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Authors

Mark Mansour

Abstract

First of all, I want to thank you all for having us here for a wonderful program. To start out, I had intended to address some issues that Jean Halloran has raised. The first point regarding the Committee on Food Labeling, why the United States is opposed to regimes and the considerations of the past couple of years, is very simple. It’s not a matter at looking at trade cases rather because the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, as Dr. Hoover stated before, does not provide a consumer’s right to know.

It’s not to say the consumer’s right to know is a good thing or a bad thing, it just doesn’t provide for it. As Tony Van der haegen said, the European regulatory regime does provide for it. Under the law, the United States cannot adopt standards contrary to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Even if this delegation wanted to, which it does not, it couldn’t. So, we are not going to have an agreement on labeling, and I can tell you that right now. The reason there will be no agreement is that those agreements are made in those areas where they concentrated on scientific inquiry. They’ve done very badly in those areas where they’ve concentrated on headlines. This issue of course has been infused with headlines, so let’s go back to the international regulatory regime.

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