Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
by Marion Nestle
Oct
4
2008
FDA issues melamine risk assessment
The FDA says melamine in food at or below a level of 2.5 ppm (mg/kg) is unlikely to be harmful–except in infant formula. This seems reasonable; on a per kg body weight basis, this would be a very low dose. But what about when it is mixed with its by-product, cyanuric acid? Nobody has yet defined the lowest dose of melamine which, when mixed with cyanuric acid, does not form kidney-blocking crystals. Melamine should not be in the food supply at all, and especially not in infant formula, under any circumstances
