Food and Drug Law

The Large Effect of Food Advertising on Children

April 6, 2016
Agriculture, Food and Drug Law, Public Health

Zach Berger, MJLST Staffer

The goal of advertising is to persuade consumers to purchase the advertised product. Advertising, as a form of commercial speech, is given considerable legal protection. Despite these protections, and with the rise of obesity in the you of America, advertising has become a topic of debate in the past several decades. As discussed in the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology article Food Advertising and Childhood Obesity: A Call to Action for Proactive Solutions by Roseann B. Termini, Thomas A. Roberto, and Shelby G. Hostetter, many theorists believe food advertising targets children “who are too young an immature to distinguish advertising puffery from truth.” Children have limited cognitive abilities, and assume the advertised food products are healthy. Without government regulation or parental intervention, these children can maintain these misconceptions and carry the unhealthy habits they developed at a young age into adulthood.

Unfortunately, the percentage of obese children has only gone up since the aforementioned article was written. According to a recent study, 20.5% of twelve to nineteen year olds are considered obese in the U.S., as well as 17.7% of children age six to eleven. As mentioned by Termini et al., food advertising can contribute to childhood obesity in several different ways: Time spent watching TV detracts from time that could be engaged in exercise, food advertisements encourage unhealthy choices, food products partnering with TV/movie characters encourages children to buy unhealthy products, and children snack excessively while watching TV. Although some companies have attempted to self-regulate, these attempts are not always successful.

Termini et al. suggested several solutions to limited the damage done to children by unhealthy food advertisements. These included: banning fast-food advertising on child-targeted TV, regulating food advertisements directed at children as well as the companies that produce them, eliminating tax breaks for food advertising, and increasing parental intervention. One such solution was recently reintroduced with the announcement of the Stop Subsidizing Childhood Obesity Act. This law would amend the tax code by eliminating tax deductions for advertising that is directed at children and which promotes unhealthy food and drink. The revenue this law would bring will go towards funding the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program.” As the name states, this program provides fresh fruit and vegetables to all students at participating schools.

Overwhelming evidence suggests that the programs children watch on TV influences their eating habits. Although some of the onus is on the parents to supervise what their children eat, more consistent regulation of food advertising can help reduce childhood obesity. There is still a long way to go, but we need to be proactive if we want to have any chance of halting childhood obesity in its tracks.

Drug Shortages: A Mask for Reprehensible Activity?

March 10, 2016
Competition, Economics, Food and Drug Law, Healthcare

Ethan Mobley, MJLST Articles Editor

Access to life-saving prescription medication grabbed headlines after Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of its HIV drug, Daraprim, by about 5,000% overnight. While the Daraprim price hike initially appears to be driven by pure greed, it’s at least conceivable that basic economic principles of supply and demand may have played a minor role. Indeed, many other drugs have undergone serious price hikes arising from innocent supply constraints. While the defensibility of Daraprim price hikes remains uncertain, the story does bring to focus an issue affecting accessibility of hundreds of other life-saving prescription medications—drug supply shortages.

Drug shortages naturally restrict many patients’ ability to obtain life-saving medication, which can have disastrous effects. The Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology addressed the issue in 2013 with a note written by Eric Friske. Friske found that drug shortages are often caused by a “combination of perturbed supply, manufacturing capacity, and utilization.” Friske then analyzed the efficacy of proposed (and now failed) legislation meant to reduce these supply shortages by requiring manufacturers to notify the FDA of impending shortages; the legislation would have also allowed the FDA to collaborate with manufacturers in order to streamline production. However, Friske determined these tools were insufficient to properly combat the shortage problem and proposed his own solution. In addition to notification requirements, Friske pushed for affirmatively incentivizing manufacturers to produce certain drugs and streamlining the drug manufacturing approval process.

