The new commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration, Dr Mark McClellan, this week indicated his support for reviewing current rules that govern health claims on food labels.
Speaking at a meeting on the US healthcare system organised by conservative think-tank the American Enterprise Institute, Dr McClellan discussed the administration's view on health policies and his support for information related to diet and health on food labels.
The US National Food Processors Association this week saluted the commissioner's remarks and in formal comments to the agency stated: "the FDA should permit, even encourage, the communication of all forms of truthful, non-misleading, and well-substantiated statements on the labels and labelling of food products."
"While substantial attention has been given to the regulation of commercial speech in the context of 'health claims' made in food labelling, relatively little attention has been directed toward the onerous restrictions on communications caused by 'compelled speech,'" added John Cady, president and CEO of NFPA.
The NFPA's formal comments came in response to a request for comments on First Amendment issues, published by FDA in the Federal Register in May this year.
Key points made by the NFPA in its comments to FDA include: the current FDA policy that operates essentially to ban substantiated claims simply because they mention a "disease" term cannot be justified under the commercial speech doctrine, which holds that truthful and non-misleading claims for conventional food products are fully protected. In addition, the NFPA believes that, as currently applied, FDA's practices regarding the regulation of speech are in conflict with the First Amendment. The FDA, it claims, should replace its policy of prohibiting and otherwise restricting speech with a new policy that broadly permits and encourages all forms of truthful, non-misleading speech. The question is - how does one define misleading?