The Heart of the Matter
The Food and Drug Administration, the federal protector of public health, and the American Heart Assn., a private charity dedicated to fighting heart disease, are engaged in a nasty spat over food labeling. The heart association has started giving its seal of approval to certain products that meet its health guidelines for fat, cholesterol and sodium content. The FDA is threatening “regulatory action” to stop the program, a warning that has prompted the AHA temporarily to suspend expanding its efforts. There’s a lot involved here, including big bucks and a battle over turf, but the most important issue of all may be in danger of being ignored: What is best for consumers.
For years, congressional committees, the U.S. surgeon general and a host of private and publicly funded studies have told Americans that what they eat can have a lot to do with how vulnerable they might be to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and even certain cancers. Those who have most closely studied the connection between diet and disease say the evidence is overwhelming that Americans would be better off if they cut back on fats, cholesterol, salt and sugar. But it’s often hard for consumers to find out which food products, among the thousands offered to them through advertising, on supermarket shelves and in restaurants, might be more health-promoting.
The heart association, seeing a great void, moved to fill it. Too bad that there are two big problems with its approach. First, it charges food processors a lot--anywhere from $15,000 to $640,000, depend- ing on a product’s market share--for its seal of approval, which inevitably raises unwelcome questions about its selflessness. Second, it won’t reveal how it sets guidelines for each category of food it tests.
If nothing else, the AHA-FDA controversy has spotlighted a failure long in need of remedy. In the light of all the evidence that links diet with diseases, consumers have the right and the need to know as much as possible about what they’re eating. Preferably that information should come from the government. The trouble is that the FDA continues to resist this new regulatory obligation. Here, though, is clearly a public-health issue of first importance. Isn’t it time for the government finally to accept its responsibility?
