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FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

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Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#91

Post by infecto »

jurassicfoxy wrote: post #83
infecto wrote: post #73

I think this is a sham and the FDA is overstepping. 0.2% of the population have sesame allergies. Maybe its higher the recent numbers I saw from a government study gave this number.

Isn't it about establishing a framework that people can trust, and closing loopholes? Just because the specifics are about sesame seeds, isn't that how the law works? Some stupid specific case forms the groundwork for the entire system?

I don’t know honestly. I understand the spirit of it but I also don’t believe a factory should have to be serve markets that it chooses not too. My point which I did not get to very well is that I think the FDA is in a weird spot. I understand their side but I also wonder how a bakery can legally and with the spirit of the law decide to not serve customers with allergies.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#92

Post by [deleted] »

starttoaster wrote: post #36
utensil4778 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about sesame. Last year or so, the FDA changed the rules about sesame as an allergen. Some bakeries then decided to just slap "may contain traces of sesame" on everything so they didn't have to pay the cost of actually ensuring there's no cross-contamination. This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame. Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually con…

> It was a clear and flagrant abuse of the "may contain traces" mechanism. The bakeries caused harm for consumers as a way to avoid the coats of doing business safely. In the exact same way that every product ever invented may cause cancer in California, I assume? This is a problem with the FDA, not the companies. Give a dog a long leash, they're going to use the slack.

[deleted]

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#93

Post by samtho »

umvi wrote: post #58
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes sense from a practical standpoint, but from a litigative standpoint not having the warning label on those products with allergens exposes the company to liability. I also suspect that if there is an incident, this company might be able to have the government found liable for preventing it from warning customers.

Seems to have worked for gluten, at least. i.e. Consumers look for "gluten free" labelling rather than "This product contains gluten" labelling. If I were the FDA I'd standardize the nutrition label to have a clearly labelled allergen section in which you can reliably use to check that the product is free of X allergen. Of course a naive implementation of this would mean that water bottles and stuff will have a big l…

“Gluten free” is a little different because gluten is a protein not only found in wheat, but also wheat derivatives like spelt, semolina, graham, and other grains like barley, rye, and malt.

This is different from a wheat allergy, in fact, its also not an “allergen” in the same way that peanuts are (digestive problems vs anaphylaxis), and would probably be better classified as an intolerance similar to lactose (which is covered by milk but is also an indirect indicator of lactose that can be a false positive because lactose free milk exists).

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#94

Post by derbOac »

starttoaster wrote: post #36
utensil4778 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about sesame. Last year or so, the FDA changed the rules about sesame as an allergen. Some bakeries then decided to just slap "may contain traces of sesame" on everything so they didn't have to pay the cost of actually ensuring there's no cross-contamination. This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame. Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually con…

> It was a clear and flagrant abuse of the "may contain traces" mechanism. The bakeries caused harm for consumers as a way to avoid the coats of doing business safely. In the exact same way that every product ever invented may cause cancer in California, I assume? This is a problem with the FDA, not the companies. Give a dog a long leash, they're going to use the slack.

This was on my mind a lot when reading the article.

I'm not sure how I feel about this all.

The problem with the cancer-causing substance labels is some companies are saying their products contain cancer-causing substances when they clearly do not. At this point the label almost doesn't mean anything anymore because you can't tell if they're just putting it on there to prevent lawsuits, or because it actually does. So I could see a regulatory agency issuing fines for false labeling. It dilutes the meaning of the labeling.

On the other hand, if there is a company where some contaminants might be present, and they don't want to bother selling their products to people with allergens, I can see why they might be honest and say something like "this product may contain X" or "this product was manufactured in a facility where X is sometimes present". It's sloppy in terms of allergen cross-contamination but I can respect their decision to be sloppy and honest.

The tricky part is when one morphs into the other, or where you draw the line.

As an exercise, consider a company that just prints on its ingredients label "this product may contain..." and then just lists all the ingredients of all the products they make, or might be in the facility. That too would be abusing ingredients labels but would in fact technically be true. At some point someone has to call nonsense and where that is I'm not sure.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#95

Post by autoexec »

floxy wrote: post #90
autoexec wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the FDA got this one wrong and it's just better to have companies add the allergen than just put on a "maybe" label. The problem with making it okay to just put a "this may or may not kill you" label on products is that more and more companies will do it just to shield themselves from liability regardless of what is in their foods (it's cheaper to add a label and not add an unnecessary ingredient than to…

>Repeated exposure can increase severity and sensitivity Where can one learn more about this? I thought allergy immunotherapy was about repeated exposure to the allergen. I'm not up to speed on allergies. Does anyone know how many sesame related allergy deaths there are in the U.S.? https://www.aaaai.org/tools-for-the-public/latest-research-s...

" Upon repeated exposure the severity of the reaction may increase." (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...)

"After primary sensitization, the allergic immune response is boosted with repeated exposure" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4414527/)

Lots of other things can effect sensitivity/severity too including age, stress, hormones, etc.