Since Friske’s proposal, we’ve seen new legislation and regulation that aims to reduce the number of drug shortages. What’s more, the legislation and regulations contain notification requirements, manufacturer incentives, and streamlined approval processes—just like Friske proposed. While it’s obvious the drug shortage problem has not been solved, it is equally clear drug shortages have decreased over the past few years. Hopefully the trend continues so that life-saving drugs remain accessible to everyone, and drug companies will no longer be able to use supply shortages as justification for obscene price hikes.

Compulsory Licensing and Health Law

March 10, 2016
Competition, Food and Drug Law, Healthcare, Intellectual Property

Nolan Hudalla, MJLST Staffer

In her articleA Public Health Imperative: The Need for Meaningful Change in the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s Intellectual Property Chapter, Roma Patel discusses the benefits that TRIPS “flexibilities” provide to the pharmaceutical markets in developing nations. Specific to this discussion, Ms. Patel notes that malaria is a permissible reason for a country to declare a “national emergency” or “circumstance of extreme urgency” under TRIPS. Such a declaration would allow a nation to utilize the TRIPS compulsory licensing provision. This permits “a government to allow the sale and manufacture of patented medicine without the patent holder’s consent.” With the recent development of aviable malaria vaccine, what can we expect the impact of this provision to be? In particular, will countries invoke compulsory licensing on the basis of a malaria “national emergency,” and, if so, what results can we anticipate?

According to history, we can’t expect much. According to Nicol & Owoeye, “[t]o date, there is little to suggest that the Implementation Decision and the Protocol [for the compulsory licensing provisions] can meaningfully contribute to reversing the failure of the industrialized world to supply essential medicines to the countries that need them the most. Nor does there appear to be widespread enthusiasm for using Implementation Decision and Protocol mechanisms to facilitate the provision of low-cost or no-cost pharmaceuticals to those most in need.” This certainly appears to be true for impoverished African nations. For example, the continent has already been devastated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, yet compulsory licensing has not provided a sufficient solution. In fact, according to a UNAIDS report, “[o]f the 21.2 million people in Africa eligible for antiretroviral therapy in 2013 under the 2013 WHO guidelines, only 7.6 million people were receiving HIV treatment as of December 2012.”

Brian Owens’ article Questions Raised about Whether Compulsory Licenses get Best Pricesdiscusses one of the reasons for the disappointing results of compulsory licensing. He notes that “[t]he use of so-called ‘compulsory licenses’ by developing countries to obtain cheaper drugs for HIV and AIDS by circumventing patents has not been the best strategy for achieving the lowest prices over the past decade . . . .” Expanding on this, Owens states that, “of the 30 cases of compulsory licensing from 2003 to 2012 for which reliable data was available, the median price achieved through international procurement was lower for 19 of them [than compulsory licensing]—in the majority of cases by more than 25% . . . . The effect was strongest in the poorest countries, where in six out of seven cases the procurement price was more than 25% lower than the compulsory license price.” Amir Attaran, the director of the study discussed in Owens’ article, asserts that “countries should not rush into using compulsory licenses until they have exhausted all other options. “Countries can save money using compulsory licenses, but they can save more by negotiating and using international procurement channels . . . If saving money is paramount, then compulsory licenses may not be the optimal strategy.”

Unfortunately, saving money is paramount for many African nations. Thus the greatest “flexibility” given to these nations is not always a practical solution. Perhaps the arrival of the first malaria vaccine will motivate international leaders to learn from prior experience. Hopefully the international community will reconsider compulsory licensing, as Roma Patel did, to determine how it can better provide access to life-saving medications.

3D Food Printing and Its Legal Complications

February 17, 2016
3-D Printing, Agriculture, Food and Drug Law

Riley Conlin, MJLST Staffer

According to a recent article in Bloomberg, the FDA has recently approved the use of a drug that was 3D printed for the first time. The first drug the FDA approved is Spritam, which was created by Aprecia Pharmaceuticals. The drug is to be administered orally to treat adults and children for epilepsy. The 3D printing process supposedly allows the pill to dissolved quickly, which means it will enable the pill to act faster in the case of an oncoming seizure. When this approval occurred several attorneys voiced concern, because of the intellectual property issues related to 3D printing. First, it would be difficult to determine the manufacturer of the drug, making the assignment of IP rights quite challenging. Second, because it would be difficult to determine the manufacturer, it would also be difficult to identify liable parties in potential litigation.

