Potassium bromate is a suspected carcinogen that's banned for
human consumption in Europe as well as China and India but legal in the US,
where it's used by some food makers to strengthen dough and
estimated to be present in over 100 products.
>> There is evidence that it may be toxic to human consumers,
that it may even either initiate or promote the development of tumors.
>> Europe has banned all sorts of ingredients in their food that we consume
on a regular basis, which is pretty disastrous when you
consider what the health ramifications could be and very likely are as we eat all
these chemicals that make their way in various products that we consume.
Now, how much of a difference do the lack of food regulations in
the United States make?
Well, CBS looked into that, let's watch.
>> Can we say for
sure that these differences in regulations mean that people in the US have developed
cancers that they would not have developed if they'd been eating only in Europe?
>> I think that is almost certainly the conclusion that we could reach.
>> It's not just potassium bromate but many other chemicals and substances
that are banned here in Europe over health concerns but considered safe by the FDA.
>> Do you think most Americans are aware that they're being exposed to substances
that are viewed as dangerous over here?
>> They probably just think, well,
if it's available and it's in the store then it's probably fine.
>> The woman you just heard from used to live in the United States.
She decided to move to London and has been living in London for the past decade
because she doesn't want her children eating the dangerous chemicals we consume
on a regular basis because our FDA is terrible at regulating the food industry.
Now there's a reason for that.
There's a reason why the FDA is terrible at doing the regulations that we need in
order to ensure that what we're consuming doesn't make us sick.
But before I get to all of those details,
I just wanna mention something that I think is important to keep in mind
as the debate about obesity rages on in this country.
When we hear from conservatives who think that the real solution to our astronomical
healthcare costs is Americans need to stop eating, they're too fat.
They don't ever really take into account that we eat all sorts of
things that have an impact on our bodies that we shouldn't be consuming.
What kind of impact do these chemicals have in terms of our metabolism,
our ability to digest these foods?
I mean, we have no one looking out for us in the federal government,
and in a lot of cases in state and local government either.
And when it comes to the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration,
seems like they're really set up for failure.
And most of their emphasis, most of their funding,
most of their budget goes toward pharmaceutical drug-related issues.
Very little emphasis on food regulation.
So let's give you the details on that.
So the Federal Drug Administration, I'm sorry, the Food and Drug Administration,
it's funny because sometimes the officials who work within the agency call it
the Federal Drug Administration because they forget that they're supposed to
be regulating food as well.
But anyway, the Food and Drug Administration was contacted for
comment on this issue, and get a load of this.
The FDA said that when used properly,
potassium bromate converts into a harmless substance during food production.
The agency acknowledged, however, that not all of the compound
used in any given recipe may convert during the production process,
but the control measures were utilized to minimize the amount in final products.
Were they?
I mean, honestly, that statement from the FDA doesn't really help me sleep at night.
The FDA regulates 78% of the US food supply, okay?
So keep that percentage in mind cuz it's a big one.
They regulate everything except for meat, poultry, and some egg products.
Now it's been more than 11 years since Congress passed a sweeping
food safety law designed to prevent this type of health risk.
In that time, FDA has failed to put in place safety standards for
the water used to grow fresh produce, as mandated by that law by the way,
despite knowing that water is one of the main ways fresh fruits and
vegetables become contaminated with deadly pathogens.
Now, Congress has also ramped up funding for the FDA over the past decade.
But weird, these deadly outbreaks of food contamination continue to happen, right?
You hear about listeria outbreaks, you might get contacted and get an email.
You might see a news report indicating that there's a major food recall,
don't eat the peanut butter, don't eat the lettuce, you're gonna get sick,
there's E coli, there's listeria.
All sorts of reports, we see them all the time.
Well, the CDC estimates that there are more than 128,000 people
are hospitalized and 3,000 people die from foodborne illnesses each year.
A toll that has not lessened after the sweeping update to food
safety a decade ago.
Also a recent outbreak tied to contaminated infant formula,
in which at least four babies were hospitalized and two died,
is a stark reminder of what's at stake when the food safety system fails.
