The two federal agencies responsible for food regulation may have intentionally withheld from lawmakers critical consumer research that is compellingly contrary to several provisions in the recently passed farm bill about the labelling of irradiated food, according to US consumer group Public Citizen (PC).
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Congress passed the farm bill on 8 May, which included several industry provisions that weakened the labelling of irradiated food and opened the door for manufacturers to use the “pasteurised” term. Yet research commissioned by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and withheld from lawmakers while they were crafting the bill according to PC, shows that consumers do not want irradiated food termed “pasteurised”.
“It is outrageous that government agencies responsible for public health and the safety of the food supply would withhold information so relevant to a law before it was passed,” said Wenonah Hauter, director of PC’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Programme: “This is a glaring omission at best and deceptive at worse.”
The provisions were slipped into the bill as a “technical amendment” late in the process by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who took US$192,138 in agribusiness PAC contributions in the last two election cycles (1999-2000 and 2001-2002).
Consumer research
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By GlobalDataPC explained that since 2001, the USDA and the FDA have each commissioned research into consumers’ opinions on labelling. In the FY 2002 Agriculture-FDA Appropriations bill, Congress instructed the FDA to report by 1 February 2002 on its consumer focus groups and how it planned to implement the findings. Although the FDA conducted the research in 2001, it didn’t provide Congress with the information until 18 July.
The FDA research involved six focus groups composed of seven to ten consumers each. They unanimously rejected “pasteurisation” as a replacement for “irradiation,” using phrases such as “sneaky” and “deceptive” to describe such a change in terminology.
Additionally, PC recently obtained portions of the USDA’s report on consumer attitudes on labelling. The report, compiled by an outside consulting firm, is dated 22 March 2002, yet the USDA apparently has never released the report to the public or lawmakers. The report found that consumers “consider it misleading to label irradiated meat and poultry products as ‘pasteurised’.”
According to the report, the focus groups rejected the euphemism because they “consider irradiation and pasteurisation to be two different processes”.
Hauter commented: “When you are creating rules that directly affect consumers, it’s vital that consumers be heard. We find it hard to believe that USDA didn’t know Congress was debating the very issue their new report addressed. Why would these agencies bother to ask consumers what they think if they aren’t going to inform decision-makers about the results?”
Government policy should reflect consumers
Tony Corbo, legislative representative for PC, added: “When government agencies consistently find that consumers reject the use of ‘pasteurisation’ to describe irradiation, government policies should reflect that.
“What’s even more alarming about USDA’s failure to publicise this research is how far they’ve gone to keep it from getting out. At a 5 June meeting of the USDA’s Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection, Undersecretary for Food Safety Elsa Murano denied that this research had ever been conducted.”
