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Groups want popcorn's butter flavoring regulated
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Sabrina Eaton
Plain Dealer Bureau

Washington- Unions and health care advocates want the federal government to regulate an artificial butter flavoring in microwave popcorn that has been linked to lung disease in popcorn-factory workers in Ohio, Missouri and other states.

On Wednesday, they asked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue standards for use of the flavoring diacetyl, and asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to release a study it performed on airborne releases of the chemical when popcorn is popped.

"This is a tragic example of the failure of the public health regulatory system," George Washington University public health professor David Michaels told reporters.

"There is compelling scientific evidence that diacetyl causes terrible lung diseases, yet OSHA has done nothing, and EPA is sitting on a study that should be made public."

Workers at a ConAgra Foods plant in Marion, Ohio, which produces Orville Redenbacher's and ACT II popcorn, have been diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans, a sometimes-fatal disease that causes coughing and shortness of breath.

Severe cases require lung transplants.

Eating flavored popcorn has not been linked to disease.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health studied conditions at the Marion plant and recommended that workers wear respirators in rooms with lots of airborne diacetyl. ConAgra spokesmen did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

More than a dozen of the Marion workers have filed a lawsuit that seeks damages from a trio of popcorn flavor manufacturers, including Cincinnati-based Givaudan Flavors Corp. A Givaudan spokesman declined comment on the case.

"People don't want to know that a food product can be a health problem," said Steve Crick, a Missouri-based lawyer for the Marion plaintiffs, whose law firm has obtained more than $53 million in judgments for Missouri popcorn workers with the disease.

The presidents of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters on Wednesday petitioned the secretary of labor to make OSHA immediately issue emergency temporary standards for workplace use of diacetyl. Michaels and several dozen public health experts sent a letter supporting their request.

An OSHA spokesman said his agency is evaluating the issue. The Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association, a trade group, said it hadn't had a chance to examine the union's petition, but would back "any appropriate action that is based on sound science. . . . that will protect workers." As part of a coordinated effort with the unions, Michaels sent a letter to the EPA demanding release of an agency study on airborne emissions when microwave popcorn is popped. He also accused the agency of delaying its release.

"The public has the right to know if breathing vapors from artificial butter flavor is safe," said his letter to EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson.

EPA spokeswoman Suzanne Ackerman said the report will be submitted for publication in a research journal this fall and denied that her agency had sat on the report. She said she could not discuss the study's results, but she said it was not designed to study the popcorn's health impact.

"It was a study of whether anything is emitted when you pop a bag of microwave popcorn, and not whether they would cause health effects," she said.

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