While there are undoubtedly legal issues related to 3D printing, a forthcoming article in the Minnesota Journal of Law Science and Technology Symposium argues that the benefits far outweigh potential legal issues that could slow the adoption of 3D technology in the area of food production. Symposium author, Jasper Tran, notes that there are “endless possibilities” associated with 3D food printing. First, the ability to print food has the potential to significantly impact the global food shortage crisis, because healthy food can be mass-produced via 3D printers. He also argues that 3D printing has the potential to reduce environmental harms associated with current food production. However, he does note that there are legal liability issues with 3D printing, including (1) short-term food poisoning on an individual scale or mass scale and (2) long term impacts of food printing. Despite these concerns, Tran argues the legal risks are far outweighed by the potential global benefits of mass-producing food via 3D printers.

As discussed in the Bloomberg article and in Tran’s note, 3D food and drug printing is the future. It is the responsibility of government organizations to take a proactive approach and attempt to enact rules and regulations that anticipate the new legal issues and challenges associated with the process.

The Threat of Antibiotic Resistance: The Use of Antibiotics in Animal Agriculture and Proposed Regulations to Increase the Involvement of the Food and Drug Agency

February 17, 2016
Agriculture, Food and Drug Law, Regulatory

Jody Ferris, MJLST Staffer

Antibiotic resistance purportedly caused by the immoderate use of antibiotics in animals raised for human consumption is currently a hot button issue in the news today. It is an issue important to human health and to the food and agriculture industries. In her note, Slowing Antibiotic Resistance by Decreasing Antibiotic Use in Animals, Jennifer Nomura discusses this issue and makes recommendations regarding which government agency should regulate antibiotic use in animals and how it should best be regulated.

According to Nomura, antibiotics that had been used to treat animal diseases are also being utilized for growth purposes. She says that, “it is now common in the United States for farm animals to be fed low doses of antibiotics on a daily basis.” The species in which antibiotic use is most common are pigs and poultry. She states that “[b]ecause farmers have been feeding antibiotics to animals for so many years, animals are becoming resistant to the effects of these drugs.” She also states that it is also possible for the antibiotic resistant bacteria in animals to pass to humans and that, “as humans become resistant to antibiotics, health care for treatable diseases becomes more costly. Antibiotic resistance can lead to hospitalization, longer-term care, and potentially even death.” However, despite the grave risk that antibiotic resistance poses, Nomura states that “no direct connection has been established” between antibiotic use in animals and antibiotic resistance in humans. Some studies have showed a causal link between the two.

Over the course of her note, Nomura argues convincingly that the primary authority for the regulation of antibiotic use is the Food and Drug Agency in connection with the United States Department of Agriculture and the Center for Disease Control, along with the World Health Organization and the European Union. She proposes that the Food and Drug agency should enact a full scale ban on the animal use of any antibiotic that is also used in the human population. Her note also suggests that the Food and Drug Agency should then establish a monitoring program to keep an eye out for any threats posed to human health through the continued use of antibiotics that would not be covered by the ban.

One regulation that has since been promulgated by the Food and Drug Agency since Nomura authored her note, is the Veterinary Feed Directive rule. This rule will require agricultural producers to get prescriptions for the animal use of antibiotics “considered important to human health, such as penicillin or sulfa” (see Nikki Work’s article Veterinary Feed Directive Will Impact Whole Livestock Industry, But Many Aren’t Aware of the Regulation at http://www.greeleytribune.com/news/20358154-113/veterinary-feed-directive-will-impact-whole-livestock-industry#). The rule will be fully implemented on Jan. 1, 2017.

