FDA TAKES A BABY STEP TO LIMIT ARSENIC IN RICE CEREAL

The Food and Drug Administration has for the first time proposed a limit to the amount of inorganic arsenic that manufacturers can allow in infants’ rice cereal. The question is whether the new “action level” – 100 parts per billion – is low enough to protect children’s health?

Before taking action, the agency tested 76 samples of infants’ rice cereals and found that nearly half met the proposed action level. Most were at or below 110 parts per billion of inorganic arsenic, just 10 percent above the proposed limit. You can read the FDA’s full risk assessment report here.

Rice and other plants take up arsenic from soil and irrigation water, but rice absorbs much more than other crops, potentially endangering people who eat a lot of rice or rice-based foods. Arsenic exposure can lead to serious health problems, including cardiovascular and lung disease, diabetes and cancer, especially of the bladder, lungs and skin.

The FDA is particularly concerned with children’s exposure, which can be two-to-three times higher than adults’ and typically peaks when a baby is around eight months old. Studies suggest that in addition to increasing the risk of cancer, arsenic exposure during pregnancy and childhood can lower a child’s IQ.

At the 100 ppb limit in rice cereal intended for infants and young children, the FDA’s proposal mirrors the one set by the European Union in June of last year. The EU also mandated limits for white rice (200 ppb), parboiled rice and brown rice (250 ppb) and processed foods made with rice, including pasta, crackers and rice cakes (300 ppb).

Experts in arsenic and its health effects have criticized the EU limits as too high to offer meaningful protection. Healthy Child Healthy World also questions their effectiveness. At 100 ppb, the FDA’s proposed maximum is only slightly lower than the current average for baby cereals on the U.S. market. Most companies won’t need to do anything to comply.

A lower level would do more to protect infants. At 90 parts per billion, manufacturers would have to buy rice grown in less contaminated areas or mix it with other grains in order to drive down the amount of arsenic in baby cereal.

Even then, Healthy Child Healthy World recommends that parents limit the amount of rice cereal they feed babies. Here are steps parents and pregnant women can take to protect their little ones from arsenic exposure.

The FDA will accept and consider public comments on its draft proposal through July 5. Click here to tell FDA to take stronger steps to limit babies’ exposure to arsenic.

And though the FDA action focuses on baby cereal, its report highlights the serious risks of cancer for anyone who eats rice frequently. There’s no easy fix for this, but the agency’s report does confirm some good news: Cooking rice in extra water and then draining it is an effective way to lower the amount of arsenic your family consumes.

FDA-APPROVED FOOD PACKAGING EXPOSES BABIES TO TOXIC ROCKET FUEL CHEMICAL

Perchlorate, a toxic component of rocket fuel, may be harming your baby’s development – and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is allowing it to happen, even in the face of clear health hazards.

That’s why Environmental Working Group has joined the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental and public health organizations to sue the FDA for letting manufacturers use perchlorate as a food additive.

Perchlorate disrupts thyroid function and hormone production, both essential for healthy brain and organ development. At greatest risk of harm are fetuses, babies and young children.

Millions of Americans face unavoidable exposure to perchlorate in drinking water and contaminated produce and milk. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and local water utilities, particularly in California, are making major efforts to identify, regulate and clean up perchlorate in drinking water.

Yet the FDA permits manufacturers to add perchlorate to plastic packaging for powdered baby formula and foods such as rice and beans. FDA argues that perchlorate is safe in food packaging, but that position is based on a deeply flawed analysis and also ignores new science underscoring the risk.

“Banning perchlorate should be a no-brainer when you consider its threat to human health, particularly to fetal development,” said Ken Cook, co-founder and president of the Environmental Working Group. “We hope this lawsuit spurs FDA to give a new look at the science, instead of relying on its original, flawed reasoning, and to move swiftly to protect consumers from exposure to this toxic chemical.”

The Breast Cancer Fund, Center for Food Safety, Center for Environmental Health and Center for Science in the Public Interest joined EWG and NRDC in the suit, filed March 31.

The groups previously petitioned FDA to ban the use of perchlorate in food packaging, but the agency failed to respond.

FEEDING ANTIBIOTICS TO HEALTHY ANIMALS RISKS CHILDREN’S HEALTH

The influential American Academy of Pediatrics, which numbers 64,000 pediatricians, has added its voice to the growing movement of public health professionals who are demanding an end to the dangerous overuse of antibiotics in meat and poultry production.

A new technical report by Dr. Jerome A. Paulson and Dr. Theoklis E. Zaoutis of the AAP Council on Environmental Health and Committee on Infectious Diseases described how the widespread agricultural practice of dosing healthy, if overcrowded, livestock and poultry with antibiotics to induce weight gain and prevent disease has contributed to the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant microbes.

“Infants and children are affected by transmission of [antibiotic-resistant, disease-causing pathogens] through the food supply, direct contact with animals, and environmental pathways,” they wrote. “…For most [food-borne] infections, incidence was highest among children younger than 5 years.” And when antibiotics fail, these children are in a fight for their lives.

Paulson and Zaoutis took aim at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, whose guidelines urge meat producers to take voluntary measures to curb the use of antibiotics on well animals. “Because the lines between disease prevention and growth promotion are not always clear,” they wrote, “the current FDA policy may allow drug manufacturers to continue using ambiguous language on labels of antibiotic drugs.”

“The message is to change the practice of agribusiness, either through government changes or marketplace changes, so everybody is safer,” Paulson told CBS News. “I think if people vote with their pocketbooks, then industry will be required to change. Hopefully the USDA and the FDA will require them to change. I think this is something that with a large enough movement in society, the industry will be forced to change.”

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria cause about 23,000 deaths and 2 million illnesses in the U.S. each year, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And about one in five antibiotic-resistant infections are caused by germs from food and animals.

The public community’s demands for action intensified recently, when, according to the Reuters news agency, Chinese scientists reported that they had discovered a new “superbug” gene in people and pigs that could render useless “last resort” antibiotics called polymyxins. Medical professionals consider polymyxins, widely used in agriculture, the last line of defense against certain antibiotic-resistant pathogens that cause serious illness in humans.

What can families do reduce their risk?

Take antibiotics only when necessary and use them precisely as instructed by your doctor. Click here to learn more tips from the CDC about antibiotics use.

Children, who are especially vulnerable to pathogens, can be exposed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria by eating contaminated meat or through contact with the animals. Treat all meat as if it is contaminated: cook it thoroughly and avoid cross-contamination in the kitchen.

When shopping for meat, look for labels that confirm no antibiotics have been used on healthy animals. These include:

USDA Certified Organic

Certified Humane

Animal Welfare Approved

American Grassfed Association

Food Alliance Certified – Grassfed

Global Animal Partnership

When dining out, ask restaurants where they buy their meat and their suppliers’ antibiotics policies. Some fast food chains such as Panera have already begun serving meat exclusively from animals that have not been treated with antibiotics.