Our monthly Recall Roundups have grown so expansive that we’ve had to separate them into two separate roundups: one for consumer goods, and one for consumables. In this edition of the Food and Drug roundup, dangers lurk everywhere, from uneviscerated herring to “all-natural male enhancement supplements” that are pretty much just Viagra. Yes, again. [More]
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April Food And Drug Recall Roundup – Potato Chips With Salt And Vinegar And Metal Fragments
By 4.9.13
The Secret To Delicious No-Sugar-Added Baking: Tasty, Tasty Sugar
By 3.15.13
What’s the secret to totally delicious healthy, no-sugar-added baking? Fat and sugar, of course! This re-enactment of a classic “Seinfeld” episode is brought to you by Butterfly Bakery of New Jersey, where three out of the company’s 45 varieties of baked goods were shown to contain a lot more saturated fat and sugar than the label stated. By “a lot,” we mean twice the saturated fat listed on the label, and three times the sugar. [More]
FDA Says Writing Menu Labeling Regulations That Please Everyone Is A Tough Task
By 3.12.13
If you’re hankering for a calorie count on your local restaurant chain’s menus, it’s going to be awhile: the Food and Drug Administration says it’s finding the task of writing up menu labeling regulations a very tricky one. The requirement to include calorie counts on menus and in vending machines is part of the 2010 health care law, but the rules on which businesses must comply have yet to be written. [More]
Group Calls For Limits On Sugar In Soft Drinks
By 2.13.13
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which loves to ruin everyone’s day by reminding people of all the calories and fat in the foods we enjoy, are calling on the FDA to set a safe level of added sugars in soft drinks and other sweetened beverages. [More]
Annie’s Frozen Pizzas Recalled Since Metal Shards Aren’t The Tastiest Topping
By 1.23.13
Pepperoni, onions, mushrooms, sausage, heck, we’ll even take some anchovies on my pizza over say, a crunchy metal shard. Annie’s is issuing a recall of its Annie’s Homegrown Frozen Pizza because it’s possible that a few varieties could have fragments of “flexible metal mesh.” Apparently a faulty screen at third-party flour mill is to blame for this extraneous topping. [More]
Study: 20,000 Trips To The Emergency Room In 2011 Linked To Consumption Of Energy Drinks
By 1.17.13
Following on the heels of reports linking ill health effects to energy drinks like Monster and 5-Hour Energy, a new government study says those beverages are “a rising public health problem,” and have been linked to 20,000 visits to emergency rooms around the country. [More]
FDA Says Ambien Is Making Us Too Groggy In The Morning, Requires Lower Recommended Dosages
By 1.10.13
Zolpidem, the active ingredient in prescription sleep aids Ambien, Edluar, and Zolpimist, is apparently leaving some users — especially women — groggy and impaired in the morning. Thus, the FDA is requiring the manufacturers of these drugs to lower the current recommended doses. [More]
FDA Proposes New Food Safety Rules In Wake Of Peanut & Cantaloupe Contamination
By 1.4.13
Following more than a year of ugly headlines about recalls of possibly tainted peanuts, cantaloupes, leafy greens and other food products, the Food & Drug Administration has proposed new rules aimed at making the food on our plates safer to eat. [More]
FDA Replies To Lawsuit Over Food Regulation Deadlines: Slow Your Roll, We’re Working On It
By 12.3.12
Back in January 2011, the government signed a law that said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would have to undertake an overhaul in food safety regulations, the first of its kind in about 70 years. Well, time’s been a-ticking and now a new lawsuit leveled at the agency claims the FDA has missed a bunch of deadlines required by the Food Safety Modernization Act. But the FDA says that’s not the case, it’s just that it’s a big job that it’ll take time. [More]
Processing Plant Behind Great Peanut Butter Recall Of 2012 Won’t Reopen Just Yet
By 12.3.12
The Great Peanut Butter Recall of 2012 began with a few voluntary recall notices on the shelves of Trader Joe’s, and has now escalated to the Food and Drug Administration making an unprecedented move to shut down the plant where the offending nut products were processed. [More]
5-Hour Energy Cited In Reports Of 13 Deaths
By 11.15.12
Only a few weeks after it was revealed that FDA incident reports linked Monster Energy drink to five deaths in recent years, it’s come out that the heavily advertised 5-Hour Energy “shots” have been cited in 13 deaths and dozens of hospitalizations since 2009. [More]
FDA Incident Reports Link Monster Energy Drink To Five Deaths
By 10.23.12
Last week, a mother in Maryland sued the makers of caffeine-heavy Monster Energy drink, alleging that the beverage was not only behind the death of her teen daughter, but that the company knew of possible health risks and failed to warn consumers. [More]
Why Isn’t Jif’s Natural Peanut Butter Spread Labeled Just ‘Peanut Butter?’
By 10.18.12 — Updated: 9.26.13
Kate was confused at the grocery store. Side by side on the shelf were regular old Jif peanut butter and Jif’s “natural” peanut butter. Only the “natural” stuff was labeled “peanut butter spread,” while the standard, presumably less natural, Jif got to call itself peanut butter. “It makes me wonder, what about ‘natural’ makes it less than true peanut butter?” she wrote to us. “Why does it need to be called ‘peanut butter spread’, when traditional, sugar filled, [Jif] can be called ‘peanut butter’? Shouldn’t the natural product version be truer to the genuine article?” That would be the intuitive answer, wouldn’t it? It’s the requirements of the Food and Drug Administration that keep the “natural” variety of Jif from being declared plain old peanut butter. Here’s the relevant part of the FDA standards for peanut butter: [More]
8 Horrifying Things We Learned From Bloomberg Report On Inept, Ineffective Food Inspectors
By 10.11.12
During recent mass recalls of eggs and cantaloupe because of salmonella and listeria contamination, you heard a lot about FDA inspectors not catching this or that, and “How could no one notice all that filth?” Now a new report in Bloomberg Markets Magazine sheds a huge light at the sad state of food inspection in the U.S. [More]
FDA Tells Hershey's It Has No Right To Claim Chocolate Syrup With Vitamins Is Nutritious
By 8.14.12
Listen — we all know that gooey, sweet chocolate syrup is very delicious. But nutritious? Now that is a bold claim, and one the Food and Drug Administration is warning Hershey’s not to make on its labels. It told the company in a warning letter that it can’t just go around calling things fortified and such just to make its syrup seem healthy. [More]
FDA Finally Decides That BPA Doesn’t Belong In Baby Bottles
By 7.17.12
Nearly four months after deciding not to listen to science or common sense and ban the use of controversial chemical bisphenol-A (you may call it BPA around your household) in food packaging, the Food and Drug Administration has decided that we should at least keep BPA out of the mouths of babies. [More]
FDA Approves First Pill For Preventing HIV Infections In High-Risk Patients
By 7.16.12
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a major first today, approving Truvada, a drug intended to prevent HIV infections for people at high-risk of contracting it. It’s the first pill approved to reduce the likelihood of getting HIV for people having sex with infected individuals. [More]
Shortages Force Paramedics To Use Expired Drugs
By 7.13.12
Many of us have probably popped a pill or two that we knew had passed its expiration date. But when you get medical care from professionals, there is usually the expectation that you’re getting the freshest stuff available. But a conspiracy of conditions has led to some emergency responders stocking their ambulances with out-of-date drugs. [More]
