Michael F. Jacobson, PH.D. is co-founder and executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a nonprofit health advocacy organization with more than 900,000 members. CSPI focuses on nutrition, food safety, scientific integrity and alcohol policy. It publishes Nutrition Action Healthletter as well as numerous studies, including “Salt: the Forgotten Killer” and “Liquid Candy: How Soft Drinks are Harming Americans’ Health.” CSPI is a key player in the ongoing battle against obesity in America, advocating nutritious and safe diets and pushing legislators and corporations to take steps to protect the public’s health. He has had numerous technical papers and letters published in theJournal of Molecular Biology,the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

His articles have appeared in Smithsonian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, the Christian Science Monitor, Miami Herald, Michael Jacobson is the author of several books, including Six Arguments For a Greener Diet.

Michael Jacobson--

Shame on the Food and Drug Administration for its midnight decision to accept the industry’s contention that rebaudioside A, a sweetener extracted from the herb Stevia, is “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS. That “general recognition” of safety certainly doesn’t extend to the UCLA scientists who concluded that rebaudioside A is inadequately tested in terms of cancer and caused mutations in some laboratory tests. It is far too soon to allow this substance in the diet sodas and juice drinks consumed by millions of people. It looks like this is President Bush's parting gift to the soda industry.

If President-Elect Obama's transition team is making a list of last-minute Bush Administration regulatory actions that warrant reversal on January 20, this needs to be added to the list. The FDA has had a poor track record when it comes to allowing companies to market dubious ingredients, such as the stomach-churning fake-fat olestra and the anaphylaxis-causing Quorn mycoprotein. The FDA’s refusal to regulate BPA, the apparent endocrine-disrupting substance in some plastics, is another example.

Congress and the Obama Administration should strengthen the law that allows companies to simply declare on their own that new additives are “generally recognized as safe” and just start marketing them, even without notifying the FDA and public. Those decisions are reviewed too casually by the all-too-passive FDA.

Coca-Cola And Cargill Rush To Market Stevia

Update on Dec 22, 2008 by At Basil & Spice

Reuters!