FDA

Cochineal Bugs in Our Food and Drink

The Food and Drug Administration has deemed these bugs as “safe” to add to the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries products.

The junk food industry is trying to make more money with less spent on quality. That’s why you may notice that many companies are adding ground up and/or boiled beetle carcasses into their fruit juices, candy, ice creams, and more. These beetle carcasses contribute to the reds, purples, and pinks found in many junk food items.

You won’t find “beetle carcasses” under any of the ingredients lists. However, you may find “carminic acid” or “cochineal extract”. These terms sound scientific, but they actually describe the bugs that the junk food industry is adding to our food. The Food and Drug Administration has deemed these bugs as “safe” to add to the junk food industry’s products.

Unfortunately, when you inform people that their raspberry yogurt, maraschino cherries, Starbucks Strawberry Frappuccino, brands of lipstick, or hundreds of other items are colored with this natural extract, most are revolted instead of intrigued. In fact, outraged vegans have pressured Starbucks to look for another, non-insect-derived product to use in the frappuccino concoction.

What is a cochineal bug?

It is a small, chubby scale insect that feeds on prickly pear cactus. There are many species of scale insect. Most are very small, less than ¼ inch long, sedentary insects that suck plant sap with tiny, piercing mouth parts. They belong to the same order of insect that includes aphids, cicadas, and leaf hoppers.

You might not even recognize some scale species as insects. Adult females have no legs or wings and are basically bags of guts and eggs that seem glued to the stems or leaves of their host plant. Some scales have hard, shell-like coverings, and look like tiny shells. Cochineal bugs are covered with a waxy or powdery white coating, and often cluster on the surface of the prickly pear pads, looking like tiny cotton balls. If you squish these cottony balls, your fingers will be covered with copious amounts of a thick, dark red fluid. This intense color has been used to dye fabric for many centuries, and more recently, has become a colorant in foods and drinks. If you are concerned about eating or using products containing cochineal, you will have to read the fine print on a lot of products.

Here is a short list of items that may contain cochineal-derived colorant:

Frozen meat and fish (e.g., artificial crab meat)
Soft drinks, fruit drinks, energy drinks, and powdered drink mixes
Yogurts, ice cream and dairy-based drinks
Candy, syrups, popsicles, fillings and chewing gum
Canned fruits including cherries and jams
Dehydrated and canned soups
Ketchup
Some wines and liqueurs (according to Wikipedia, as of 2006 carmine is no longer used to give the Italian aperitif Campari its distinctive deep red color)
Lipstick, eyeshadow, blush, nail polish, and other cosmetic items
Pills, ointments and syrups used in the pharmaceutical industry

October 2017

In a Federal Register notice published Sept. 6, FDA formally announced its plans to hold a meeting on Oct. 3 to discuss its future development of an authoritative list of old dietary ingredients exempt from notification requirements in the law. In a 2016 draft guidance published on new dietary ingredient notifications (NDINs), FDA revealed it was willing to develop an authoritative list of dietary ingredients that were marketed before Oct. 15, 1994, and consequently exempt from the NDIN requirements in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA).

The planned meeting, an FDA official said “is critical to the efforts to develop an authoritative list.” Such a list could benefit FDA and the dietary supplement industry it regulates. “By providing clarity as to which ingredients do not require notifications, it would alleviate the burden on industry of preparing and submitting unnecessary notifications,” FDA stated in the forthcoming Federal Register notice. “Similarly, by eliminating unnecessary notifications, an authoritative list would enable us to more efficiently use our limited resources to review notifications for truly ‘new’ ingredients. In addition, an authoritative list would allow us to better focus our enforcement efforts in alignment with our strategic priorities of consumer safety, product integrity and accurate information.”

In separate panel discussions, the meeting will tackle two distinct issues that have elicited various opinions: the standard of evidence required to show an ingredient belongs on the pre-DSHEA list; and the process by which ingredients should be added to the list, such as the process for nominating and reviewing pre-DSHEA ingredients and how to treat confidential information.
FDA is allowing individuals to comment on the public meeting by submitting electronic or written comments by Dec. 4, 2017, and the agency provided instructions in the Federal Register notice for submitting confidential information. Submit electronic comments in the following way:

Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Comments submitted electronically, including attachments, to https://www.regulations.gov

Action Alert from ANH USA!

Write to your representatives in Congress and urge them to support HR 2871. Please send your message immediately.

Congressmen Morgan Griffith (R-VA) and Henry Cuellar (R-TX) recently introduced HR 2871, the Preserving Patient Access to Compounded Medications Act of 2017. This is an important first step toward saving many natural, customized medicines from the chopping block. Without a doubt, this will receive significant opposition from Big Pharma and from the FDA itself making your support crucial for getting this legislation passed. This is our moment to act. We’ve been telling you for years how the FDA has been waging an all-out war on customized, natural medicines made at specialized pharmacies. FDA actions threaten to wipe these life-saving medications off the map. Congress has repeatedly scolded the FDA through language in congressional spending bills for distorting lawmakers’ intent and needlessly limiting patient access to important medications. The agency’s fidelity to Big Pharma is the only explanation we can develop for this lawless behavior. This new bill does two important things. It amends section 503A of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to unequivocally allow “office use” of compounded drugs, which allows a doctor to keep a supply of certain medications in his or her office in order to provide immediate treatment to patients who need it.

The bill also mandates the FDA to accept USP monographs. Last year the FDA, with no explanation or justification, stated that it would not accept supplement USP monographs. This meant that in order to be used in customized, natural medicines, supplements had to be nominated for the FDA’s pre-approved list. Many supplements were nominated, but, no surprise, the FDA rejected them. Even a supplement, however, like curcumin, with very important medical uses. Behind the scenes, of course, Pharma is trying to turn curcumin or a synthetic analogue in a drug. This bill doesn’t fix every misguided action of the FDA since the agency began implementing the Drug Quality and Security Act of 2013. However, this bill is a major first step forward in saving important natural medications from the FDA’s chopping block, and it needs our support.