get corn listed on labels, too!

Tell the FDA: Corn Needs to be Included in the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act

Targeting: Jennifer Love (FAAN - Marketing and Media Contact), Mary Jane Marchisotto (Executive Director at Food Allergy Initiative) and Dr. Margaret Hamburg (FDA Commissioner)

Started by: Sharon Rosen

Unlabeled Corn Allergens in food and medicine threaten the health and general safety of many Americans. TheFood Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA) has made it much easier to to avoid any of the eight allergens the FDA refers to as the "Most Common Allergens," but it is in need of a revision. Those allergens currently included in the FALCPA are: Milk, Eggs, Peanuts, Tree nuts, Soy, Wheat, Fish, and Shellfish.

Corn Allergens are not required to be labeled, and may be hidden under the name of Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid, Tocopherols, "Natural Flavors," and many other ingredients.

When there are ingredients in a product that are derived from Corn, it should be a requirement to list their source, just as it is for the other common allergens.

We need more information to make clear, healthy choices for ourselves and our family.

• Report

Petition Text

Corn Needs to be Included in the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act

Greetings,

This petition is submitted for your review, of and by, concerned consumers who reside in and travel throughout the U.S.

We seek better, more inclusive labeling laws, specifically as it relates to Corn or ingredients derived from Corn, contained in food, products, and medicine.

The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA) has made it much easier to to avoid any of the eight allergens the FDA refers to as the "Most Common Allergens", but it is in need of a revision. Corn is one of the most difficult allergens to avoid because of the many ways Corn is used in various source ingredients (i.e. Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid, Tocopherols, etc), sometimes even under the name "Natural Flavors."

Medical professionals are at risk of endangering their patients with IVs or injections that contain Dextrose, not aware, or in too much of a hurry to relate that ingredient with a Corn Allergy. Doctors, nurses, dentists, and others in the field of medicine are all in a position where they need medications clearly labeled for Allergens, Corn included.

This petition is to request Corn be included in the list of allergens required by the FDA (FALCPA) to be listed by it's "common or usual name" (i.e. Corn).

Sincerely,

[Your name]

CORN Allergen

Is Corn Allergy a Growing Threat to Your Child?
Corn is one of the fastest growing food allergies in children, though one of the most unrecognized and underreported.

AllergyKids wants to highlight current research on corn, how it may be "hidden" in food and steps that you can take to help protect the health of your family, especially given that corn is often consumed by those with Celiac’s disease or a wheat allergy.

How do I know if my child has a corn allergy?
Many families arrive at the diagnosis of "corn allergy" on accident, initially thinking that their child might be allergic to preservatives or additives found in food when their child is actually reacting to the corn ingredients, corn products or high fructose corn syrup found in many food products.

Corn is considered a "new" food allergy, as corn was never known to have allergy-inducing properties. It is often found in families that consume a diet high in processed foods.

So what has changed?
According to an April 2007 report from the Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, corn was recently engineered to create its own insecticide. This report states that in 2005 this corn “was modified to produce in its cells a new artificial insecticidal and modified toxin.”

How much of our corn is modified?
Corn is one of the fastest growing modified crops. Not only is corn used in our food supply but it is also used for ethanol, an alternative fuel. It is estimated that almost 70% of our corn is now modified.

What products contain this corn?
Modified corn is often found in pre-packaged and processed foods and pet food products, usually in the form of high fructose corn syrup, corn starch and other corn product ingredients.

Modified corn is also used as animal feed for chickens, pork and other animals, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal. Of note, children that are allergic to corn are often also allergic to meat from animals fed a corn-feed diet (chicken, pork, etc.).

Additionally, high fructose corn syrup represents almost 50% of the ingredients found in infant formula in the United States. However, high fructose corn syrup is not widely used as an ingredient in food and beverages in Europe, Australia and other developed countries.

Why is corn modified?
Due to growing concerns by farmers over the health and environmental implications of spraying pesticides and insecticides onto corn crops, scientists genetically engineered these toxins into the crops in order to to address the increased global demand for food by preventing crop loss due to insects, rodents and other pests.

Should I be concerned?
According to Reuters Health and research from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina, exposure to agricultural pesticides in the first-trimester of pregnancy increases a womans risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy.

Another study by scientists at the Columbia Center for Childrens Environmental Health in New York found a link between impaired fetal growth and pesticide use in New York apartments, according to Business Week.

Although we are not a medical organization, AllergyKids concern is that the gastrointestinal tract is a prominent part of our immune system and that no human trials have been conducted to assess the long term impact of consuming foods derived from crops whose proteins have been engineered with insecticidal toxins.

Why havent I heard this before?
As one of the first independently funded food allergy organizations, AllergyKids is in a unique position to work with leading researchers and scientists across the food and agricultural industries (both conventional and organic) in order to highlight the most current global research.

Our goal is to give you the tools to help protect your family.

Why is independent research important?
A recent study from the Children’s Hospital Boston highlighted in the New York Times reveals that food/beverage industry research funded by food/beverage industry groups tends to favor those industries.

According to Rescuing Science from Politics: Regulation and the Distortion of Scientific Research, a book written by leading law professors and reviewed by a former FDA director, "special interests can abuse the law to intrude on the way that scientists conduct research."

At AllergyKids, our sole interest is in protecting the health and well-bring of children. In reviewing all scientific research, we always consider funding ties and any financial relationship that may exist between the funding organization and the researchers.

What else can I do?
At AllergyKids, we are continually inspired by what we have learned from the mothers and fathers of the millions of children with food allergies. You are caregivers, accountants, lawyers, nurses, entrepreneurs, business owners, authors, pediatricians and journalists. You are the voices for our children, and we invite you to be part of the cure.

