It’s about to get a lot harder to believe food advertising.
Ministers from Australian states and New Zealand with responsibility for oversight of food labelling met by teleconference at the end of last week. This anodyne piece of bureaucratic non-speak is what it looks like to have your consumer rights to truth in advertising quietly traded away to big business.
For those who, like me, knew nothing about this until it was too late, here is some background. Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) is the trans-Tasman government body which has responsibility for ensuring that commercially sold food is manufactured safely and sold fairly. Part of that responsibility is monitoring the advertising claims made by manufacturers. It turns out that the food industry has decided that making health-related claims for food is a very effective advertising strategy, so they have doing a lot of it. So much, in fact that while FSANZ has evaluated and approved 115 specific health-related claims that manufacturers can use, there are simply hundreds more that it has not.
In Europe, the equivalent body has just banned over 1600 claims from being used in food advertising due to lack of adequate scientific evidence to support them. As of December 2012, it will become illegal for food companies to claim that probiotics ‘support the immune system’ or that tea can be ‘a great source of antioxidants’ or that Omega-3 fatty acids improve brain development in children. The European Food Safety Authority only approves around 10% of claims proposed by the industry. These claims and many, many others will continue to be made by Australian companies, because apparently our politicians are content for the general public to be fooled into buying products which don’t do what they claim.
Before the meeting on Friday, a coalition of health and consumer lobby groups including such heavyweights as the Cancer Council, National Heart Foundation and Choice strongly supported the adoption of new regulations which FSANZ has had on the table for three years. It is a regulator which has asked for the power to do its job properly, and address an epidemic of misleading advertising.
The Ministers however have crumbled like a shopping centre carpark.
What we get instead of demanding regulation of shonky advertising claims is less regulation, and reduced responsibility for FSANZ. The Ministers want FSANZ to come up with ‘pre-approved food-health relationships’ which will give companies the ability to say whatever they like about their product’s supposed health benefits as long as it meets this vague requirement. An example of how lame this is in practice is that of calcium and ‘bone health’. If your product had some calcium in it you could apparently claims it ‘promotes healthy bones’ with impunity without any requirement to show that it did.
Even worse than the dilution of labelling claim policing is the policy regarding new claims. Basically the Ministers have voted to sideline their own regulator, and only allow it to approve or strike down alleged health benefits AFTER the food hits the shelves.
Yes, you read that correctly.
You could bring out a new food product, and claim it did pretty much anything you could think of, and it would up to FSANZ to track you down and make you stop. This could take months or years, during which time the lies you told earlier would be all that people would remember once their brand loyalty was established. I bet the food company execs are pinching themselves. Corks would have been popping in corporate headquarters around the country after that meeting. It must have been quite a while since misleading advertising was given such a free kick.
The official term for this complete abrogation of consumer protection is ‘self-substantiation’. As evidenced by the European experience, manufacturers and regulators have very different ideas about what constitutes appropriate scientific evidence to support their claims. Based on their figures, 90% of health claims would have to be subsequently retracted by the food companies. Even with increased resources, FSANZ could not possibly keep up with the number of violations of the standards.
The end result of the reforms which a responsible regulator initiated 3 years ago is likely to be a complete advertising free-for-all. Companies will have to make increasingly outlandish claims to compete in a less regulated marketplace. The end result?
Bad news for the truth in advertising. Bad news for public health.
David Kennedy
logged in via Twitter
Disgusting, and yet it provides yet another indication that Australian politics are more concerned with serving the interests of Corporations rather than protecting the health of their own citizens. Right not I am once again ashamed to call myself Australian.
jamie jardine
student
That's a bit harsh don't you think, how about some personal responsibility to be an informed consumer? Do we really need the government to step in and regulate every aspect of our lives just to protect us from ourselves..?
Michael Vagg
Clinical Senior Lecturer at Deakin University School of Medicine & Pain Specialist at Barwon Health
Jamie,
I certainly am a fan of being an informed and critical consumer. But at the same time you can't create free-fire zones in advertising where almost anything goes. As far as health benefit claim go, the average schmo has to be able to have degree of trust in the claims of advertisers. As far as I can tell, the FSANZ asked for the right to insist on approving the veracity of advertised benefits BEFORE the marketing machine cranks up. What they got was a smack in the chops and a reduction in their ability to police shonky ads.
The net effect for an informed consumer would be to assume that all claimed benefits are misleading and this in itself makes it harder to make good choices.
Also, it's basic to the way markets are supposed to work that consumers can make informed choices. Giving companies so much leeway in their advertising with so little enforcement ability is going way to far in my opinion
jamie jardine
student
Shonky ads are one thing, on that I agree but the examples you use in your article concern me. What for example is shonky about advertising that tea is a great source of antioxidants?
What I advocate is some common sense, see the article on bottled water posted above. Is this the path we want to go down where every minor health claim must be presented before a board of scientists and scrutinised for it's veracity before it is approved? Technically they may be correct in this ruling, but really, is this where we should be headed..?
