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Keywords

Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, childhood obesity, litigation, Pelman v. McDonald's Corp., raw almond pasteurization, food safety rulemaking, jurisdiction, GMO salmon, deceptive food labels, acai berry marketers, advertising, health claim regulation, pomegranate juice, POM Wonderful LLC, Snapple Beverage, high fructose corn syrup, olive oil, meat nutrition labeling, poultry nutrition labeling, healthy food movement

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The long-awaited enactment of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the most significant amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in several decades, provides the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with significantly enhanced jurisdiction to close some of the gaps in the domestic food safety system. The enhanced FDA authority, however, will have little impact on the shared governance system at the federal level that involves multiple agencies, as the Act does not address the U.S. General Accounting Office's (GAO) repeated calls for consolidation of the fragmented federal food safety system. Rather, the Act perpetuates the division of authority between the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), as well as the potential for jurisdictional gaps, overlaps and inefficiencies. Part I of this article explores not only the FSMA, but a second piece of federal legislation, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which inter alia provides support for serving locally grown food in the school lunch program. Part II provides a brief update on three ongoing food law issues: the Pelman v. McDonald's Corp. obesity litigation and associated local initiatives directed at the fast food restaurant industry, legal challenges to the raw almond pasteurization rule, and an update on the FDA's review of genetically engineered salmon. Part III explores in greater depth a series of public and private enforcement actions directed toward allegedly deceptive labeling.

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