February 22, 2014  -  Under the 1997 Proposed Rule (never issued as a Final Rule), FDA has permitted the Self-Affirmation by Petitioners of GRAS Status for Food Additives for nearly 16 years.

This practice was strongly criticized by the GAO (Government Accountability Office) in a 2010 GAO Report.

Now, this practice has been challenged in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Food Safety in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

This lawsuit will focus attention in the coming year on this important subject in Food Labeling.

To facilitate understanding of these issues, we have posted three important documents which we hope our Regulatory Food Science professional readers will review rather than taking their information for the industry news media.

We post below:

Center for Food Safety v. Kathleen Sebelius, et al., Case 1:14-cv-00267., U.S.Dist. Ct. D.C., filed Feb. 20, 2014.

GAO Report, GAO-10-246, FDA Should Strengthen Its Oversight of Food Ingredients Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS), February 2010.

62-FR-18938, Substances Generally Recognized as Safe, April 17, 1997.