David Boxall
logged in via Facebook
jamie jardine: "What I advocate is some common sense, ...". Then, of course, you need to define "common sense". To some people, the right to own guns is common sense. To some, it's the belief in an omniscient, omnipotent deity. To some, it's blowing oneself up, in the hope of killing others who don't believe in your deity.
I've often marvelled at the capacity of market capitalism to harness energies that might otherwise have been devoted to highway robbery (which probably explains why business is so often difficult to tell from the other). My premise is that business is crime by other means. We'd be wise to regulate it as such.
Rosemary Stanton
Nutritionist & Visiting Fellow at University of New South Wales
Jamie
FSANZ had 115 pre-approved claims ready for food companies to use. They were willing (and able) to take a look at other claims and see if they were able to be substantiated.
Meaningless claims are a problem. Many concern antioxidants. Antioxidant content of any food depends a lot on the test you use for measurement and there is no single test that is relevant to the role of a particular antioxidant in the human body. For a valid claim, the antioxidants would need to be present in the…
Read moreRosemary Stanton
Nutritionist & Visiting Fellow at University of New South Wales
Jamie
Here is the link with the EFSA's views on antioxidants in tea claims. http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/1463.htm
Bruce Waddell
logged in via LinkedIn
Thank you for the analysis Michael.
To a novice, "We are what we eat" seems to have a truth about it. But you have to laugh at some of the food industry claims. I've yet to see a label that bottled water labeled "gluten free" but I'm waiting.
Bruce Waddell
logged in via LinkedIn
Note to self. Proof read even if distracted.
jamie jardine
student
What about this one Bruce.. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8897662/EU-bans-claim-that-water-can-prevent-dehydration.html
Over regulation can have it's own problems, seems like we need to strike the right balance here..
Bruce Waddell
logged in via LinkedIn
It is hard to believe this wasn't an April Fools Day prank. Caution is still a long way from self regulation though.
Rosemary Stanton
Nutritionist & Visiting Fellow at University of New South Wales
Jamie
here is the link to the EFSA response to the water claim. http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/doc/1982.pdf
Note that the claim applied for read “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration and of concomitant decrease of performance”.
The applicant claimed that dehydration was "a disease".
The popular media put a spin on this one and once one media outlet did so, papers and radio programs around thw world picked it up.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Thanks Rosemary.
Funny, just yesterday I was thinking what a marketing triumph it's been to dupe the population into believing that they need to drink five litres of water every day.
I worked with someone who actually did drink 5L of bottled water every day. She had the stuff delivered to her house by the crate - a real marketer's dream. Given that she also minimised her salt intake, I seriously wonder what she was doing to her osmotic balance.
Rosemary, isn't it the case that overconsumption of water can actually be more dangerous to athletes than dehydration?
Rosemary Stanton
Nutritionist & Visiting Fellow at University of New South Wales
Yes, too much of anything is undesirable and that includes water. The ideal mechanism to judge how much water we need is thirst. It may not work in the frail aged, but it's generally an excellent fluid control system.
Luke Weston
Physicist / electronic engineer
What we really desperately need is something kind of like the TGA Complaints Resolution Panel for food advertising. Except without all the weakness and failings and toothlessness of the TGACRP.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
I'm with David - it makes me sick and it's utterly unreasonable to suggest, as Jamie does, that it's up to individuals to check out the health claims themselves.
Jamie - the European Food Safety Authority has rejected the claim about tea and antioxidants. I'm betting they have good reason for doing so. So, in the interests of being an informed consumer, why don't you do some research for us and find out exactly what the current medical research says about this claim. As a student, you'll be able to access paywall-protected medical journal articles no worries (unlike the majority of consumers, incidentally).
Then repeat that for everything in your shopping basket. Every week. Without the benefit of University-supplied training in research procedures, and with a job to hold down and family to care for.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
But happily I have a solution.
If a manufacturer's claims have been approved by the European Food Safety Authority, then they're likely to actually mean something.
So those manufacturers can put the words "approved by the European Food Safety Authority" on their labels - and Australians can safely ignore all the other claims.
In other words this means Australians adopting the European Food Safety Authority and sidestepping FSANZ. If our Government treat us with contempt, why should we accept it?
Christina Pollard
Research Fellow
These types of decision make the public gullible and vulnerable to the inappropriate food product marketing. Unfortunately, it is likely that a natural consequence of this lack of basic scrutiny applied across the board will be a lowering of the publics trust in manufacturers claims about their food products.
A cartoonists commentry on previous food law decisions seems to apply here.....
http://nicholsoncartoons.com.au/new-food-laws-allow-hype-200226.html
Margo Saunders
Public Health Policy Researcher
I think the FSANZ thing is at least partially about money -- the organisation is not resources, or is not prioritising resources, to do the sort of serious, professional work that needs to be done, and we don't have a US-style Institute of Medicine to whom these things can be delegated for outside expert advice -- and partially about governance (the organisation needs to be much more public health-oriented and have this reflected in its Board, etc.
