Three views of ractopamine in pigs

Helena Bottemiller this week writes a thorough summary of the international trade controversies over U.S. exports of pork from pigs that have been treated with the growth promoter ractopamine hydrochloride.  This animal drug is allowed under U.S. rules, but banned in many other countries, so U.S. trade negotiators have been pressing hard to get other countries to relent and allow small residues of the drug in imported pork.

Bottemiller describes the history of testing by the drug's manufacturer, Elanco, in terms that could leave a reader quite concerned:

The FDA ruled that ractopamine was safe and approved it for pigs in 1999, for cattle in 2003 and turkeys in 2008. As with many drugs, the approval process relied on safety studies conducted by the drug-maker — studies that lie at the heart of the current trade dispute.

Elanco mainly tested animals — mice, rats, monkeys and dogs — to judge how much ractopamine could be safely consumed. Only one human study was used in the safety assessment by Elanco, and among the six healthy young men who participated, one was removed because his heart began racing and pounding abnormally, according to a detailed evaluation of the study by European food safety officials.

When Elanco studied the drug in pigs for its effectiveness, it reported that “no adverse effects were observed for any treatments.” But within a few years of Paylean’s approval, the company received hundreds of reports of sickened pigs from farmers and veterinarians, according to records from the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.

USDA meat inspectors also reported an increase in the number of “downer pigs” — lame animals unable to walk — in slaughter plants. As a result of the high number of adverse reactions, the FDA requested Elanco add a warning label to the drug, and it did so in 2002.

The company also received a warning letter from the FDA that year for failing to disclose all data about the safety and effectiveness of the drug.

Some of the research literature is available on the USDA website, including this 2003 article by Marchant and colleagues, which indicates why there might be concern.

We found that there were differences in 24h behavioral time budgets, with the ractopamine-fed pigs being more active and alert and taking longer to lie down after being disturbed. However, these differences were only apparent during the first 2 weeks. In contrast, ractopamine pigs remained more difficult to handle over the entire 4-week period. At the end of the 4-week period, they also had higher heart rates than control-fed pigs and higher levels of circulating stress hormones.

We conclude therefore, that feeding ractopamine to pigs does affect behavior and physiology. Pigs that are more difficult to move are more likely to be subjected to rough handling and increased stress during transportation, implying reduced welfare, increased workload for the handlers and, potentially, poorer meat quality. However, for this conclusion to be applicable to the finishing pig population in general, other genetic lines should be tested.

I have been spending some time recently thinking about what makes many Wikipedia articles excellent, and also about the limitations of the free encyclopedia approach. Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on ractopamine is highly technical, as if written by an animal science expert, and generally downplays the safety concern. Although the Wikipedia article includes the Bottemiller article as one recent reference, its summary of the animal safety issue seems to contrast both with her article and with the Marchant article cited above. Here is the section in full:

Target animal safety

Ractopamine is safe for finishing pigs heavier than 240 pounds when administered in the diet at concentrations up to 10 ppm and fed for up to 35 days. However, there was an increase in the number of ractopamine hydrochloride-treated animals exhibiting signs of injury during the final drive to slaughter. (FDA)

I suppose the second sentence captures the animal health issues sufficiently? Of course, the great thing about Wikipedia is that articles are constantly changing and commonly improving.

South Side Chicago

While in Chicago this month for an AAEA-sponsored session of the main annual meeting of economists, I took a long walk through the South Side neighborhoods from 35th Street/Bronzeville to 51st Street, learning especially about food retail access, housing, and other topics. Here are some photographs.


For advance preparation, I read Mari Gallagher's reports on food deserts in Chicago.

My past walks on the same theme include Skid Row, Anacostia, Harlem, Roxbury, and the Hill District.

Is reducing childhood obesity a reasonable goal?

Under the headline "Obama's Government vs. Your Family," John Hinderaker of the conservative blog Powerline this week links to our coverage of the interagency working group that proposed voluntary guidelines for marketing food to children.  Hinderaker is upset that Michelle Obama considers reducing childhood obesity to be a public policy objective.

So the future weight of your minor children is a “goal” of the federal government. Of course, that is just one example out of many. For example, do you think it is a “private family matter” whether you feed your children Cheerios and corn flakes for breakfast? Think again.

