The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed stricter limits on levels of lead in infant food products. The agency announced draft guidance for manufacturers that would lower allowable lead levels in processed foods meant for infants and children 2 years and younger. The change could reduce dietary exposure to lead, which can cause neurological and developmental harm, the FDA said. “For more than 30 years, the FDA has been working to reduce exposure to lead, and other environmental contaminants, from foods. This work has resulted in a dramatic decline in lead exposure from foods since the mid-1980s,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said in an agency news release. “The proposed action levels announced today, along with our continued work with our state and federal partners, and with industry and growers to identify mitigation strategies, will result in long-term, meaningful and sustainable reductions in the exposure to this contaminant from foods,” he added. The proposed limits could reduce lead exposure for babies who eat these foods by as much as 24% to 27%, Califf said. The move is part an ongoing push by the FDA to reduce exposure to lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury to the lowest levels possible in foods eaten by babies and young children — a program it calls Closer to Zero. Tuesday’s proposal would apply to baby foods sold in jars,…  read on >  read on >

Pregnant women hear a lot of “Do this” and “Don’t do that” advice about what is safe to eat. But one recommendation that’s particularly important involves seafood: During pregnancy, women need to eat enough seafood to gain the health benefits, but not so much to raise the risk of some significant consequences. They also need to be careful about how the fish they eat is prepared. “Fish is an important source of nutrients, and its consumption should not be avoided,” said Dr. Vaia Lida Chatzi, an associate professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC), who led a study published in the journal JAMA Network Open. “But pregnant women should stick to one to three servings of fish a week as recommended, and not eat more, because of the potential contamination of fish by mercury and other persistent organic pollutants,” Chatzi advised. Eating fish during pregnancy The benefits of omega-3 fatty acids found in certain fish are notable. These nutrients are credited with a lot of health gains — during and outside of pregnancy. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration notes that one of the nutrients found in fish, choline, supports development of the baby’s spinal cord and cognitive development. In the USC study on the health benefits of fish in pregnancy, the researchers found that…  read on >  read on >

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday asked its vaccine advisory panel to weigh a proposal to turn COVID vaccines into an annual shot for most Americans. Such a move would simplify future vaccination efforts, a critical point given the fact that efforts to get people to get COVID booster shots have fallen far short of expectations. While over 80% of Americans have had at least one dose of the original COVID-19 vaccine, only 16% of those over the age of 5 have gotten the updated booster shots that were approved last August, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The committee will consider the FDA proposal at its Jan. 26 meeting. If it recommends the concept be turned into policy and the agency follows those recommendations, COVID shots would likely become much like annual flu shots. In documents filed with the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, the FDA noted that “the totality of the available evidence on prior exposure to and vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 suggests that, moving forward, most individuals may only need to receive one dose of an approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccine to restore protective immunity for a period of time.” Who might need more than one dose per year? For the very young, seniors and the immunocompromised, the agency noted that two doses may be…  read on >  read on >

MONDAY, Jan. 23, 2023 (HealthDay News) – Trouble continues for Abbott Laboratories, which shut down an infant formula plant last year amid reported illnesses. The U.S. Department of Justice is now investigating the company, though Abbott did not say specifically what the investigation is covering, NBC News reported. “DOJ has informed us of its investigation and we’re cooperating fully,” an Abbott spokesperson said in a statement. The DOJ has declined to comment, NBC News reported. In February 2022, Abbott’s plant in Sturgis, Mich., was shut down after reports that four infants who had consumed formula made at the plant became ill. Two of the infants died. The cause was a rare bacteria, Cronobacter sakazakii. An investigation did not find the source of the bacteria. Abbott has said there was no genetic match between the infants who became ill and the formula, citing internal testing, NBC News reported. The company also said it had not found the bacteria in any of its products. Federal investigators could not definitively identify the source of the bacteria either, NBC News reported. During the Abbott plant shutdown, the country faced a shortage of infant formula before Similac, Alimentum and EleCare production restarted in June. Abbott worked with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to bring its facility into compliance. The FDA said at that time, “the government alleges that powdered…  read on >  read on >

FRIDAY, Jan. 20, 2023 (HealthDay News) – Organic food will soon have to comply with stricter labeling rules under new requirements announced Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). In what the Organic Trade Organization (OTA) called the biggest change since the USDA’s organic program was first founded in 1990, the new requirements include that all imported organic food be certified by the USDA National Organic Program. The rule increases certification of more supply chain businesses, and boosts authority for inspections, record-keeping, traceability and fraud prevention. The rule also builds on the USDA’s definitions for organic food, which must use “natural substances and physical, mechanical or biologically based farming methods to the fullest extent possible.” The new program will start in March, and companies must comply within a year. The OTA had lobbied for the changes and said in a statement the regulation “will do much to deter and detect organic fraud and protect organic integrity throughout the supply chain.” Organic food does big business in the United States, where customers spent $63 billion in 2021 for food free of pesticides and contaminants, the Associated Press reported. Working to ensure customers were getting what they paid for, the U.S. Department of Justice recently indicted those alleged to have been involved in a multimillion-dollar fraud operation to export non-organic grain to the United States with…  read on >  read on >

When it comes to weight loss, what seems to matter most is how often and how much you eat, rather than when you eat. That’s the conclusion of a new study that focused on the eating habits of about 550 adults. For six months, all were asked to use a phone app to report both the timing and size of all their meals. “What we found is that, on average, the more meals people ate throughout the day, or the more large meals they ate throughout the day, the more likely they were to gain weight over time,” said study author Dr. Wendy Bennett. By contrast, “eating more small meals during the day was associated with more weight loss,” added Bennett, an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in Baltimore. They found no link between when in the day people ate and any change in their weight. Bennett stressed that the findings do not speak to the pros and cons of intermittent fasting, a popular dietary practice that involves abstaining from eating for fixed periods of time. That’s because “we didn’t know people’s intentions,” she explained. “We really just followed everyday free-living people, without asking anyone to change their behavior, and without knowing who did or did not want to lose weight.” So, she noted, “We can’t draw any conclusions about…  read on >  read on >