Diacetyl: Generally Recognized As Safe
Do you still think the FDA is looking out for your best interests? If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know all about acrylamide, bisphenol A, and melamine, but have you heard of diacetyl?
She was once in constant motion; her co-workers compared her to a roadrunner because of the way she darted around the workplace. But now Irma Ortiz sits at the edge of her couch, too winded to sweep her patio or walk her son to school without resting. She is slowly suffocating.
Ortiz, 44, is among a group of California food-flavoring workers recently diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans, a rare and life-threatening form of fixed obstructive lung disease. Also known as popcorn workers lung, because it has turned up in workers at microwave-popcorn factories, the disease destroys the lungs. A transplant is the only cure.
Since 2001, academic studies have shown links between the disease and a chemical used in artificial butter flavor called diacetyl. Flavoring manufacturers have paid out more than $100 million as a result of lawsuits by people sick with popcorn workers lung over the past five years. One death from the disease has been confirmed.
But no federal laws regulate the chemical’s use.
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Even less is known about the health effects of eating diacetyl in butter-flavored popcorn, or breathing the fumes after the bag is microwaved. The Environmental Protection Agency has studied the fumes but is waiting for the industry to review the study before releasing it. The Food and Drug Administration has diacetyl on its list of substances “generally recognized as safe” but has not studied it.
Well, there you have it. They have no idea what the health effects are and they have no idea if the microwaved fumes are dangerous because they haven’t studied it, but they know the chemical is killing factory workers and yet, they have labeled it “generally recognized as safe”.
Personally, I don’t think the FDA itself should be generally recognized as safe.
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