FDA Rejects Nestle's Whey Formula Label

Filed in archive Food Allergies , Living with Allergies on May 15, 2006

I voraciously read food labels ever since we discovered hat my son had allergies to a number of food items. I am alert to sentences starting with "May contain traces of..." which one usually find at the end of the ingredient listing, and because of my son's cow milk allergies, I got adept at screening the list of ingredients for words such as casein, whey, milk proteins, and whey proteins. Fortunately, a new regulation will soon obligate food companies to use less technical language and make it easier for the general public to decipher the product's content.

Ingredients aside, though, we consumers also have to be very wary with other information on the product labels. For example, consider this claim Nestle wanted to print on the label of a milk formula formulated with 100% whey protein (:

...feeding an infant 100 percent whey-protein partially hydrolyzed formulas may reduce the risk of common food allergy symptoms, particularly skin rashes, when substituted for formulas made from whole-protein cow's milk.

Wouldn't that make you think that giving that 100% whey formula (such as Nestle's Good Start Supreme) instead of the regular cow-milk derived formula is better and will lead to less allergic symptoms to milk? On first reading, I would. And that's why the FDA denied their petition. Their competitors, Abott Laboratories and Mead Johnson, said that "parents and doctors could interpret the claim as meaning the formula was safe to feed children with allergies to cow's milk." Or course, these competitors have their own axes to grind, but I tend to agree. The statement is misleading, and may result to serious cases of allergic reactions. In infants, at that.

You may read the new report from AP, via Kasas.com: FDA rejects Nestle bid on health claim.