Rules for Food Nutrition Claims Urged : Health: The FDA seeks to curb the increasing use of often unjustified messages promoting the value of products.

The Food and Drug Administration has proposed a stringent set of rules governing the use of health claims on food labels and advertising, ending nearly six years of confusion over how companies may promote the health value of their products.

By narrowing standards for what is permissible and strengthening the FDA’s legal authority to act against misleading claims, the rules could curtail a trend in food marketing that has resulted in almost 40% of new products and a third of the $3.6 billion in food advertising over the last year featuring health-related messages.

Most such messages are intended to make the consumer think that eating the product will reduce the risk of heart disease or cancer.

The regulations, which will be published next week in the Federal Register, were criticized by food industry officials, who said they would require health claims to meet an unrealistic standard of scientific proof and would hinder the ability of manufacturers to give consumers new information about nutrition.

But several consumer activists and nutritionists, who have been fighting for a clarification of the federal position on health claims for food, welcomed the proposals, which they said make it easier for consumers to make intelligent choices.

Federal policy on health claims has been in limbo since 1984, when Kellogg’s placed a message on its All Bran cereal noting the scientific evidence linking a high fiber diet to a reduction in colon cancer. Although the move was in apparent defiance of a longstanding FDA rule prohibiting all health-related messages on food products, the agency did not act.

Under mounting pressure from industry, the FDA abandoned its rule in 1987, moving to fairly liberal regulations that permitted a variety of health claims, provided they had some scientific support.

But those rules made enforcement difficult and allowed what then-FDA Commissioner Frank E. Young last year referred to as “overly broad or otherwise unjustified” messages.

The proposals represent a compromise between the two positions. In the spirit of the original agency position, all health messages are formally banned. Under that ban, however, the agency has six exemptions, which it says are so well-supported by evidence that agency action is unlikely.

For example, a high fiber cereal that contains a message stating that high fiber diets can reduce the risk of heart disease would be allowed. Other permissible links are those between fiber and the reduced risk of colon cancer, fat and cancer, fat and heart disease, sodium and hypertension, and calcium and reduced risk of osteoporosis.

To qualify for these exemptions, a company must first submit its proposed health message for agency review and must back its petition with “publicly available scientific evidence” that is supported by a “significant agreement” among qualified experts.