FILE MEMORANDUM

MCA Meeting of August 17,
Nelson Bills et al

August 18,

1972

1972

Meeting held at MCA Washington Office pursuant to M. M.
Hoover’s letter of August 10.
Meeting attended by C. F. Hagan,
G. W. Ingle, M. M. Hoover and the writer. .
(1)

With respect to 37 FR 16407^on revision of
121.2000
of Food Additive regulation, Mr. Hoover will prepare
comment to object only to omission of administrative
safeguards for the new general provisions, i.e.
opportunity for comments on proposals and for pre­
sentation of any new data which may be relevant to a
proposed revision of a prior sanction, and opportunity
for public hearing.

(2)

On environmental impact statements, Mr. Hagan will
prepare draft comments to the effect the FDA has no
authority under the Act to require environmental
impact analysis.
It will be suggested that, where
environmental impact is "significant", FDA can request
assistance of the petitioner which probably will be
given freely.
It was also the opinion of the group
that food, food additives and drugs are not likely to
produce significant environmental problems.except,
perhaps, in manufacture wherein any environmental
pollution would be under control of the Environmental
Protection Agency.
As an aside to solution of environmental disposal
problems, G. W. Ingle mentioned that one of the items
holding up acceptance of the plastic whiskey bottle
by the Internal Revenue Service is just such a problem.
IRS, having no expertise in this area, has come to the
plastics industry for assistance, and it now appears
that an outside contractor must be engaged to develop
facts necessary for the environmental impact statement
required by the law.
Ingle's point is that industry
may be better equipped than most government agencies
to anticipate impact.

(3)

Mr. Hagan will prepare draft statement to be proposed
for submission to the McGovern Select Committee hearings
on Nutrition and Human Needs of which Senator Nelson is
a member and at which the principles underlying his two
bills, S76 and S3163, will be debated.
These hearings
were planned for last week, but it now appears that they
cannot be held before the latter part of September.
(See
Food Chemical News of July 17, 1972, pages 15-16, for
description of hearing coverage.)
It is understood that
the same planned set of witnesses will appear and there
may not be opportunity for MCA to testify, but written
comments will be accept d and considered.
Th s
are not
legislative hearings.

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August 18,

-

1972

FILE MEMORANDUM
MCA Meeting of August 17,
Nelson Bills et al

1972

The general approach to S3163 will be that:
There is
no need for such a bill; FDA presently has authority
to prescribe protocols for testing; and there has been
no indication that data presented to FDA as support of
food additive petitions is not valid.
An undesirable
feature of the proposed bill is that FDA would let
contracts and also be the reviewer - and possibly not
be as critical of results from contractor of their own
selection.
With respect to new tests on old additives and deletion
of the GRAS list (as proposed in S76), it will be
suggested that the scientific expertise available should
be reserved for the solution of more important problems.
Nutritional aspects of the bill will not be commented
upon.
This will be left to the Grocery Manufacturers
Association (GMA).
The addition to Section 402(c) of the Act is a particu­
larly onerous section of the bill because it would sub­
stantially eliminate the use of all color additives in
food since none purport to be necessary for the main­
tenance of nutritional value or preservation of food.
However, scientific defense of color additives is not
strong.
Colors do serve to identify flavors and do
make food attractive, but obviously there must be no
harm from their use, a point that is being questioned
by consumer advocates,
(4)

Dr. Jack Frawley of Hercules will be asked to update
comments on S76 which is a duplicate of S.3295 in the
91st Congress and reviewed by an MCA subcommittee at
that time.
A major decision is whether to advocate
outright repeal of the Delaney clause or insert a
proviso to permit the Secretary to establish insigni­
ficant level of intake for any biological effect.
The
decision here is political, since FDA has that authority
to bar any deleterious substance.

W. A. Knapp
WAK:pb

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