GUT WRENCHING! Tell FDA to Remove Toxin (Carrageenan) from Food
- Target:
- Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner
- Region:
- United States of America
- Website:
- www.cornucopia.org
Rates of digestive diseases are rising—ranging from widespread digestive discomfort (“belly bloat,” “spastic colon,” Irritable Bowel Syndrome) to serious and sometimes life-threatening diseases such as ulcerative colitis and colon cancer.
For decades, scientists conducting laboratory animal experiments using the common food additive carrageenan have found higher rates of gastrointestinal inflammation, colitis-like disease, and even colon cancer.
Carrageenan is a convenient and unique food additive for the food industry, and selling carrageenan is a profitable enterprise for a handful of chemical corporations. For decades, these companies have spread misinformation—often, outright lies—about carrageenan’s safety.
Carrageenan can be found in many foods, even foods labeled “natural” and “organic.” It is widely used in dairy products (chocolate milk, whipping cream, ice cream, nonfat sour cream), frozen dinners, dairy alternatives (soy milk, coconut milk, almond milk), prepared poultry and cold cuts, nutritional drinks, and even infant formula.
And who has been more than willing to listen to the corporate scientists rather than to the scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health? That’s right: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In June 2012, the FDA rejected a citizen petition by the nation’s preeminent publicly funded scientist and carrageenan expert, who formally requested that carrageenan be removed from our food supply.
Sign the petition below, and let the FDA know that it’s time to act in the interest of our health and safety. Carrageenan is a dangerous food additive, and should be removed from the list of allowed additives!
The FDA’s shameless catering to corporate interests has to end.
Dear Dr. Margaret Hamburg, FDA Commissioner:
The FDA is responsible for protecting public health by assuring the safety of our nation’s food supply. When a body of publicly funded/independent scientific literature points to harm from consuming a common, widely used, yet unnecessary food ingredient, the FDA should act in the interest of public health.
Yet in the case of carrageenan, an ingredient found in a wide variety of food products, the FDA sided with the food industry by ignoring the vast body of publicly funded scientific literature pointing to serious harm from consuming carrageenan. Rather than act on the citizen petition by the nation’s preeminent publicly funded expert on food-grade carrageenan, the FDA denied the request to remove carrageenan from our food supply.
A Chicago Tribune investigative journalist challenged the FDA to show her a single scientific study—not funded by the carrageenan industry—that indicates carrageenan is safe. As reported in the Tribune: “They agreed to look but provided no examples after three weeks.”
Meanwhile, a team of scientists at the University of Illinois Medical School has published over a dozen peer-reviewed scientific studies indicating that food-grade carrageenan leads to gastrointestinal inflammation and disease.
Laboratory animal studies have even identified food-grade carrageenan as a promoter of colon tumors.
Rather than consider these scientific studies, most of which have been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the FDA pointed to poorly conducted corporate-funded studies that claim carrageenan is safe. This is yet another example of corporate lobbying power in Washington, with a government agency unwilling to take action to protect American public health.
We urge the FDA to revoke the regulations permitting the use of carrageenan.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The GUT WRENCHING! Tell FDA to Remove Toxin (Carrageenan) from Food petition to Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner was written by The Cornucopia Institute and is in the category Health at GoPetition.