• Ad Age, Thursday, December 7, 2006 11:30 AM

Consumer groups are now urging the Food and Drug Administration to step up its oversight of food marketing. With health-related claims for water, teas and food products on the rise, the groups told the FDA that its system of examining ad claims is outdated, broken and illogical. Consumers are not getting the information they need.

The FDA is "creating increasing legal uncertainty," says Michael Ruggio, an attorney for the American Association for Health Freedom/Alliance for Natural Health. "A new regulatory framework is urgently needed." Both the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Institute of Food Technologists urge the FDA to rewrite its ad regulations to better describe "novel" combinations of food and supplements, but the groups disagree on what the agency should do about what foods.

Barbara Peterson of the IFT says the agency's current regulatory scheme does a disservice to consumers by leaving them with less, not more, information.

Read the whole story at Ad Age »