By Guest Blogger Joel Dahlgren Last week the Justice Department and U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that the two federal agencies will hold joint public workshops to explore competition issues affecting agriculture in the 21st century, including the appropriate role of the federal government in antitrust and regulatory enforcement. The first workshop will be held … Continue Reading
U.S. House of Representatives approved HR 2749 moments ago. This action followed some confusion yesterday where it was brought to the floor needing a 2/3 vote and failed. Here’s a link to a report by the Rules Committee including the language of the bill as approved today by the House. Changes to the bill from … Continue Reading
The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) is taking aim at an advertising campaign for Eco Canteen stainless steel water bottles, claiming the ads wrongly suggest that plastic water bottles are unhealthy and unsafe. In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, IBWA claims that Eco Canteen’s television … Continue Reading
Last week, members of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce released a discussion draft of the “Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.” The draft proposes beefing up the FDA registry of “all food facilities serving American consumers” and charging every facility $1,000 per year to fund FDA food safety activities. … Continue Reading
A lawsuit claiming that McDonald’s deceived the public about ingredients in its french fries and hash browns will not proceed as a class action. A federal judge in Chicago has denied the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification, characterizing the proposed class and subclasses as “too indefinite and overbroad.” According to the court’s opinion, the potato suppliers … Continue Reading
Dr. Margaret Hamburg, President Barack Obama’s nominee to oversee the Food and Drug Administration, is appearing before a U.S. Senate committee this afternoon regarding her nomination. The confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee began at 2:00 p.m. ET. Streaming video is available here. The Associated Press is reporting that, if confirmed, one … Continue Reading
A Michigan maker of frozen pasta products has issued a recall for products that were distributed to seven states. Canton, Mich.-based Mucci Food Products is recalling an undetermined amount of frozen meat and poultry pasta products because the food was prepared without federal inspection. The products were produced from May 1, 2008 to April 24, 2009 … Continue Reading
Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is expected to introduce legislation today to strengthen U.S. food safety. Newsday.com is reporting that Sen. Schumer’s bill will call for a director of food safety oversight who would be a senior-level director at the Department of Commerce. The proposed director would focus exclusively on food safety.… Continue Reading
Cereal maker Kellogg Company has entered into a consent agreement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to settle charges that certain Kellogg advertisements contain false or misleading statements. At issue in the FTC’s complaint are statements from Kellogg’s advertising that eating a bowl of Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal for breakfast is clinically shown to improve … Continue Reading
An update to a case we’ve been following: the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit involving state-law claims over methylmercury content in canned tuna. The Supreme Court’s order in Tri-Union Seafoods, LLC v. Fellner leaves in place the Third Circuit’s ruling that … Continue Reading
UPDATE to the Salmonella-driven peanut product recall: as the number of peanut products recalled continues to rise, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has created a Web widget that allows users to search for peanut-containing product recalls (see below). The FDA updates the list as it receives new information from companies that have recalled products. As … Continue Reading
By Guest Blogger Bryan Anderson The maker of Chicken of the Sea products has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant certiorari in a case we reported on involving preemption of state-law tort claims. In August 2008, the Third Circuit in Fellner v. Tri-Union Seafoods, LLC reversed the district court and held that Food and … Continue Reading
The U.S. Supreme Court signaled last week that it may review a California Supreme Court decision finding that federal law does not preempt claims for violations of state consumer protection laws concerning “selling artificially colored farmed salmon without disclosing to . . . customers the use of color additive.” Following a petition for certiorari filed … Continue Reading
