Generally Recognised as Safe

Today, I want to talk about food additives. That evil institution despised by crazy UKIP and an increasing number of 'mainstream' conservatives in the UK, the European Union, has very explicit rules stating what can and cannot be added to foods. I'm talking about things like artificial preservatives, colourings, flavourings, etc. While some on the right decry the EU as being a source of unnecessary bureaucracy, designed to stifle business and create jobs for overpaid paper-pushers, these rules can occasionally be rather helpful: to introduce a new additive to the European food chain, it has to go through rather rigorous, long-term safety assessments. This seems pretty reasonable, and I assumed that similar standards were applied here in the US, especially given the highly litigious nature of American society.

A few months ago, I read an opinion piece in Nature magazine (as one does) talking about US food additives regulation. It turns out that, to use an additive in the US, FDA (Food and Drug Administration) rules say that if it is Generally Recognised as Safe (GRAS), it is does not need to be approved by the FDA. According to Wikipedia, the source of all human knowledge:

The substance must be shown to be "generally recognized" as safe under the conditions of its intended use. The proponent of the exemption has the burden of proving that the use of the substance is "generally recognized" as safe. To establish such recognition, the proponent must show that there is a consensus of expert opinion regarding the safety of the use of the substance

Which seems fair enough. However, the Nature news piece (which I thoroughly recommend you read) pointed out some flaws in the system: the manufacturer of the additive is itself responsible for assessing whether a substance qualifies as GRAS after which is it requested (but not legally required) to notify the FDA. There are no data describing how much companies actually comply with these regulations, but the FDA found in 2010 that 4 out of 4 energy drink manufacturers that it inspected had not actually carried out the required checks. Yikes!

A study published in December last year found some startling results:

• Fewer that 38% of GRAS claims were backed up by toxicology studies in animals.
• 80% of additives intentionally added to food lacked information on what the safe levels were
• 93% of additives had no data showing reproductive or developmental toxicity.

The same authors reported in another study that, although GRAS assessments should be made independently to avoid conflicts of interest, none in fact are. Of the assessments the authors examined, 22.4% had been carried out by an employee of the manufacturer, 13.3% were carried out by an employee of a consulting firm selected by the manufacturer, and 64.3% were carried out by an expert panel appointed either by a consultancy firm or the manufacturer. Rather chilling reading!

What does this mean? Well, it explains the discrepancies found between the same foods sold in the US and the EU. Skittles sold in the UK are coloured with natural colourings because the dyes used in the US version are mostly banned in the EU because they cause behavioural deficits in children.

One more reason to reduce the amount of processed food we eat, I guess... (dirty processed food such as 7-11 hot dogs, consumed whilst drunk, don't count!) I'm not arguing here that all food additives in the US are dangerous because that would be unscientific: in most cases, there are no data to support the assertion that they are either good or bad. They're probably not deadly because someone would have noticed by now... in fact, they're generally recognised as safe. 

Oh, Canada.

*Updated: I found this article on a Canadian academic website that explains some of the Harper attacks on science with more eloquence and detail than I can muster. Recommended reading for Canadians and non-Canadians alike*

One of the running jokes for liberal Americans is that if the Republicans / Conservatives win an election, they are going to move to Canada. Canada being that lovely, fluffy, kind country to the north of the US that is known for being liberally minded, environmentally aware, having sensible gun-control laws, universal health care, and generally just being a progressive, socialist, European-flavoured version of the US. They even correctly spell many words, such as flavour, although they do share the US obsession with the letter "Z" (e.g. bastardized vs bastardised). But at least they pronounce it "zed" and not "zee".

Unknown to most people, in the last 5 years Canada has been lurching horribly to the right under the leadership of the Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper (not to be confused with Steve Harper, the former Newcastle United goalkeeper). The first time that I heard of Stephen Harper was on my first visit to Canada, when there was a furore over the fact that he prematurely dissolved parliament for the holidays to avoid a vote of no-confidence that would have brought his government down. Even then, the signs were clear that this guy was a bit of an arsehole but, at that time, his party didn't have an overall majority in the Canadian parliament so the damage he could do to the country was limited.

All of this changed in 2011 when Harper won an overall majority in the Canadian parliament, allowing him free reign to start undoing all the things that have made Canada great. I would need several blog posts to go through the terribleness of the Harper regime in full detail, so I'll stick to just the highlights from his assault on the environment and scientific research. One of the first things that he did with his overall majority was to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol, which pretty much sets the scene.