While the above regulation does not go so far as Nomura’s proposal to ban all antibiotic use in animals when the medications may also used for human health purposes, it is a step in the direction of increased oversight of antibiotic use by the Food and Drug Agency. It will certainly be interesting to follow future regulations in this area as they appear on the horizon, and how the Veterinary Feed Directive impacts antibiotic use and food production.

Major Medical Institutions Allegedly Failing to Report Clinical Trials

December 16, 2015
Food and Drug Law, Regulatory

Jessica Jayasuriya, MJLST Managing Editor

The Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 requires that parties responsible for clinical trials submit clinical trial inform to the Director of NIH no later than one year after either the end date or the estimated end date of the trial.

However, several sources are alleging that Stanford University, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of California San Diego, and other major medical research institutions are failing to submit their clinical trial results within the deadline, and sometimes even at all.

The public database created by the legislation was intended to help the public, particularly medical professionals, scientists, and other researchers, to quickly access the latest findings on human testing of drugs, medical devices, and the like.

Institutions’ failure to turn in their results, however, is directly counteracting this legislative purpose. This is particularly concerning because doctors may not be getting critical information including adverse events in drug trials.

Interviews with the offending institutions indicate that the primary reason for these deadline lapses on the institutions’ end is due to being too busy and a lack of funding. Memorial Sloan Kettering, however, specifically stating it submitted some of its reporting in order to finish medical journal articles related to its trials. On top of institution failures to submit, is clear that the NIH is compounding the issue by failing to follow up on clinical trial deadlines.

Experts interviewed by the sources have further expressed concern that pressure from sponsoring drug companies may also be part of the reason why these clinical trials are not coming to light.

Just Not Mayo

December 2, 2015
Agriculture, Competition, Food and Drug Law, Regulatory

Nolan Hudalla, MJSLT Staffer

In August 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning letter to Hampton Creek Foods, the makers of the popular vegan mayonnaise substitute “Just Mayo.” This letter informed the company that its product had a misleading name and label imagery, because, by FDA regulation, mayonnaise must contain one or more eggs. This opinion by the FDA was in response to a high-profile lawsuit brought against Hampton Creek by Unilever (the makers of Hellmann’s Mayonnaise) and a similar class action filed in Florida state court, both alleging violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and unjust enrichment. But, in an era of healthier alternatives – a world of Whole Foods, Thanksgiving Tofurky, and even eggless mayo – is the FDA missing the point? Instead of relying on food recipes enshrined in agency regulations from the 1970’s to identify whether an eggless substitute is mayonnaise or not, maybe the FDA needs to modernize its definitions instead.

In an effort to demonstrate just how committed the government is to keeping Just Mayo from poaching the traditional mayo market, consider the American Egg Board’s (AEB) response to Just Mayo. The AEB, a group appointed by the US Department of Agriculture, may have used public funds to conspire against Just Mayo. According to a Guardian article, “the government-backed egg lobby had organized a concerted effort to tackle Hampton Creek, a company described in leaked emails as a ‘major threat’ and ‘crisis’ for the $5.5bn-a-year egg industry.” This investigation led to the resignation of the AEB’s CEO Joanne Ivy. In addition, the FDA sent Just Mayo its warning letter despite an enormous show of popular support against the agency’s policy. Over 112,000 petitioners scrambled to sign a petition started by Food Network star Andrew Zimmern entitled “Stop Bullying Sustainable Food Companies,” to Unilever Chairman Michael Treschow. This public uprising boiled to the point that Unilever voluntarily dropped its initial lawsuit within two days of filing.

Even if the Florida state court suit amounts to nothing, this issue will not be over easy for the FDA. As demonstrated by the petition, consumer preferences are changing, and not just for mayonnaise. Similar battles are being fought over peanut butter, milk, yogurt, and ice cream. Retail sales of vegan products rose by over 6% last year, and 36% of U.S. consumers use milk or meat alternatives. This raises the question of whether it is really worth all of the government’s money and effort to maintain 1970’s ideas of food. Instead of deviling these modern alternatives, maybe the FDA should buy in too. After all, it’s just mayo.