Now last year Politico did a fantastic investigative report on
what's going on at the FDA and
why the agency does such a terrible job in regulating the food that we eat.
I would have liked to see a little more in regard to the corruption
that plays a role in some of the decision making over at the FDA.
But don't worry, I've got those details for you,
we'll get to that in just a minute.
Now, after this months long Politico investigation,
they found that regulating food is simply not a high priority at the agency,
where drugs and other medical products dominate, both in budget and
in bandwidth, and the dynamic has only been exacerbated during the pandemic.
So they write that the food program is on the back burner.
To me, that's the number one problem, said Stephen Ostroff,
who twice served as acting commissioner of FDA and held several other
senior roles at the agency, most recently as top food official.
He also says there's nobody really pushing very hard to get them done in the same way
that you're pushing very hard to get the Covid vaccines out there and authorized.
Obviously this report was published prior to the vaccines being authorized.
We don't have that imperative and that pressure to actually make
things happen on the food side of the Food and Drug Administration.
That is pretty damn devastating.
And what's also incredibly devastating is that the agency has been slow to
acknowledge numerous other chemicals of concern,
including PFAs, also known as forever chemicals,
which can be found in the food supply and are used in food packaging.
The FDA has also dragged its feet on major nutrition issues even
as diet-related disease rates in the United States have continued to worsen.
For example, the FDA has spent the better part of a decade working on voluntary,
voluntary, guys, voluntary sodium reduction goals for
food companies while many other countries moved ahead with their own years ago.
Why are we telling corporations that have a profit
motive that we have not mandatory regulations,
but voluntary regulations, voluntary, right?
We would like you to volunteer to spend more money on better ingredients for
your food, quality ingredients, it's gonna cost you more.
We'd like you to avoid using these harmful chemicals in the food.
It's gonna cost you more, but we're not gonna mandate it.
We're just gonna ask you to do it, can you please do it?
No, the FDA is supposed to regulate the food industry along
with the drug industry.
So why are they pretending like they don't have that power?
They do have that power, they know they have that power.
So let's talk a little bit about the corruption angle here because turns
out that big industry actually does lobby to the Food and Drug Administration.
So in 2022 alone, I looked into which companies or which lobbying groups
related to the food industry had meetings with the FDA, and here's what I found.
The list includes the American Peanut Shellers Association,
California Dairies Inc, The Cigar Association of America.
Also the Premium Cigar Association, International Bottled Water Association,
Land O Lakes, USA Rice Federation, American Bakers Association.
American Farm Bureau, American Frozen Food Institute,
American Honey Producers Association, American Seed Trade Association,
American Soybean Association, I mean the list goes on and on.
And this is just last year alone, all these private interests getting together,
lobbying the FDA for what, what do you think they're lobbying for?
Think they're lobbying for better regulations?
Of course not, they're lobbying to prevent regulations.
Now after Obama signed the Food Safety Modernization Act into law back in
January of 2011, food industry lobbyists went to work right away.
They didn't waste any time.
And here's the result, this is a report from 2013.
Winning the prize for the most frequent visitor to the FDA over the two
year period was Miriam Guggenheim of the law firm Covington & Burling.
Thanks to her efforts,
members of the American Bakers Association will likely be exempt from
the legislation's proposed regulations regarding warehouse temperatures,
measures, FDA says, prevent problems that can cause foodborne illnesses.
So they pass regulation, right?
Congress passes a regulation that it would be great.
Obama signs it into law and immediately after that,
you have the American Bakers Association hitting up the FDA to make sure
that they can be exempt from the regulations that had just been passed.
Guggenheim also accompanied representatives from Mars candy when
the company wanted faster approval processes for food additives and held
telephone calls with the FDA about bottled water labeling among other client needs.
It also doesn't help that nearly half of the FDA's funding
comes from the industry that it is tasked with regulating.
So why don't we look at the numbers from fiscal year 2021?
I grabbed this, it's a screenshot from the FDA's website.
