"A segurança dos aditivos alimentares não é determinada pela FDA, mas pelos fabricantes dos próprios produtos químicos." O vídeo possui legenda em português, basta selecionar a opção na barra inferior do vídeo, lado direito.
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Texto em inglês do vídeo:
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"Who Determines if Food Additives Are Safe?"
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November, 2013, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration
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announced their plans to all but eliminate trans-fats
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from processed foods, citing a CDC statistic
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that the elimination of partially hydrogenated oils
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from the food supply could prevent more than
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10,000 heart attacks and thousands of deaths every year.
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Currently, trans-fats enjoy so called GRAS status –
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Generally Recognized As Safe.
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How did these killer fats get labeled as safe?
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Who gets to determine that?
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Currently, a generally-recognized- as-safe determination
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is made when a manufacturer of a food substance
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evaluates the safety of the substance themselves
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and concludes that the use of the substance is safe.
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Did I just read that right?...
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The company that manufactures the substance
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gets to determine if it's safe or not?
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This approach is commonly referred to as
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"GRAS self-determination".
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To make matters worse, not only do they not have to
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inform the public, they don't even have to inform the FDA!
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Eh...in a footnote they explain that...uh...
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a company may voluntarily tell the FDA–
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they just came up with a new food additive they decide as safe,
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but are not required to even do that.
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The cumulative result is that there is an estimated
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6,000 current affirmative safety decisions
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which allow for more than an estimated 10,000 substances
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In addition, an estimated 1,000 manufacturer safety decisions
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are never reported to the FDA or the public.
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Manufacturers and the trade association made the remaining decisions
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without FDA review by concluding on their own
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that the substances that they themselves were selling
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Well, manufacturers are not required to notify the FDA
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of a "safe determination".
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Sometimes they do notify the agency with a little "FYI".
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At least in those cases, where they're going public
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with their decision as to what they're putting in our food
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presumably they're being above board
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in finding some independent, third party panel.
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The objective of this study was to find out.
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Of the 451 GRAS notifications voluntarily submitted to the FDA
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22% were made by someone directly employed by the company,
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13% were made by someone directly employed
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by a firm hand-picked by the company,
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and 64% by a panel hand-picked by the corporation
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or the firm the corporation hired.
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Are you doing the math?
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Yes, that means 0% of safety decisions were made independently.
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An astonishing 100% of the members of expert panels worked directly or indirectly
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FOR the companies that manufacture the food additive in question!
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And those were just the ones the food companies told FDA about.
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And they use the same "Rent-a-Scientist" experts over and over,
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leading food industry watch dog, Marion Nestle, to ask,
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"How is it possible that the FDA permits manufacturers"
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"to decide for themselves whether their food additives are safe?"
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Maybe, it's because many of the companies
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providing our daily food are corporate giants with political muscles
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national governments would envy.
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PepsiCo alone spent more than $9 million in a single year
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The fact that food additives, like trans-fats,
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have been allowed to kill thousands of Americans
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year after year comes as less of a surprise
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to those who realize 3 of Washington's largest lobbying firms
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reportedly now work for the food industry.
