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How the FDA lets chemicals pour into America's food supply

NOLA Dude said:
The FDA's restraints on food ingredients are limited and relatively feeble, especially compared with those in Europe, a KFF Health News examination found.
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Sounds great, I think the USA should emulate European nations a LOT more.

Europeans are more intelligent and worldly than Americans, generally.
Universal Healthcare and Gun Control are another two HUGE areas where the USA could learn a lot from Europe, I agree and I'm on board!!

Nice post!
 
PeacefulWarrior said:
Sounds great, I think the USA should emulate European nations a LOT more.

Europeans are more intelligent and worldly than Americans, generally.
Universal Healthcare and Gun Control are another two HUGE areas where the USA could learn a lot from Europe, I agree and I'm on board!!

Nice post!
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You guys all have the same brain dead left wing talking points.
 
Allan said:
An allergen is not a toxin.
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Except by every definition.

An allergen is a antigenic poison of plant or animal origin...

Unless you are not an Oxford person, then we could agree, even based upon the above definition, that an allergen interrupts the normal biological functions of an organism...

I mean... in what medical training has your instructor ever told you that an allergen isn't a toxin?
 
Metric Mouse said:
mean... in what medical training has your instructor ever told you that an allergen isn't a toxin
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Allergen =\= toxin.

There is nothing toxic about avacados.

They’re perfectly safe.

But I’m allergic to avocados. To ME, they are an allergen. They create a harmful allergic reaction. That doesn’t make them a toxin. They are not poisonous or harmful - it’s MY body’s reaction to them that causes harm, not the avocado itself.
 
BirdinHand said:
Allergen =\= toxin.

There is nothing toxic about avacados.

They’re perfectly safe.

But I’m allergic to avocados. To ME, they are an allergen. They create a harmful allergic reaction. That doesn’t make them a toxin. They are not poisonous or harmful - it’s MY body’s reaction to them that causes harm, not the avocado itself.
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Yup. An allergen triggers the immune system to overreact in some people.

A toxin is harmful to everyone regardless of immune response.
 

How the FDA lets chemicals pour into America's food supply.​

Don't worry, Stable Genius and Pasty White will be shutting down the FDA soon and they won't be letting that shit happen any longer, then we can rely on the ethical and moral mandates of industry to keep that crap pout of our food supply.
 
NOLA Dude said:
Though pharmaceutical companies are required to share research on humans with the FDA, the agency is largely blind to what food-makers know about their products.

"The food industry does massive amounts of research that we have no access to," Robert Califf told a Senate committee in December on his way out as FDA commissioner.

As a result: The FDA's oversight of food additives is much weaker than its oversight of prescription drugs.

"There is good reason to be concerned about the chemicals that are routinely included in much of our food," Califf testified.

Shouldnt that be a red flag? I'm guessing they keep that information private because they know how bad the food is for us. The question is how does the FDA allow that when they are supposed to be protecting us?
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Perhaps the question should be...Should the FDA have a compliance monitoring and enforcement mechanism including the funding to assure that companies are sharing information. This would likely require an act of Congress because companies do not want the government prying into their business to that extent.

The Biden administration asked Congress for money to allow for more FDA regulation and enforcement in various areas. Congress said no.

Now Trump and DOGE are cutting FDA personnel in these areas. Did you see in the article you referenced that
"the Trump administration's initial moves to reduce staff at the FDA led the director of its food safety unit, Jim Jones, to resign last month and raised fears among food safety specialists that the administration could weaken oversight."

Do you think that will help what you want?

Trump and DOGE are not interested in protecting consumers as evidenced by their elimination of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Trump and DOGE are more interested in protecting big Republican donors.
 
NOLA Dude said:
Yet American food companies keep secret much of what they put in their products.

KFF Health News asked nine of the largest food manufacturers — The Coca-Cola Co., Conagra Brands, General Mills, Kellanova (successor to Kellogg), The Kraft Heinz Co., Mondelēz International, Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Unilever — for the number of ingredients, if any, that go unnamed on their product labels and the names of those ingredients deemed safe without involvement by the FDA, and substances used in their products in the United States but not in Europe, and vice versa.

None provided answers to those questions.

"We focus on the quality of the ingredients that we use, and all comply with applicable regulatory requirements," Nestlé spokesperson Dana Stambaugh said.


I wasnt aware of this. They can put ingredients into food and they aren't required to list all ingredients? That's crazy.

Once again, how is the FDA allowing that to happen?
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Once again the answer is in your referenced article. In this case the answer is Congress:

The biggest gap in the FDA's oversight of foods goes back generations.

In 1958, Congress mandated that, before additives could be used in foods, manufacturers had to prove they were safe and get FDA approval. However, Congress carved out an exception for substances "generally recognized as safe," which came to be known simply as GRAS.

As conceived, GRAS promised regulatory relief for standard ingredients like salt, sugar, vinegar, and baking powder — along with many chemicals.

Companies can unilaterally decide their ingredients are already recognized as safe and use them without asking the FDA for permission or even informing the agency.
 
Today I saw MAGA ask for more government regulations and the associated headcount.
 
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