I am tempted to speculate that Hinderaker read some parts of my post more closely than others.  He probably best liked the part where I investigated some of the arcane details showing that Cheerios would not meet the long-run guidelines, which suggests that the details of the guidelines might deserve further tweaking.  Perhaps he focused less on some of the other good links in my post, which supported the interagency working group proposal and emphasized that this approach really is moderate, reasonable, and market-oriented.

Food stamp politics

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last week responded to GOP presidential candidate New Gingrich's description of President Obama as the "food stamp President."Alan Bjerga and Jennifer Oldham at Bloomberg report:

Those who get the federal assistance “are playing by the rules,” Vilsack, whose department administers food stamps, said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg News. “There are misconceptions about this program and confusion” about recipients caused by negative portrayals by some Obama opponents, he said.

Food-stamp use has increased 46 percent since December 2008, a month before Obama took office and when the economy was shedding jobs. Total spending has more than doubled in four years to an all-time high of $75.3 billion, a level called unsustainable by Republicans including Gingrich, who has labeled Obama “the best food-stamp president in American history.”

Gingrich’s characterization of Obama’s food stamp policies has drawn criticism from groups including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People which issued a statement Jan. 6 calling his comments “inaccurate” and “divisive.”

Gingrich has dismissed the complaints as a smear from “modern liberals” who are “off the deep end.” 

In the article, David Greenberg at Rutgers University expresses doubt that Gingrich's talking point reflects bigotry, but notes, "he is no fool and this is going to be seen through a racial prism."  Later in the Bloomberg article, I comment about the history of bi-partisan agreement over the basic design of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly called food stamps.  On the same theme, Rogers Smith of the University of Pennsylvania agrees that Gingrich's label is reminiscent of Reagan-era GOP rhetoric about "welfare queens," but unusual for food stamp policy discussions.

U.S. Food Policy earlier covered the unusually shrill anti-food stamp memes that have been circulating on the internet, including videos packed with racial stereotypes.  In response to that earlier post, we received an anonymous comment, stating that the military contractor KROQUE, which was mentioned in the coverage, disavows connection to or responsibility for the videos.

This issue will see renewed attention and discussion after former House Speaker Gingrich yesterday won the South Carolina GOP primary in a dramatic upset over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Spinning dairy weight loss claims

The USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) provides the Nutrition Evidence Library, a clear and transparent source of systematic evidence reviews about all sorts of nutrition and health issues.

For example, here is the evidence review summary for claims about dairy consumption and weight loss:

Conclusion

Strong evidence demonstrates that intake of milk and milk products provide no unique role in weight control.

That seems clear enough: no unique role in weight control.

Meanwhile, the federal government's semi-public dairy checkoff program offers its own distinct review of the evidence.  Although many people do not realize it, the National Dairy Council is an arm of this checkoff program.  Its review says:

A growing body of research illustrates that enjoying three servings of milk, cheese or yogurt each day as part of a nutrient-rich, balanced diet may help maintain a healthy weight.

The first study mentioned is by Michael Zemel, the researcher who won a patent on dairy weight loss claims, which allows dairy industry organizations to collect royalties from food companies that use such claims. 

Buried deep in the subsequent studies, one finds contradictory evidence.  For example, a study by Wagner and colleagues in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition finds, "there were no significant differences in weight loss between groups.  The milk group showed significantly less reduction of body fat than the placebo group."  But you would not know that from the Dairy Council's summary statement.

The National Dairy Council -- whose messages have official status as "government speech" -- seems to be contradicting the more impartial review of USDA's scientists.  Why should the federal government be willing to play the role of "enforcer" for the National Dairy Council, collecting the millions of dollars in mandatory assessments that support the Council's industry-friendly spin on the evidence?

USDA posts the 2010 dairy checkoff report

The federal government's dairy checkoff program just today released the July 2010 Report to Congress, which was the subject of my earlier Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The report, 16 months overdue, says that $108 million were collected in 2009 for fluid milk promotions, and another $283 million were collected for other dairy products (principally cheese).  The checkoff programs use the federal government's power of taxation to collect mandatory assessments, essentially taxes, from producers.  All the advertising and promotion messages count as "government speech."  The expenditures vastly outweigh anything the federal government does to promote healthy eating.

The introduction emphasizes the controversial Domino's campaign:

The Dairy Board continued to develop and implement programs to expand the human consumption of dairy products by focusing on partnerships and innovation, product positioning with consumers, and new places for dairy product consumption. One such endeavor was accomplished through a partnership with Domino’s Pizza and the creation of the American Legends pizza line.

