DINAKARAN NEWS

Will new FSSAI rules undercut baby food law?

Does special infant food for certain rare medical conditions have to be kept out of the Infant Milk Substitute (IMS) Act — a law to prevent predatory marketing practices by baby foodcompanies — to ensure their availability? This question sparked a tussle between public health activists and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).

Ostensibly to deal with three very rare medical conditions in infants, FSSAI decided to exempt several products from the IMS Act. Baby food companies used this to sponsor doctors and market these special foods, which the IMS Act prohibits. Following protests from health activists, FSSAI clarified that the Act's provisions on marketing, promotion and sponsorship would apply to these special foods, but they would otherwise remain out of its ambit.

The Act is hailed globally as one of the most effective laws to protect breastfeeding against unethical marketing by baby-food companies. As a result, the sale of baby food formula in India is a tiny fraction of that in China, which does not have a similar stringent law.

So why is FSSAI keeping these special foods out of the Act? FSSAI says that since the Act says all baby food labels have to carry a statement "mother's milk is best for your baby" in capital letters, special foods for inborn metabolic errors have to be kept out of the legislation. However, according to the WHO and the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP), there are only three inborn metabolic diseases in which breastfeeding can harm the baby. Of these, AAP says breastfeeding is an absolute no-no in just one, galactosemia. In the other two, phenylketonuria and maple syrup urine disease, breastfeeding is allowed along with special formula under medical monitoring.

FSSAI's other argument is that products under the IMS Act can be taken on the advice of a health worker, while these special diets need medical supervision.

The problem is that FSSAI has exempted all foods for special medical purposes (FSMPs). FSMPs include formulas for low birth-weight babies, hypoallergenic formulas for babies with cow milk allergy and lactose free formulas. These are already sold in India, regulated by the IMS and FSSAI Acts. They have labels saying that mother's milk is best, an advisory that they are to be used under medical supervision and a label clearly identifying them as infant milk substitutes.

Even before the draft regulation of exemption to these products got approved, FSSAI okayed labels of many of these special foods with a sticker, "This is neither an infant milk substitute nor an infant food". This is the key concern, pointed out Dr Arun Gupta of the Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India, one of four bodies responsible for reporting IMS Act violations. "Will violations under IMS Act attract penalties when the products are being kept out of its purview? The exemption will only create confusion that baby-food companies will take advantage of. The policy to exempt some baby foods from IMS Act is flawed and is the result of partnership with baby food companies," he charged.

NGT imposes environmental compensation on FSSAI

Over indiscriminate disposal of waste

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Monday imposed environmental compensation on the Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) and the Central Drug Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) after a plea alleged that poultry farms were degrading the environment with “indiscriminate disposal of waste”.

₹25,000 compensation

A Bench headed by judicial member Jawad Rahim imposed environmental compensation of ₹25,000 on the authorities after they failed to reply to the notice.

The green panel had earlier issued notices to the authorities, including the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).

The petition, filed by social activist Gauri Maulekhi, claimed that “the level of waste is high as poultry farms have thousands of birds in intensive confinement in each farm. This waste is seldom disposed scientifically and in accordance with law”.

The plea further challenged the guidelines for poultry farms issued in 2015 by the CPCB and subsequent circulars issued by State pollution control boards.

CPCB directions

“Quash the Central Pollution Control Board directions dated February 29, 2016, to the extent as much as it categorises commercial poultry farming as a green industry. Further quash the circulars, guidelines and orders issued by the respective State pollution control boards,” the plea stated.

Poultry farms

The petition also urged the green panel to pass interim directions to “curtail the indiscriminate administration and use of antibiotics in the poultry industry and for their housing and environment.”

FSSAI issues testing methods for five food product types

The Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has issued approved methods for analysis of various food products. These are the standardised testing methods for five different food product types- methods of detection; analysis and estimation of melamine in milk and milk products; total polar compounds in edible oils and fats, estimation of coumarin content in cinnamon, parameters in sago and detection of acid value in oils and fats.

These methods are standardised and would be helpful in uniform testing methods across India, resulting in non-variable results. The country’s apex food regulator said that these methods were approved by the scientific panel on methods of sampling and analysis.

FSSAI may also add further product categories and list their testing methods. In the recent past, the regulators issued a notification which included the maximum levels of total polar compounds (TPCs) that should be present and the testing of the edible oils for the same. New inclusion of training for milk and milk products under the Food Safety Training and Certification (FoSTaC) programme is another example.