Every year in Canada and the UK, the government brings a budget bill to parliament for approval. Unlike the US, where failing to pass a budget shuts down the government, voting down a government budget bill in Canada or the UK is considered a vote of no-confidence in the government which, by convention, means that a general election has to take place to form a new government. This means that voting against the budget is very much a nuclear option that no politician will have the stomach for.

Harper has exploited this by introducing omnibus budget bills spanning several hundred pages that pack a myriad of law changes spanning everything from environmental legislation through to rights of aboriginal peoples. Last year, he used these bills to strip First Nations tribes of rights allowing them to defend and benefit from resources in their territory. He also used the bills to repeal environmental protection laws such as abolishing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, removing the oversight of regulatory bodies on major projects and giving the final say to parliament, allowing the National Energy Board to grant permits for development even when they will threaten endangered species, and many more things. Click on some of the links I've provided, as I'm barely scratching the surface - he's also cutting funding for the arts, removing legal oversight of the security services, etc...

He removed $31b from health care and weakened food and drug regulations, including giving the Health Minister the right to exempt products from legal oversight at will and removing the Canadian Food Inspection Agency from government oversight. Harper has also been doing terrible things to the Fisheries Act  including removing habitat protections, reducing the law to only cover fish of "economic interest" and any development that crosses a river, seabed or whatever can only be halted if it will actually cause harm to those fish that are of economic or sporting value. Oh dear.

Harper is a conservative, big business, big oil kind of guy. Most of his policies are aimed at "cutting red-tape" and making it easier to exploit oil resources, but he claims to be trying to save money. I wonder how much of the money he is saving (actually, I know - $65,000) has gone towards plastering Washington, DC with Canadian government-sponsored adverts supporting the Keystone XL pipeline - something so environmentally-damaging that even the US thought that it was going too far.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Harper regime is its assault on science and the gagging of Canadian government-funded scientists. Harper has introduced rules that prevent any government scientist from talking to the media about their research; when they can speak, they are only allowed to answer questions pre-vetted by the government and in some cases, can only give interviews in the presence of a government minder. All very dark and Orwellian. The international science community is taking notes of this, with Nature running a series of damning news articles and editorials. Canadian scientists are still protesting against this, but this government is not for turning.

It gets worse. Last year, the Canadian government announced that it was cutting funding to the ELA, the Experimental Lakes Area, a 61-year old scientific experiment that has a closed lake system which has allowed hugely important research to take place. Science from the ELA has proven that fertiliser use causes algal blooms, demonstrated how methyl mercury accumulates in fish and goes up the food chain, revealed the mechanisms of acid rain, documented greenhouse gas release from hydroelectric reservoirs and demonstrated how oestrogen in contraceptive pills feminises male fish. The lakes would already have been closed if it wasn't for the campaign of Diane Orihel, who was doing her PhD at the time and managed to make lots of noise and find some alternative funding streams to support the ELA. Harper has also slashed funding for environmental research in his 2012 omnibus bill and has cut funding for basic research in favour of that for applied science.

It gets even worse. This year, the Canadian Government massively changed the remit of the National Research Council, the main funding body for building scientific infrastructre, demanding that the agency only fund projects that are useful for industry. The NRC has cut its priority areas to just five:  health costs, manufacturing, community infrastructure, security, and natural resources and the environment. The Harper government has been truly awful for Canadian science.

So why do I care, or bring this up? Well, I'm quite fond of Canada for a start. Given that my wife is Canadian, we have a vested interest in her country not going to ruin while we're living abroad. Once we've finished playing here in the US, we will need to choose a country to settle in and raise our little ginger babies.

Dom does environmental research so it's becoming increasingly clear that her type are not welcome in Canada. I research basic neurophysiology so, while my research is important, it's not going to immediately lead to breakthroughs in disease or produce something that is readily monetisable. That's not how science works. While I often talk about what I see as flaws in the US, one advantage that America has is that it understands the importance of funding basic research both to produce new solutions to environmental and health problems, as well as helping to drive a knowledge-based economy. George Osbourne, take note.

Ironically, given how Canada has changed under the Harper regime, it is the Republicans in the US who should be threatening to move to Canada: Harper is trying his hardest to make Canada a place where they would feel at home...

Canada, sort your shit out!