The report later explains in greater detail:

The pizza industry plays an important role in the dairy industry. Twenty–five percent of all cheese manufactured in the U.S. is used on pizza, and Mozzarella comprises 49 percent of all cheese volume in the foodservice industry. Research showed that negative pizza cheese volume trends were having an impact on the dairy industry. As a result, dairy producers partnered with Domino’s to reinvigorate the pizza category and launch American Legends, a line of six specialty pizzas that use up to 40 percent more cheese than a regular Domino’s pizza.

The report shows that a large fraction of affiliated advertising expenditure goes toward cheese.

Professor Harry Kaiser at Cornell University wrote the accompanying economic analysis, showing the great effectiveness of the checkoff program in expanding dairy consumption on both a nonfat and fat basis (increasing intake of milkfat).  Professor Kaiser (a good colleague for whom I was a teaching assistant at Cornell) has previously written U.S. food policy to explain his view of the nutritional impact of the checkoff programs:

[W]e continue to believe that the nutritional state of consumers in the United States would be worse without generic food advertising programs. 

I am not convinced.  The checkoff programs should rein in the fast food collaborations and bring the promotions in line with the dietary guidelines, or they should let free markets work on their own and let producers contribute voluntarily to the checkoff programs.  The status quo, with the federal government promoting Domino's Pizza, is terrible.

The July 2011 report has not yet been released.  It is not clear whether USDA simply didn't submit the report to Congress as required, or instead whether USDA submitted that report but is not yet willing to share it with the public.

Making sure schools can serve our children badly

Although appropriations bills are supposed to be about spending -- not policy-making -- Congress took extra special care this week to make sure child nutrition programs do not have to follow the very reasonable and temperate guidelines recommended by the Institute of Medicine.

The conference committee report for next year's agricultural appropriations overturns key elements of USDA's proposed guidelines for child nutrition programs.  The proposed guidelines had included strong support for whole grains, a recommended limit on salt, and a stipulation that not too much of the vegetables served would be white potatoes.  Currently, school lunch programs contain far more salt than recommended limits, and many school systems use french fries and other forms of white potatoes as by far the dominant vegetable.

In a step that reminds us all of the Reagan administration's heroically foolish effort to define ketchup as a vegetable, the appropriations committees also intervened to make sure that the tomato puree in pizza counts toward vegetable requirements.

USDA officials were sharply critical, and I imagine that the hard-working staff throughout the department are upset.  The Associated Press coverage says:

USDA spokeswoman Courtney Rowe said Tuesday that the department will continue its efforts to make lunches healthier.

"While it's unfortunate that some members of Congress continue to put special interests ahead of the health of America's children, USDA remains committed to practical, science-based standards for school meals," she said in a statement.

It is fun to read the fine print of the conference committee report (.pdf).  See sections 743 and 746 on page H7443.  Although they have no expertise in meals programs or nutrition, the appropriations committee members were quite willing to do the food industry's bidding on these arcane provisions:

SEC. 743. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to implement an interim final or final rule regarding nutrition programs under the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act (42 U.S.C. 1751 et seq.) and the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. 1771 et seq.) that—
(1) requires crediting of tomato paste and puree based on volume;
(2) implements a sodium reduction target beyond Target I, the 2-year target, specified in Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, ‘‘Nutrition Standards in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs’’ (FNS–2007–0038, RIN 0584– AD59) until the Secretary certifies that the Department has reviewed and evaluated relevant scientific studies and data relevant to the relationship of sodium reductions to human health; and
(3) establishes any whole grain requirement without defining ‘‘whole grain.’’

A graduate student and I are taking a look at the diversity of comments that were submitted in response to USDA's proposed guidelines.  I will do a follow-up post in a couple weeks, noting which organizations suggested the policy reversals that Congress made this week.

In my children's schools, I see the need for well-written and reasonable guidelines.  The status quo is not good enough.  I believe the IOM and USDA did the best possible job in balancing nutrition and economic considerations.  Readers know very well that I will speak up against government overreach.  But these guidelines did not look to me like government overreach.  They looked judicious.

As a policy researcher, I think the public interest would have been better served by deferring to IOM and USDA.  As a parent, I am angry about Congress' intervention.  It seems clear that Congress is doing the food industry's bidding at the expense of our children.