quarta-feira, 12 de fevereiro de 2014

Quem determina se aditivos alimentares são seguros?

"A segurança dos aditivos alimentares não é determinada pela FDA, mas pelos fabricantes dos próprios produtos químicos."

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Texto em inglês do vídeo:


0:00
"Who Determines if Food Additives Are Safe?"
0:07
November, 2013, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration
0:10
announced their plans to all but eliminate trans-fats
0:13
from processed foods, citing a CDC statistic
0:16
that the elimination of partially hydrogenated oils
0:19
from the food supply could prevent more than
0:21
10,000 heart attacks and thousands of deaths every year.
0:24
Currently, trans-fats enjoy so called GRAS status –
0:28
Generally Recognized As Safe.
0:30
How did these killer fats get labeled as safe?
0:33
Who gets to determine that?
0:35
Currently, a generally-recognized- as-safe determination
0:40
is made when a manufacturer of a food substance
0:42
evaluates the safety of the substance themselves
0:45
and concludes that the use of the substance is safe.
0:48
Did I just read that right?...
0:51
The company that manufactures the substance
0:54
gets to determine if it's safe or not?
0:57
This approach is commonly referred to as
1:00
"GRAS self-determination".
1:02
To make matters worse, not only do they not have to
1:05
inform the public, they don't even have to inform the FDA!
1:09
Eh...in a footnote they explain that...uh...
1:12
a company may voluntarily tell the FDA–
1:16
they just came up with a new food additive they decide as safe,
1:19
but are not required to even do that.
1:22
The cumulative result is that there is an estimated
1:26
6,000 current affirmative safety decisions
1:29
which allow for more than an estimated 10,000 substances
1:32
to be used in food.
1:33
In addition, an estimated 1,000 manufacturer safety decisions
1:37
are never reported to the FDA or the public.
1:40
Manufacturers and the trade association made the remaining decisions
1:44
without FDA review by concluding on their own
1:47
that the substances that they themselves were selling
1:50
were safe...
1:52
Well, manufacturers are not required to notify the FDA
1:55
of a "safe determination".
1:57
Sometimes they do notify the agency with a little "FYI".
2:01
At least in those cases, where they're going public
2:05
with their decision as to what they're putting in our food
2:07
presumably they're being above board
2:09
in finding some independent, third party panel.
2:12
The objective of this study was to find out.
2:15
Of the 451 GRAS notifications voluntarily submitted to the FDA
2:20
22% were made by someone directly employed by the company,
2:24
13% were made by someone directly employed
2:27
by a firm hand-picked by the company,
2:30
and 64% by a panel hand-picked by the corporation
2:33
or the firm the corporation hired.
2:36
Are you doing the math?
2:38
Yes, that means 0% of safety decisions were made independently.
2:43
An astonishing 100% of the members of expert panels worked directly or indirectly
2:50
FOR the companies that manufacture the food additive in question!
2:53
100%!
2:55
And those were just the ones the food companies told FDA about.
2:59
And they use the same "Rent-a-Scientist" experts over and over,
3:04
leading food industry watch dog, Marion Nestle, to ask,
3:08
"How is it possible that the FDA permits manufacturers"
3:11
"to decide for themselves whether their food additives are safe?"
3:16
Maybe, it's because many of the companies
3:20
providing our daily food are corporate giants with political muscles
3:24
national governments would envy.
3:26
PepsiCo alone spent more than $9 million in a single year
3:32
to lobby Congress.
3:34
The fact that food additives, like trans-fats,
3:36
have been allowed to kill thousands of Americans
3:38
year after year comes as less of a surprise
3:42
to those who realize 3 of Washington's largest lobbying firms
3:46
reportedly now work for the food industry.

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