Iowa Ag-Gag: Putting Industry over Free Speech

Iowa Ag-Gag: Putting Industry over Free Speech

By: Meredith Kaufman and Justin Schwegel

A 2019 U.S. District Court decision held an Iowa ag-gag statute unconstitutional. Iowa's attorney general is wasting public resources challenging the ruling despite the dubious constitutional footing of the Iowa statute. 

CAFOs: Permission to Pollute

CAFOs: Permission to Pollute

A Brief Discussion of Agricultural Exemptions under Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act

By: Meredith Kaufman

There have been great strides in U.S. environmental law over the past six decades. However, despite well documented evidence of the harms agriculture can cause to humans and the environment, agriculture is still largely exempt from the nation’s most important environmental laws. 

GRAS: Generally Recognized as Safe, or Cause for General Concern?

GRAS: Generally Recognized as Safe, or Cause for General Concern?

By: Blake Jackson

Many food ingredients and food additives have not been reviewed by the FDA for food safety. This is currently allowed because of a 1958 provision added to the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act excluding substances generally recognized as safe from classification as a food additive. Technological advances and an ingredients list that has expanded exponentially since 1958 calls into question the usefulness of this means of regulation or lack thereof.

The FDA Should Not Repeat Past Mistakes on Sugar

The FDA Should Not Repeat Past Mistakes on Sugar

By: Justin Schwegel

The FDA’s past dietary guidelines contributed to an obesity epidemic by encouraging food manufacturers to reformulate food by removing fat and adding sugar to make it more palatable. The new food labeling guidelines on added sugar are triggering a similar reformulation of processed products that could do little to benefit consumer health.

Codex MLs for Lead in Wine

The Codex methodology for revising lead maximum limits is flawed for age-restricted products

By: Justin Schwegel

This is an abridged version of an article that will be published in the University of Arkansas Law School’s Journal of Food Law and Policy. When the full citation is available this post will be updated.

In 2017 the Codex Alimentarius Committee on Contaminants in Food’s (CCCF) electronic working group (EWG) to revise the maximum levels (MLs) for lead proposed to revise the maximum level (ML) for lead in wine from .2 parts per million (ppm) to .05 ppm.