You can contact the USDA at 202.720.3252 to learn more about these toxins in your familys food.

And although the FDA has been busy with the recent peanut butter and pet food recalls, they are currently focused on genetically engineered foods, specifically addressing the pending approval of rice engineered with human genes and of cloned of animals for human consumption.

Should you wish to contact the FDA to report any unusual allergic reactions that your child may have experienced, you can reach the FDA at 1.800.FDA.4010.

How can I avoid these toxins in my familys diet?
If you are interested in trying to avoid these modified foods in your family’s diet, you can reduce the amount of processed foods that your family consumes.

We have also learned that according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), for a product to be labeled "USDA Organic," it can not contain these genetically modified toxins and ingredients. For a product labeled "USDA Organic," it can not contain "GMOs".

Our Goal: To Learn the "Complex Truth" about Food Allergies
According to Alexis de Tocqueville, a political thinker and historian, "It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth." At AllergyKids, we choose to work on behalf of these children, not because it is easy, but because it is hard and because our children deserve the "complex truth."

This famous thinker also said that "life is to be entered upon with courage." In no way is this more apparent than in the lives of these children and the millions of families dealing with food allergies.

As we continue to work with global organizations, we are grateful for the leading efforts of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and their recent Allergy Alert on Undeclared Allergens in Pre-Packaged Food Products as it highlights the topic of one of our recent newsletters, "Allergen Labeling Alert," and the critical role that these voluntary labels play in the health of our children.

From - ALLERGYKIDS.COM

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This stuff is really scary. We are being experimented on without our permission.

for a full list of corn allergens go here:
http://www.cornallergens.com/list/corn-allergen-list.php

~nancy

Our Intimate Relationship with Food - and 10 Things You Can Do to Protect Your Family

A famous French political thinker once said that the public would rather believe a simple lie than a complex truth.

The truth behind genetic engineering is extremely complex. It has been used for decades, but it is only in the last ten years that neurotoxins have been engineered into our food supply.

No one has studied the long term health implications of children consuming foods containing neurotoxins, novel proteins and allergens.

Though to look back over the last ten years, you quickly remember that ten years ago, we didn¹t have to worry about sending a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into school with our children; we didn¹t have to medicate our eight year olds to get them through the school day; and the movie, Rain Man, was all we knew of autism.

Today, at least 1 out of every 17 children under the age of three has a food allergy with at least 5 million American children suffering from this condition (though these statistics underestimate the problem since they are from 2002, over five years old).

Autism, diabetes and obesity are often referred to as American epidemics.

So what has changed?

In 1996, the United States adopted widespread use of genetically modified crops due to growing public concern over the health risks associated with the industrial spraying of insecticidal and pesiticidal toxins.

In an effort to reduce the spraying of these toxins, scientists began using biotechnology to engineer these pesticides and insecticides into the plants themselves.

As these ingredients were introduced around the world ten years ago, government agencies in Europe, Asia, Australia, Japan, Russia and 45 developed countries required them to be listed on food labels, so that consumers could make informed choices when it came to feeding their families.

In the United States, our regulatory agencies do not require these genetically engineered ingredients to be labeled.

So, unlike other developed countries, we have not been informed that almost 70% of our corn, 90% of our soy and 75% of our processed food now contain neurotoxins, novel proteins and allergens.

Today one out of every three children suffers from allergies, asthma, autism or ADHD. It appears that we have unknowingly and without informed consent engaged our children in one of the largest human trials in history.

Ten years into this human trial, our children are trying to tell us something.

Shouldn't we listen?

Watch AllergyKids on GOOD MORNING AMERICA to learn how to protect your family.

10 Steps You Can Take to Protect Your Family:

1. Reduce your family's exposure to processed foods
2. Eat food with ingredients that your grandmother would have used
3. Purchase organic eggs, as they are not from chickens fed corn engineered to produce its own insecticides
4. Cook with olive oil instead of butter, margarine or vegetable oil
5. Avoid conventional soy and corn products (vegetable oil, high fructose corn syrup) since most are genetically engineered
6. Look for meat and poultry that not injected with antibiotics and additional hormones
7. As recommended by the British Dietetic Association, avoid exposing infants under the age of 12 months to conventional soy
8. Consume organic foods for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in order to reduce your exposure to pesticides (recently linked to autism and gestational diabetes)
9. Look for "rBGH-free" milk. rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) is a genetically engineered, synthetic chemical hormone that is not allowed in milk in most developed countries given its link to breast and prostate cancers
10. When discussing vaccines with your child's pediatrician, especially vaccines grown in eggs, request the informational leaflets that accompany the vaccines as they discuss autoimmune conditions like food allergies in detail

SIGN OUR LETTER TO CONGRESS and Help Us Educate Our Lawmakers about the Risk that these Unlabeled Allergens in Our Foods Appear to Present to Children (and All of Us!).

Watch AllergyKids on the CBS Early Show: Our Children's Chemical Cocktail

For more information, please visit AllergyKids' Resources Page where additional research is available as well as information disclosing corporate funding ties of leading pediatric allergists.

From Allergykids.com
http://www.allergykids.com/index.php?id=33

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The movie "Killer at Large" mentions why policy makers do not want us to know that they are using these modified seeds because they feel we are not smart enough to understand it as well as that it might hinder sales before they product has a chance to be tested and marketed correctly. I want to know what's in our food... but people with allergies need to "know" what's in their food. It's a matter of life or death. Please be sure to sign the letter to Congress...
~nancy