EDF Health

The new FDA Commissioner has a full plate; here are 3 steps he can take to keep focused on food safety

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: February 15, 2022

Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals.

The U.S. Senate today voted to return Robert Califf to the role of FDA Commissioner, bringing needed leadership to an agency that plays a vital role in protecting public health. 

While Dr. Califf faces historic challenges in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic and the opioid epidemic, he also has a tremendous opportunity to elevate the agency’s important role in protecting the public from unsafe chemicals in food. 

We put together a list of three things Dr. Califf and the FDA have the authority to do right now to keep problematic chemicals out of our food:  Read More »

Posted in BPA, FDA, Food, GRAS, Lead, Public health / Tagged , , , , , | Authors: / Comments are closed

Helping EPA identify and protect those at greater risk from chemicals undergoing TSCA risk evaluation

By Jennifer McPartland / Published: December 10, 2021

Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist, and Lariah Edwards, Ph.D., is an EDF-George Washington University Postdoctoral Fellow

EPA Administrator Michael Regan recently completed a five-day “journey to justice” tour, highlighting communities across three US states that have been adversely affected by decades of chemical and air pollution. EPA’s focus on protecting those whose health is at greater risk, including communities disproportionately burdened by harmful chemical exposures, must be a priority in its implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

This week, EDF submitted comments to EPA to support the agency’s review of nine widely used substances currently undergoing TSCA risk evaluation: 1,3-butadiene, formaldehyde, and seven ortho-phthalates (phthalates). Our comments identify key groups that are at greater risk from these chemicals because they are more susceptible to their effects or are disproportionately exposed from environmental releases. Importantly, while our comments involved a broad review of the public literature, they do not capture all groups potentially at greater risk to exposure from these substances—and we strongly urge EPA to comprehensively identify all such groups using its information authorities as needed. Read More »

Posted in TSCA reform / Tagged | Read 1 Response

FDA and industry continue to ignore cumulative effects of chemicals in the diet

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: September 24, 2021

Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director and Maricel Maffini, consultant

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made no apparent progress to comply with the legal requirement that it consider the cumulative effect of chemicals in the diet that have similar health impacts when evaluating the safety of an additive. A year ago, on September 23, 2020, EDF and 11 other organizations[1] filed a formal petition with the agency documenting the problem and asking it begin complying with the law.

We reviewed FDA and industry actions since the petition was filed and found that both continued to ignore the requirement 100% of the time in:

  • Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) notices in which companies were required to consider the cumulative effect as part of their determination that a substance’s use was safe;
  • FDA’s responses to those GRAS notices where it found “no questions” with the flawed safety determinations; and
  • FDA’s revised guidance to industry on use of recycled plastics in food packaging.

The agency’s only response to our petition was a March 2021 letter saying it “has not reached a decision due to competing priorities” and that the “petition is currently under active evaluation by [its] staff.”

From what we can see, FDA and industry continue to make safety determinations about chemical additives without regard to their overall effect on individuals’ health and their legal obligations. Is it any surprise that consumers continue to rate chemicals in food their #1 food safety concern? Read More »

Posted in FDA, Food, GRAS, Health policy, PFAS / Tagged , , | Comments are closed

The science behind toxic inequities in beauty and personal care products

By Jennifer McPartland / Published: July 19, 2021

Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist with the Health Program.

Prominent incidences of environmental injustice in the public eye are typically place-based — from lead-contaminated tap water in Flint, Michigan to smokestacks lining Cancer Alley in Louisiana. For decades, communities of color and low income communities have confronted long-standing discriminatory practices and policies around land use, housing, and related issues that result in greater exposures to pollution and toxic chemicals.

While geography is a predictor of an individual’s health and well-being, environmental injustice and environmental racism extend beyond geography to include inequities in toxic exposures like in personal care product formulations. Beauty and personal care products marketed to women of color often contain more toxic ingredients than products marketed to white women. As a result, women of color are disproportionately exposed to toxic chemicals through these products. Read More »

Posted in Markets and Retail / Tagged , , , | Read 2 Responses

Beauty has a toxic equity problem. It’s time companies champion clean beauty justice.

By EDF Blogs / Published: July 14, 2021

By Boma Brown-West. This blog was originally posted on EDF+Business.

The U.S. beauty industry is under scrutiny for its use of toxic chemicals. Consumers, particularly Gen Z, are concerned about the ingredients in their beauty and personal care products and the impact they are having on their health, and are pushing the industry to clean up its act.

Companies are responding by trumpeting clean beauty commitments. From major retailers to boutique brands, the number of companies marketing “cleaner” alternatives is exploding. Today, the clean beauty industry is estimated to reach $11 billion by 2027.

