy metals, and major allergens and had “identified tara flour as the cause of the issue.”

By the end of July, FDA reported the product had been linked to 329 illnesses and 113 hospitalizations in 36 states—a surprising number for a product that sold only 28,000 items. Consumer Reports described the health effects as fever, fatigue, vomiting, diarrhea, and liver problems. At least 25 people who consumed the Crumbles required surgery to remove their gallbladders. Read More »

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