That's why if you're going to try to increase your tolerance to something you're allergic to through exposure it should always be done under the care of a doctor who will explain the risks, including the risk that your allergy becomes worse and your sensitivity to it higher. If the exposure isn't being done under observation you'll likely be given an epi pen. Desensitization therapy can help some people, but because of the risks it's often done for people who already have severe reactions and it can require a potentially lifelong commitment to taking some daily amount of the allergen in order to keep the benefits. It's not for everyone, but I wouldn't tell someone not to at least look into it with their doctor, especially with foods that are very hard to avoid.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#96

Post by KennyBlanken »

infecto wrote: post #72
utensil4778 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about sesame. Last year or so, the FDA changed the rules about sesame as an allergen. Some bakeries then decided to just slap "may contain traces of sesame" on everything so they didn't have to pay the cost of actually ensuring there's no cross-contamination. This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame. Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually con…

> It was a clear and flagrant abuse of the "may contain traces" mechanism. The bakeries caused harm for consumers as a way to avoid the coats of doing business safely. My view is that the business should be able to decide who they want to service or not. According to recent US studies, 0.2% of the population have a noticeable allergy to sesame. Seems like bakeries don't want to invest money for such a small percentag…

[flagged]

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#97

Post by Molitor5901 »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #81
starttoaster wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn't write a more perfect allegory for what has already happened due to California's Proposition 65. The common denominator here is that the government gives companies new rules to follow, and enforces severe penalties for breaking them, and so the companies minimized their risk by following them to the extreme. It's almost like if you want a different outcome, the government agencies involved need to step up…

The common denominator here is that the government gives companies new rules to follow, and enforces severe penalties for breaking them, and so the companies minimized their risk by following them to the extreme. Hardly. Prop 65 initially contained minimal guidance and essentially no teeth. So rather than identify problematic chemicals companies just slapped generic Prop 65 warnings on everything. architecting these…

Prop 65 DOES contain teeth, of the worst possible kind. It works by an attorney finding a product without a Prop 65 label. Then the law firm sends a demand to the state that the product have the Prop 65 label. If the state does not take action, then the law firm may take private action by suing the company to force them to have the label, and get all of their legal expenses paid for by the state. It's lead to an entire industry of attorneys suing just to get the attorneys fees.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#98

Post by nox101 »

alwa wrote: post #28
edwinjm wrote: post #11

You can just label it as "might contain traces of X due to cross contamination". At least that's how they do it in Europe.

That seems to be the problem. New regulations [0] would require expensive measures to prevent cross-contamination if your label says that your product carries a risk of cross-contamination. But it's not "contamination" if it's an ingredient, so if one thing in your factory has sesame in it, you're better off adding a tiny bit of sesame to everything else than you would be scouring the whole line between products. Pre…

And, if all the big companies only make things with allergens, then a market appears for allergen free products that some company will see an opportunity and fill.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#99

Post by flutas »

Molitor5901 wrote: post #22
brookst wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California proposition 65 is the classic example. Since it requires buildings to warn visitors if they contain cancer-causing substances, and since no landlord can possibly know every substance that even tenant or visitor might have, every building has a "this building may or may not contain cancer-causing substances" placard. It's surreal and awesome.

My favorite is the Marriott in downtown Monterey. This building may contain substances which is known ... Utter crap.

My favorite one is in Anaheim.

Everyone ready for a trip to the happiest place on earth?

One of the first things you see walking in...

> The Disneyland Resort contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

https://i.redd.it/utw067xgroh11.jpg

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#100

Post by fargle »

utensil4778 wrote: post #29
Molitor5901 wrote: post #15

This seems like splitting hairs on the part of the FDA. FDA officials acknowledged Tuesday that statements that a product “may contain” certain allergens “could be considered truthful and not misleading.” Bimbo officials have until July 8 to identify steps taken to remedy the issue — or to explain why the labeling doesn't violate FDA standards. So a baker.. who adds (insert allergy ingredient here), in minute quantit…

This is about sesame. Last year or so, the FDA changed the rules about sesame as an allergen. Some bakeries then decided to just slap "may contain traces of sesame" on everything so they didn't have to pay the cost of actually ensuring there's no cross-contamination. This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame. Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually con…

> This is about sesame.

yes!

> This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame.

maybe. more like: "This may have slightly annoyed..."

> It was a clear and flagrant abuse of the "may contain traces" mechanism.

nope. absolutely not. the did not say "may" they apparently said "contains". but what do you want them to do if there's a 0.0001% chance of two particles of sesame in a product?

> The bakeries caused harm

nope. the FDA caused harm for consumers by regulatory overreach

the result will be one of three things:

1. FDA redrafts the sesame rule to define what is cross-contamination and what is not in a realistic way that bakers will agree to abide by and doesn't have these counter-productive side-effects.

2. Bimbo stops saying "contains sesame" and starts saying "may contain sesame" (the FDA officials acknowledged Tuesday that statements that a product "may contain” certain allergens "could be considered truthful and not misleading.")

3. Bimbo actually adds a tiny bit of sesame as other bakers did and keeps the packaging verbiage the same.

which one is least unhelpful to the 0.2% of people with sesame allergies?

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