by Lance Gay
Scripps Howard News Service
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it's stepping up enforcement of requirements that food manufacturers and processors label even trace amounts of food proteins that cause potentially fatal allergic reactions in some people.
"There's no level of (allergen) protein that we don't think is serious at this point," Kenneth Falci, told the Institute of Food Technologists convention meeting here. Asked if that meant there is no threshold for acceptable levels of undeclared allergens the director of the FDA's Office of Scientific Analysis said, "That is correct."
Falci said even minute amounts contained in the color, flavors or spices used in processed food should be declared on nutrition labels to warn those sensitive to these proteins of the presence of even miniscule amounts.
The high levels of food recalls show that many in the food-processing industry aren't declaring everything in their products on nutrition labels. Of the 280 FDA recalls in 1999, 92 involved undeclared allergens, mostly involving undeclared eggs, peanuts and milk. The largest segments recalled were candy and bakery or deli products with eggs in them.
Falci said the industry has to do a better job of labeling these allergens on their products. More than half of the undeclared items were found by people eating foods to which they have an allergy, while the FDA found some 31 percent of undeclared ingredients, 10 percent were found in state food testing laboratories, and three percent were uncovered by foreign testing labs. The industry itself found only 6 percent of the items recalled for improper labeling.
Roughly seven million Americans suffer from food allergies, which can cause relatively minor problems from skin blemishes to hives. Canadian researcher Jason Hlywka said others have more serious reactions--30,000 people a year are taken to hospital emergency rooms with allergic reactions, and between 100 and 300 a year die from the consequences.
Hlywka said allergies differ across geographical regions, for reasons that are unknown. In North America, there is a large percentage of the population that are allergic to peanuts, while codfish allergy is the prevailing problem in Scandinavian countries.
"There are a lot of factors yet to be determined in the allergic reactions to food," he said.
The "big eight" problem foods in the United States are milk, eggs, fish, wheat, tree nuts, legumes (including peanuts and soybeans), crustaceans and mollusks, but some people who are allergic as children seem to develop a tolerance in their older years.
Tom Trautman, a toxicologist at General Mills, said that the industry is trying to meet the needs of food-intolerant people by listing ingredients on nutrition labels, but some companies still are not aware how intolerant people are to tiny amounts of the protein and are unaware of what ingredients their suppliers put in intermediary products.
"There's been a tremendous increase in recalls in the last dozen years,'' he said. He said that no manufacturer wants to have their products go through the recall process, which can involve contacting every purchaser of the product, and on-site visits to ensure the product is taken from the shelves, and properly discarded.
"The bottom line for food companies is to do everything possible to stay out of a recall situation," Trautman said.
Some processors have adopted a policy of saying a product "may contain" allergens to reduce their liability, but the FDA's Falci warned that this could represent misleading labeling if the products are unlikely to contain the listed allergen.
The FDA has not yet approved a testing kit for determining whether allergens are present in foods because they are not yet completely reliable.
But Susan Hefle, a food scientist with the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, said some states are already using tests kits for enforcement, and ordering recalls of foods that test positive.
Resources Institute of Food Technologists
Institute of Food Technologists
221 N. LaSalle St.
Suite 300
Chicago, IL 60601-1291
Phone: 312-782-8424
Fax: 312-782-8348
Email:
info@ift.org
URL:
www.ift.org
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Rockville, MD 20857
USA
Phone: 301-827-4420
Toll Free Phone: 800-532-4440
Fax: 301-443-9767
Email:
execsec@oc.fda.gov
URL:
www.fda.gov
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