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Resource Library / Toxic Chemicals

Letter to Chairman Frank Pallone About Holding a Congressional Hearing on Toxics in Food, February 23, 2022

Letter

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Date: February 23, 2022

To: The Honorable Frank Pallone, Chairman Committee on Energy & Commerce 2125 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515

CC: Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee

Dear Chairman Pallone,

On behalf of the below named organizations and the public health, environmental health, women’s and children’s health, environmental protection and other groups we represent, we urge you to hold a hearing on the safety of food chemicals.

Chemicals in food continue to be a top food safety concern among consumers, according to the latest annual survey from the International Food Information Council (IFIC). Consumers are concerned with good reason. Every day, the public is consuming harmful chemicals that have been added directly to food, or migrate into our food from packaging, or that come into food via environmental contamination. These substances threaten health and the healthy development of our children. Chemicals like PFAS, perchlorate, phthalates, and heavy metals are present in the everyday foods we feed our families. Many of these chemicals are linked to serious health problems, including harm to the brain, heart disease, breast and other cancers, and harm to our reproductive and immune systems. Given that communities of color and low income communities are disproportionately exposed to harmful chemicals from multiple sources,1 we are concerned that the exposures from food may constitute an additional impact on their health.

Unfortunately, consumers cannot be confident that the federal government is ensuring the safety of chemicals that end up in our food, either as additives or as contaminants. For example, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows companies to secretly decide that additives are safe, fails to fully consider the cumulative health effect of chemicals in the diet, and lacks any systematic reassessment of past decisions even when new evidence shows potential harm. Until these problems are addressed, consumer’s lack of confidence in both the Congressional and FDA oversight of food safety will continue.

Despite growing evidence that PFAS is toxic at very low levels, the FDA continues to allow PFAS to be used in food packaging despite evidence that PFAS will migrate into the food we eat. The FDA has not yet banned the use of phthalates in food packaging, while evidence continues to be published that phthalates migrate into food from contact materials and disrupt the endocrine system essential to our health. Further, a report last year by Congressional investigators found high levels of toxic heavy metals in baby food, but the FDA will not set mandatory standards for these metals until 2024 or later.

In response, members of the House have introduced several bills and we urge you to hold a hearing to consider these bills and other food safety and labeling bills, including your Food Labeling Modernization Act of 2021 (H.R. 4917). In particular, we urge you to include:

  • The Food Chemical Reassessment Act of 2021 (H.R. 4694, Schakowsky D-IL)
    • This bill addresses the outdated science used by the FDA over the years to approve scores of food additives and food contact materials that pose a threat to human health and the environment by directing the FDA to review and reassess the safety of a minimum of 10 chemicals every 3
  • The Toxic Free Food Act of 2021 (H.R. 3699, DeLauro D-CT)
    • This bill closes the loophole that lets chemical companies decide in secret if food additives are safe for food use without notifying FDA through the self- certification program known as ‘Generally Recognized As ’
  • The Keep Food Containers Safe from PFAS Act of 2021 (H.R. 6026, Dingell D-MI)
    • This bill would prohibit food packaging with any per and poly-fluorinated ‘non- stick’
  • The Baby Food Safety Act of 2021 (H.R. 2229, Krishnamoorthi D-IL)
    • This bill would get highly toxic heavy metals out of baby food and protect babies’ vulnerable developing

In the interest of public health and the need to let science guide our decisions, we urge you to hold a public hearing on these important food safety bills.

Sincerely,

Able Differently
Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment
Breast Cancer Prevention Partners
Center for Environmental Health
Center for Food Safety
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Citizens Alliance for a Sustainable Englewood (CASE)
Clean Label Project Foundation
Clean Production Action
Clearya
Consumer Federation of America
Consumer Reports
Courage California
Defend Our Health
Dr. Yolanda Whyte Pediatrics
Earthjustice
Educate.Advocate
Environmental Defense Fund
Environmental & Public Health Consulting
Environmental Working Group
Farmworker Association of Florida
Food and Water Watch
Friends of the Earth
Greenpeace USA
Healthy Babies Bright Futures
Learning Disabilities Association of Connecticut
Learning Disabilities Association of Michigan
Mamavation
Moms Clean Air Force
National Association of Environmental Medicine (NAEM)
Nontoxic Certified / MADE SAFE
North Carolina Child
Parents Together Action
Plastic Free Delaware
Plastic Pollution Coalition
The Last Plastic Straw
Turtle Island Restoration Network
Women’s Voices for the Earth

1 Nguyen VK, Kahana A, Heidt J, Polemi K, Kvasnicka J, Jolliet O, Colacino JA. A comprehensive analysis of racial disparities in chemical biomarker concentrations in United States women, 1999-2014. Environ Int. 2020 Apr;137:105496. A comprehensive analysis of racial disparities in chemical biomarker concentrations in United States women, 1999–2014 (nih.gov)

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