• Los Angeles Times/AP, Thursday, September 6, 2007 11:45 AM

ConAgra Foods will discontinue the use of diacetyl in its Orville Redenbacher and Act II brands of microwave popcorn following the Food and Drug Administration's disclosure that at least one man who ate several bags of butter-flavored microwave popcorn each day has developed a life-threatening lung disease possibly caused by the additive.

Weaver Popcorn Co., maker of Pop Weaver microwave popcorn, last month said it had removed diacetyl from its popcorn. The additive--which gives microwave popcorn its buttery taste--has been linked to a rare lung disease, bronchiolitis obliterans, also known as popcorn lung, found in plant workers.

Dr. Cecile Rose, a lung specialist at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, says a patient there who contracted the disease liked the smell of popcorn so much that he would "open and inhale from freshly popped bags" two or three times a day.

Read the whole story at Los Angeles Times/AP »