On December 19, the European Commission officially adopted a sweeping ban on the use of Bisphenol A (BPA), as well as some other bisphenols considered harmful, in all food contact materials. Industry will be allowed an 18-month transition period.
In the debut installment of the Food Safety Five Newsreel, we discuss an ongoing multistate outbreak of Escherichia coli infections linked to onions served at McDonald’s restaurants. The episode also takes a look at legislation passed in California that marks the country’s first mandatory food date labeling reforms.
Recently signed into law, California Assembly Bill 660 standardizes the use of “Best if Used By” and “Use By” dates on food labels, and prohibits the use of “Sell By” and other, inconsistently used dates.
In the wake of the California School Food Safety Act, on October 11, the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) will hold a free, publicly available webinar discussing how consumer concerns about artificial food coloring are influencing policies and shaping the regulatory future of food additives.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s Toxic Free Food Act would require the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to overhaul the “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) process, calling it a “loophole” that allows substances to secretly enter the food supply without adequate safety review.
Senator Cory Booker’s Safe School Meals Act proposes widespread reforms that would reduce the presence of toxic heavy metals, pesticides, artificial food dyes, and chemicals in school lunches, and would mandate research to progress remediation methods for environmental contaminants polluting farms.
Recently introduced to U.S. Congress, the Federal and State Food Safety Information Sharing Act aims to grant the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to share crucial food safety information with state and local regulatory agencies to improve foodborne illness outbreak response.
The California Assembly has passed a bill requiring an expedited review of paraquat, an herbicide linked to human health harms. It is used on food crops like almonds and pistachios.
The California Assembly has passed AB 2316, named the California School Food Safety Act, which aims to ban six potentially toxic synthetic food dyes from foods sold or offered at public schools. The bill now awaits signature into law by Governor Gavin Newsom.