Read moreBut I also nearly choked at the reference to…
Michael Vagg
Clinical Senior Lecturer at Deakin University School of Medicine & Pain Specialist at Barwon Health
I take your point about influencing policy Margo. By saying 'heavyweight' I intended to mean that these peak bodies are unlikely to be putting out media releases for trivial issues, and were likely to have serious points of view that should be considered with due weight.
Chris Booker
Research scientist
I'm a co-author on one of the reviews which were to be used by FSANZ on the 'high level' health claims (the review on saturated and trans fats: http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/_srcfiles/sat%20fat%20review.pdf).
I've always wondered where this health claim issue had got to, and I have to say I'm a little confused by this article and the available evidence on the FSANZ website (you're right about that release looking like Orwellian newspeak). Originally when conducting our review on saturated and…
Read moreRosemary Stanton
Nutritionist & Visiting Fellow at University of New South Wales
Chris - in fairness, i think high level health claims will still need pre-approval.
In fact, there's unlikely to be many of them. Companies have expressed reservations about making claims for actual diseases because if the food doesn't prevent or cure the disease, legal action is likely.
General level health claims "work" just as well in increasing sales - hence the move to go against the agreed position (established well over 3 years ago) on geenral level claims.
It's going to be a free for all and the only advice I will be able to give people is to doubt claims made on food packages.
jamie jardine
student
I guess my mistake was I didn't think anybody took the health claims on packaged food seriously! BTW thanks for the links you posted for me Rosemary, you have changed my mind on the subject, not that it was particularly made up I was just little surprised at the outrage expressed in some of the comments.
Ian Musgrave
Senior lecturer in Pharmacology at University of Adelaide
What the hell!!
Sue Ieraci
Public hospital clinician
If anybody needs another good reason to support consumer advocacy groups like Choice/ACA, this is ceratinly one of them!
Jeremy Tager
Extispicist
To anyone who has dealt with FSANZ this should be no surprise. In trying to get stringent standards on labelling GM foods, FSANZ has been firm in its support for corporate interests, even in the face of peer reviewed science. Even our incredibly weak standards relating to GM labelling are not enforced by FSANZ - even when it was discovered that powderered baby milk contained GM and wasn't labelled. At least in terms of GM, FSANZ remains one of the few food regulators world wide that has still not learned how to say no - they are entirely happy approving all GM applications that come across their desk, and are happy to rely solely on company data in doing so.
Luke Weston
Physicist / electronic engineer
GMO labelling is actually not desirable and shouldn't be allowed if all it is doing is spreading FUD and distress and distrust in customers and taking advantage of lack of knowledge or scientific literacy by the consumers to promote Product X as a superior product that the consumers should buy, and/or that Product Y is a "bad" product that should be avoided.
Section 4(2)(d) of the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code prohibits advertisements which “abuse the trust or exploit the lack of knowledge…
Read moreJeremy Tager
Extispicist
The issue I'm raising (rather than getting into the endless debate about the safety or not of gm food) is that FSANZ has a history of supporting biotech companies - happily ignoring their own laws, relying on companiy data to prove safety and never saying no (unlike the EU, India, China, South Africa etc etc) to a gm application. When rice in the US was contaminated with an unapproved and untested GM, FSANZ refused to test imported rice for the presence of the gm. Shortly after they approved the GM rice (produced by Bayer) with no testing and no data. You may be convinced that GM is perfectly safe, but I hope it is not the manner in which FSANZ has dealt with GM that gives you such confidence.
Lorna Jarrett
PhD candidate, science education; Physics teacher
Can't see what's undesirable about GM labeling - unless you make money from the development, sale or marketing of GM products in some way.
Name-calling, such as aligning those in favour of GM labelling "crackpot anti-vaccinationists" just makes reasonable people more suspicious of your intentions.
There are far more than just "health" reasons for wanting to avoid GM. There are the possible ecological impacts of the crops; the economic impacts on organic farmers whose crops are contaminated; the heavy-handed tactics of GM companies and the possible link to farmer suicides in India.
Did I mention the heavy-handed tactics of GM companies? When people advocate removing consumers' ability to avoid buying these products, what are we supposed to conclude?
David Boxall
logged in via Facebook
Luke Weston: "GMO labelling is actually not desirable and shouldn't be allowed if all it is doing is spreading FUD and distress and distrust ...". In what way does informing a potential buyer of what they're about to buy do any such thing?
Rachel van Someren
logged in via LinkedIn
If you don't think GM labelling is useful have a read of "Genetic Roulette" (foreword by Rosemary Stanton) and then see if you would like to know what you are eating. But not only that, if you want to make a difference by knowing & being able to put pressure on businesses to source non-GM products. It's a long term food security issue.
Read moreBut FSANZ isn't great at looking after us, the consumer, by all accounts. Even though we supposedly have GM labelling of food, it excludes a lot (eg if the chicken…