The Whole Soy Story

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing an opportunity for public comment on its intent to reevaluate the scientific evidence for two previously authorized health claims (dietary lipids (fat) and cancer; soy protein and risk of coronary heart disease) and two qualified health claims that were the subject of letters of enforcement discretion (antioxidant vitamins and risk of certain cancers; selenium and certain cancers). The agency is undertaking a reevaluation of the scientific basis for these authorized health claims and qualified health claims because of new scientific evidence that has emerged for these substance-disease relationships. The new scientific evidence may have the effect of weakening the substance-disease relationship for these authorized health claims and either strengthening or weakening the scientific support for the substance-disease relationship for these qualified health claims.

DATES: Submit written or electronic comments by February 19, 2008.
Read more »

Read the Report of the NZ House of Representatives Health Committee on Petition 2005/123 of Valerie Ann James and 214 others, submitted with the support of SoyOnlineService.

The committee heard evidence on 17 October 2007 from Valerie Ann James, the New Zealand Food Safety Authority and the Ministry of Health.

“Conclusion: We support the petitioner’s request for more accurate labels on soy-based infant formula, which highlight the potential long-term risks of feeding soy-based infant formula to infants. We accept that there is evidence that soy-based formulas have a high phytoestrogen content that may pose a risk to the long-term reproductive health of infants. We acknowledge that the current labels do advise consumers to consult a doctor or health care worker for advice. However, we believe it would be prudent to supplement this advice with more specific wording which points out that the high phytoestrogen content of soy-based infant formula may pose a risk to the long term reproductive health of infants.”…

Read the full report here