Let’s Talk: The Cold & Flu Season & Personalized Medicine

November 13, 2015
Food and Drug Law, Pharmaceuticals, Public Health, Regulatory

Allison Kvien, MJLST Managing Editor

As we approach cold and flu season, it is time we all start thinking about properly taking care of ourselves. Many individual factors have been linked to your heath. A Newsweek article reported that people who get less than 5 hours of sleep a night are 4.5 times as likely to become ill. According to The L.A. Times, an elevated heart rate could mean that a cold is on the way. Finally, an article from Harvard found a link between your popularity and how early in the season you become ill (yes, really—and I guess this explains why I haven’t gotten the flu since I was a kid). While this is all helpful information, it represents only a few factors that contribute to a person’s overall health. Over the years, the practice of medicine has become more accepting of the concept that “one size does not fit all” and that patients may need more personalized medicine.

One interesting development in personalized medicine was ten years ago, in 2005, when FDA approved the first race-specific drug, BiDil. As Dorothy E. Roberts explained in her MJLST article, BiDil, is “a combination drug that relaxes the blood vessels, [and] was authorized to treat heart failure in self-identified black patients.” Many scholars and citizens alike have found the approval of BiDil controversial, for a variety of reasons, legal, political, ethical, and otherwise. It may be, however, simply one more step on the path to personalization of medicine for patients. As Roberts reported, “BiDil increased survival by an astonishing 43 percent. Hospitalizations were reduced by 39 percent.” Roberts’s opinion, however, was that BiDil should have been approved for all heart failure patients, regardless of race because there was no underlying genetic difference in African Americans that the drug relied on for its positive results. The economic results of the BiDil drug may prevent others from going developing race-specific drugs for a while, though; BiDil has been described as a “flop.”

Cold season medicine is normally pretty generic. Think: Airborne, Sudafed, Advil, and cough drops, my favorite of which are the less-than-pleasant tasting Fisherman’s Friends that completely numb your throat—seriously, try them. I think the concept of personalized cold and flu medicine is particularly interesting because our current cold season medicine is normally over-the-counter and generalized. Can you imagine a future where you pick up a cold medicine tailored specifically to your genetic background? Well, it may already be happening. Just two years ago, FDA approved personalized flu vaccines for three groups: the elderly, children, and those with allergies. These personalized vaccines may allow some groups of our population to receive them when they wouldn’t otherwise be able to, or to at least receive them more safely. Specifically for flu vaccines, anyway, this step in personalization may not also reflect increased overall effectiveness in preventing illness. But let’s not give you an excuse to not get your flu vaccine. Go get that flu shot that was made just for you!

Let’s Talk: The Cold & Flu Season & Personalized Medicine

November 13, 2015
Food and Drug Law, Pharmaceuticals, Public Health, Regulatory

Allison Kvien, MJLST Managing Editor

As we approach cold and flu season, it is time we all start thinking about properly taking care of ourselves. Many individual factors have been linked to your heath. A Newsweek article reported that people who get less than 5 hours of sleep a night are 4.5 times as likely to become ill. According to The L.A. Times, an elevated heart rate could mean that a cold is on the way. Finally, an article from Harvard found a link between your popularity and how early in the season you become ill (yes, really—and I guess this explains why I haven’t gotten the flu since I was a kid). While this is all helpful information, it represents only a few factors that contribute to a person’s overall health. Over the years, the practice of medicine has become more accepting of the concept that “one size does not fit all” and that patients may need more personalized medicine.

