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January 2010

Restrict Food Product Nutritional Claims

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  • Restrict Food Nutritional Claims
    Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
    As consumers are becoming more health conscious, major food manufacturers are increasing their use of health benefit claims to market their products. Unfortunately, many of these claims are either misleading or unfounded or both. They are leading to problems for products with legitimate claims of nutritional benefits. The Center For Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is campaigning for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to tighten restrictions on health claims by all food and supplement manufacturers in order to protect the “uninformed consumer” from health claims that are not “scientifically supported.” Could this be a good thing, or could the pendulum swing too far the other direction? Some people are concerned that the U.S. could end up with rules similar to those being adopted in Europe, where even a doctor is not allowed to educate patients about “unapproved” nutritional information.

    Currently in the U.S., only a drug company selling an FDA-approved drug is allowed to make the claim that a product will help prevent or treat a health condition or disease. Food and dietary supplement product manufacturers have the option to present nutritional information as long as they use the qualifying “may” in the text. This option is what the campaign wants to eliminate.

    The FDA and CSPI seem to be in agreement that food, supplements, and drugs should all be treated the same. If they get their way, food and dietary supplements would be required to go through a very expensive approval process (up to $1 billion for a single product) to give us some idea of the nutritional and health correlation for their products. Manufacturers of non-patentable food or supplement products cannot afford to pay for expensive approvals for inexpensive, competitive products. With only drug-related health benefit information allowed, consumers could end up having only scientific journals as their source for learning about the health benefits of foods and supplements. Is this too drastic a solution?

    This issue was selected because of the lack of media coverage for what might be a significant loss in your access to nutritional information. You have the right to be aware of what is developing. There is very little attention being paid to this issue in the U.S., even on the Internet. Here is a bit on each side of the issue.

    You are invited--no urged to join the conversation! Post new current website articles you locate. Register your opinions on this issue.
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