
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 8, 1990                   TAG: 9003082078
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/8   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

CONSUMER GROUPS SKEPICAL OF FDA'S FOOD LABELING PLAN

Consumer groups like the Food and Drug Administration's plan to revamp the nation's food-labeling system, but they say the agency can't be trusted to fulfill its promise of stronger rules.

"We've been here before," said Ellen Haas, executive director of Public Voice for Food and Health Policy, complaining that FDA has been trying unsuccessfully for a decade to redo the labeling regulations.

"What consumers do not want is to continue in the nutritional minefield that is the supermarket," she said. "And proposals will not get us out of that minefield - only final action" will.

Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan on Wednesday outlined the food-labeling program the government will propose. They include requiring disclosure of the fat, fiber and cholesterol content of nearly all packaged foods and standardized definitions of terms like "low fat" and "high fiber."

Sullivan said the FDA will offer the changes in three phases, the first of which will be formally proposed in the next six months. After the public is given time to comment, final rules would be published in the Federal Register sometime in 1991, he said. The rules would take effect after that.

But Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said that "in light of repeated delays," legislation will be necessary to set a firm deadline for agency to complete action.

Bills sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, would impose requirements similar to those the FDA said it will propose.

The FDA proposed new food-labeling regulations during the Carter administration in 1979, but the plan languished on the back burner after President Reagan took office. The agency revived the effort in the mid-1980s, proposing piecemeal changes in the system, but few went through.

Industry representatives complained that the FDA's plan would not head off state efforts to extend federal regulations with their own requirements.

"If everybody is concerned about confusion, then why can we not have one uniform national labeling system that applies across the board from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Ore.," said John Cady, president of the National Food Processors Association.

by CNB