One interesting development in personalized medicine was ten years ago, in 2005, when FDA approved the first race-specific drug, BiDil. As Dorothy E. Roberts explained in her MJLST article, BiDil, is “a combination drug that relaxes the blood vessels, [and] was authorized to treat heart failure in self-identified black patients.” Many scholars and citizens alike have found the approval of BiDil controversial, for a variety of reasons, legal, political, ethical, and otherwise. It may be, however, simply one more step on the path to personalization of medicine for patients. As Roberts reported, “BiDil increased survival by an astonishing 43 percent. Hospitalizations were reduced by 39 percent.” Roberts’s opinion, however, was that BiDil should have been approved for all heart failure patients, regardless of race because there was no underlying genetic difference in African Americans that the drug relied on for its positive results. The economic results of the BiDil drug may prevent others from going developing race-specific drugs for a while, though; BiDil has been described as a “flop.”

Cold season medicine is normally pretty generic. Think: Airborne, Sudafed, Advil, and cough drops, my favorite of which are the less-than-pleasant tasting Fisherman’s Friends that completely numb your throat—seriously, try them. I think the concept of personalized cold and flu medicine is particularly interesting because our current cold season medicine is normally over-the-counter and generalized. Can you imagine a future where you pick up a cold medicine tailored specifically to your genetic background? Well, it may already be happening. Just two years ago, FDA approved personalized flu vaccines for three groups: the elderly, children, and those with allergies. These personalized vaccines may allow some groups of our population to receive them when they wouldn’t otherwise be able to, or to at least receive them more safely. Specifically for flu vaccines, anyway, this step in personalization may not also reflect increased overall effectiveness in preventing illness. But let’s not give you an excuse to not get your flu vaccine. Go get that flu shot that was made just for you!

Honeybee Protection in the Ninth Circuit

October 13, 2015
Agriculture, Environmental Law, Food and Drug Law

Ian Blodger, MJLST Note & Comment Editor

In Pollinator Stewardship Council v. U.S. E.P.A., the Ninth Circuit recently took action to protect honeybees from dangerous chemicals approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. The case is a unique situation because the great deference with which the court reviews the EPA’s pesticide approval decisions means these approvals are rarely overturned.

The EPA has the authority to approve pesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). FIFRA allows the EPA to deny approval for pesticide licensing if doing so would prevent unreasonable adverse effects, including risks to the environment. 7 U.S.C. § 136a(a). In approving the use of a new pesticide, the EPA may choose to approve the pesticide conditionally or unconditionally. Conditional approval essentially means the EPA has insufficient data to determine the overall effects of the pesticide, and will allow use of the pesticide for a limited time to determine its impacts. Unconditional approval indicates the EPA has sufficient data to know the pesticide’s environmental effects. The court reviews the EPA’s decision to approve a new pesticide “if it is supported by substantial evidence when considered on the record as a whole” 7 U.S.C. § 136n(b).

This specific case centers around three new pesticides for which Dow Agrosciences sought approval. Each of these pesticides contained sulfoxaflor as its main ingredient. Following testing on individual bees, the EPA concluded sulfaxaflor was highly toxic to bees. After completing additional, though limited studies, the EPA concluded that there would be no way to determine the ultimate impact of the pesticide on the honeybee population unless the pesticide underwent testing under real world conditions. As such the EPA initially proposed to conditionally approve the use of sulfaxaflor pesticides while the agency collected additional data.

The EPA then reconsidered its previous conclusion, and decided to grant unconditional approval to the pesticide so long as certain mitigation measures were put in place. The EPA had no evidence as to the effectiveness of these measures.

Looking to this, the court determined that the record as a whole did not support the EPA’s decision to unconditionally approve the three sulfaxaflor based pesticides. The court’s decision rested on the fact that there was no evidence in the record suggesting the mitigation measures were sufficient to protect honeybees. As a result, the court vacated the EPA’s approval of the pesticides, and remanded the case to the EPA for further studies.

While this outcome does not prevent the EPA from conditionally approving sulfaxaflor, the Ninth Circuit’s analysis will hopefully serve as a reminder to agencies tasked with protecting valuable national resources to take their task seriously.

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