So in 2021 they had an operating budget of $6.1 billion.
Now keep in mind the $6.1 billion is supposed to be used to regulate
pharmaceutical drugs and the food industry.
About half of that, 54% of that budget,
$3.3 billion of that 6.1 billion came from the federal government.
But the rest of it, 46%, or 2.8 billion came from so-called user
industry fees from pharmaceutical companies and food companies.
So if a lot of your funding, a huge portion,
nearly half of your funding is reliant on user fees coming from
the very industry that you're tasked with regulating.
You might have a little more of an interest in speeding up
the authorization for what these companies want to carry out, okay,
or the approval process for what these companies want to carry out.
Now in response to the lack of regulation by the FDA,
California lawmakers have in fact proposed taking matters into their own hands.
They want to ban certain ingredients and
chemicals from making their way into our food.
Why don't we take a look at the next video for more information on that?
>> CBS news has obtained a copy of proposed legislation in California
that would make it the first US state to ban five common chemicals,
including potassium bromate, from all foods sold, distributed, or made there.
>> They're gonna have to change their recipes, get rid of these chemicals.
And hopefully that's something that's gonna have impacts far beyond our
borders here in the state of California.
>> Christina Ochoa says the FDA needs to do more.
>> We're trusting them and this is the food that is feeding our future, and
I want them to be held to a higher standard.
>> Now in response, the FDA tells us their scientists keep up-to-date on
food safety research, but it says it's also the responsibility of
the food industry to make sure the substances they use are safe.
>> It's the responsibility of the food industry to make sure the substances
they use are safe.
So you want them to self-regulate.
Make sure that you guys are using safe ingredients, okay, and
let's just call it a day.
No, you guys are the regulators, that's the whole purpose of this agency.
That is the whole purpose, that is the only purpose.
So what is going on here?
And by the way, I remember covering this story years ago back in 2014,
the Washington Post had a piece that talked about the voluntary
regulations that were being doled out by the FDA.
Let me give you a few excerpts here.
The more widespread concern among food safety advocates and
some federal regulators is the quickening trend of companies opting for
an expedited certification process to a degree never intended when it was
established 17 years ago to in part help businesses.
A voluntary certification system has nearly replaced one that
relied on a more formal, time-consuming review, where the FDA,
rather than the companies themselves, made the final determination on what is safe.
The result is that consumers have little way of being certain that the food
products they buy won't harm them.
Finally, the oversight system shifted dramatically in 1997.
In response to a shortage of staff members and complaints from industry
that the process was too cumbersome, the FDA proposed new rules.
The agency told companies that they no longer would have to submit their research
and raw data.
The companies can share just a summary of their findings with the agency.
What?
So what is the point of the FDA,
if they're gonna have private industry self-regulate?
And clearly when they have a profit motive and they need to cut costs to maximize
profits, they are not gonna spend the necessary funds to make sure
they're using quality ingredients, they need to maximize profits.
That's how the system works, they know that.
So look, the whole system, guys, it doesn't matter which government agency
you're talking about at this point, there's so much corruption.
So much so that the food we eat is unsafe and nothing is being done about it.
At the heart of every political issue that we discuss on this show is corruption,
is endless conflicts of interest, endless legalized bribes.
The system is set up to fail us over and over and over again.
And we're all stuck talking about nonsense all day long,
Marjorie Taylor Green's latest circus,
Tucker Carlson's latest ridiculous rant that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
I'm just tired of it.
Because whether you're a Democrat, Republican, liberal, progressive,
conservative, it doesn't matter.
We all live under the same system that is screwing us while
those in the media lie to us and distract us with garbage.
That is the reality of the situation, don't forget it.
So next time you have an illness related to the food you're eating,
understand that it's happening by design.
And there's no one in the FDA apparently looking out for you, or
looking to regulate the food industry that's putting these chemicals and
these ingredients in the food that we eat.
It's insane.
This is the stuff that matters.
I just wish this is where the focus was,
instead of whatever circus people are obsessed with today.