While it’s encouraging to see companies work to fill the current regulatory void on safe beauty products, the majority of clean efforts are focused only on products marketed to white women. As a result, women of color don’t have the same access to safer beauty options, and are therefore facing alarming and disproportionate exposure to toxic chemicals.

Retailers and product manufacturers need to champion clean beauty justice, which will put racial equity front-and-center in their efforts to provide consumers of color with safer products. Read More »

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10 ways the incoming FDA Commissioner should protect people from toxic chemicals in food

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: April 22, 2021

Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director.

The FDA’s critical role in the COVID-19 pandemic has brought intense interest in whom President Biden will nominate to lead the agency as its new commissioner.

While COVID-19 is the priority, the FDA obviously has many vital other responsibilities. Though it doesn’t get that much attention, one of the important roles of the agency is to protect the public from unsafe chemicals in food. Frankly, their record has been disappointing, but the new administration has an opportunity to fix some key problems that scientists and doctors have been warning us about for years.

Here are ten things the new FDA Commissioner should do to keep unsafe chemicals out of our food. The list ranges from actions on specific chemicals to broader reforms.

  1. Stop letting industry decide for themselves, in secret, whether chemicals are safe and can be added to food. EDF, represented by Earthjustice, and the Center for Food Safety, have sued the agency to close the dangerous “Generally Recognized as Safe” loophole.
  2. Systematically reassess dangerous food chemicals it has allowed to be used in food based on new information. The FDA approved the use of many chemicals in food decades ago, and we now have evidence that some of these are unsafe. A chemical shouldn’t be given a forever approval. There needs to be a systematic process to review the scientific evidence, especially when new risks come to light.
  3. Ban the use of perchlorate, an ingredient in rocket fuel, from use in plastic packaging and equipment that comes into contact with food. Perchlorate gets into food, and exposure is particularly dangerous for pregnant women, infants, and young children, as it has been linked to developmental delays, reduced growth, and impaired learning abilities. We’ve sued the FDA to get this chemical out of food, and the case is pending.
  4. Comply with its 60-year-old Congressional mandate to look at the cumulative effect of chemical exposures people have when deciding whether to approve the use of related chemicals in food. EDF’s investigation of 900 approval decisions found that just one followed this common-sense mandate. The reality is that no one is exposed to just one chemical – so the agency shouldn’t be analyzing chemicals’ safety as if that were the case. FDA must respond to a petition filed by EDF and other organizations demanding that the agency follow the law and assess chemicals as classes.
  5. Drive down levels of heavy metals in food. Over the last decades, evidence has emerged of concerning levels of lead, arsenic, and cadmium in food consumed by children, such as rice, juice, and root crops like sweet potatoes and carrots. The FDA should move quickly and aggressively on its new commitment to set limits on heavy metals in food children eat and should also set limits for other food.
  6. Use modern science when evaluating if a chemical poses a health risk. The FDA is stuck in the past by relying on outdated, less accurate scientific methods and ignoring the evolving information we now know about chemical exposure. You wouldn’t insist on driving a car the Flintstones drove just because that was the first car ever.
  7. Prohibit lead from being added to materials that contact food, such as the tin that lines metal cans, and tighten limits for lead in bottled water. EDF’s analysis of FDA data found lead in 98% of certain canned fruits compared to 3% in fresh or frozen types. We’ve sent a formal petition to FDA requesting it immediately take action to ban these harmful and unnecessary uses of lead. Though it’s not a food safety issue, the FDA should also reject a challenge to its decision to ban lead acetate in hair dye. That challenge has put the FDA decision on hold, meaning that people are literally still putting lead on their head!
  8. Prohibit ortho-phthalates from being added to food packaging and processing equipment. These chemicals are known to disrupt hormones and harm brain development. The FDA is significantly overdue in meeting its legally required deadline to make a decision based on a petition from 2016 by EDF and nine other consumer, public health, and environmental groups to ban these chemicals.
  9. Be more transparent about the decisions it is making on chemicals in food. Information about FDA decisions should be publicly available without a Freedom of Information Act request and a months-long wait to learn more about agency actions on the chemicals in our food supply.
  10. Take aggressive action on harmful PFAS in food packaging and processing equipment. PFAS (Per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances) can provide water and grease resistance to paper and paperboard and can also leach into food. Growing evidence links PFAS to a wide range of serious health effects – from developmental problems to cancer. And now we know that many types of PFAS bioaccumulate in the body.
Posted in FDA, Food, GRAS, Health policy, PFAS, Public health, Regulation / Tagged , , | Comments are closed