August, 2006
Messin' With Us
How would you feel
if a co-worker called you to tell you that she had
just been in a meeting with your boss, and your boss was bad-mouthing
you
to his boss and everyone else in the meeting? Your boss was
complaining that you had not begun your new project, despite being told
to.
"He said you were more interested in re-writing
your resume, and you didn’t care
if the new project got started or not," she tells you.
"Then he said that he was completing the project himself,
and he would hand it off to you to fact-check when it was done. His boss
is furious
with you. You’re in deep crap. Why didn’t you do that
project?"
What’s particularly frustrating
is that the ‘new project’ is something you’ve championed
for three years, only to be shot down time and again by your boss.
It’s something every other company has done, a customer service
program that’s practically an industry standard.
Your boss insisted that it would give your company’s customers the
wrong idea
about your products, and absolutely refused
to let you even talk about the program. And now he’s not only
taking the credit, he’s blaming you for his lapse!
What a jerk, eh?
Well, meet the latest annoyance
from the anti-alcohol groups. The usual crew are out there pounding
the drums on this one, pushing for nutritional labels (quasi-nutritional;
more on that shortly) on booze. "The public deserves to
know!"
they holler.
I’ve got a couple problems with this whole
thing.
First,
their press statements strongly imply that the
brewers, distillers, and vintners are somehow in a conspiracy
to keep this information off their labels. Nothing could be further
from the truth. Does no one remember Bert Grant?
Bert was a pioneer in many ways, one of the first
microbrewers, and he also voluntarily put nutritional labels on
his beer, back when nutritional labels were made mandatory for all foods
-- all other foods, that is, except beer, wine, and spirits. Just
take a look: even bottled water has nutritional information.. Here’s a
copy of one of Bert's labels, he had it hanging on the wall at his
brewery when I visited back in 1997.
The note at the bottom says it all.
"Please note: publication of this data is banned in the U.S.A. The
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has determined that the
revelation of analytical data on any alcoholic beverage that shows a
positive health benefit is illegal. They do not dispute the accuracy of
the analysis."
That's right: the ATF fined Grant for being so
naughty as to put nutritional information on his beer. They forced him
to take the information off his labels, information that the FDA required
all other foods to have. Why was beer not covered by the FDA regs? Damn
good question. After all, I'll tell you it's a food -- which
the Food & Drug Administration should cover, no? -- and folks
like CSPI will tell you it's a drug -- which the Food & Drug
Administration should...hey, wait a minute... Well, of course, if folks
like CSPI had their way, beer would be covered by the DEA, not
the FDA.
What it came down to was Repeal. When the
regulations got written, everyone was still scared that Prohibition was
NOT dead, and they stepped lightly. The regs on labeling malt
beverages are full of no-no's on saying anything about alcoholic
strength, and there are also these two broad-beamed beauties in
27 CFR Part 7, Subsection 7.29, "Prohibited Practices" that
say containers or labels shall not contain either "Any
statement that is false or untrue in any particular, or that, irrespective
of falsity, directly, or by ambiguity, omission, or inference, or by
the addition of irrelevant, scientific or technical matter, tends
to create a misleading impression" or "Any
statement, design, device, or representation of or relating to analyses,
standards, or tests, irrespective of falsity, which the
appropriate ATF officer finds to be likely to mislead the
consumer."
Vague enough? Truth is, the whole reason booze
is not allowed to use nutritional labels, the true and accurate
labels every other food is required to have, is because using
nutritional labels like the one above with the clearly significant
nutrients (particularly in the B-vitamins) has been deemed to create
a misleading impression. Beer is not allowed to say how good it is:
fat-free, lower in calories than most soft drinks, and packed with
B-vitamins, because that would create the misleading impression
that beer is good for you.
This is, of course, the same government
that has reluctantly admitted the possibility that moderate drinking
actually is good for you. Yet we still have nothing but a
ridiculous warning label on booze. "Warning: this stuff might make
you drunk, and if you're pregnant, don't drink it." No kidding.
Wow, that's useful. I'll bet lots of people read that and seriously
re-consider immoderate actions.
Second,
(Didja remember I said I had a "couple" problems?) these folks
who want to put nutritional information on alcohol, to help the poor
consumers? They don't really want to put nutritional information on
booze. They lie. What they really want is to put as
many negative things as possible on booze bottles, no positive
statements, and generally cost the booze-makers money and goodwill as
much as possible.
Look here. My dear, dear friends at the Center
for Science in the Public Interest are all over this, driving
the ATTTB along with a stick. Is it because they really want useful
information to go to the public? NO! It's because they see yet
another opportunity to make booze look bad. Check out this petition
they submitted to the Bureau. They want the Bureau to require labeling
that will include "(a) the beverage’s alcohol content expressed
as a percentage of volume; (b) the serving size; (c) the amount of
alcohol per serving; d) number of calories per serving; (e) the
ingredients (including additives) from which the beverage is made; (f)
the number of standard drinks per container; and (g) the U.S. Dietary
Guidelines’ advice on moderate drinking for men and
women."
I don't have any problems with that, not even
the last one. Hell, the more info, the better. But that's all
they want. CSPI does not want booze labels to include the same
nutritional analyses required for every other ingestible drink on the
shelf. "...listing protein and fat content, which are absolutely
irrelevant for most alcoholic beverages, provides little of value and
may even do harm. Consumers may come to believe that
alcoholic beverages are a food source of those (and other)
nutrients..." Hey, sounds like this kind of labeling and reasoning
would run afoul of that CFR reg against "Any statement that
is false or untrue in any particular, or that, irrespective of
falsity, directly, or by ambiguity, omission,
or inference, or by the addition of irrelevant, scientific or technical
matter, tends to create a misleading impression." Now who's
misleading?
The truth is, the labeling campaigns that CSPI
and their ilk have been pushing for years are not about informing the
public. They are never satisfied: whenever their demands are met,
they wait two years and make more demands. It's about punishing
the booze-makers. They force them to spend money on new labels, they
force them to spend money and effort on fighting the ridiculous labels,
they try to make them look like the bad guys for not wanting this
constant parade of label changes. It's not about informing the public,
it's about attrition. All these folks do is file petitions and issue
press releases. The brewers, distillers, and vintners are creating an
ever-better product, and creating real jobs.
The ATTTB has just released for comment proposals that
would allow or mandate allergen labeling. Why not just admit that booze
is food and use the same labeling the FDA does, plus a standard alcohol
content label? It would not create a misleading impression; it wouldn't
really create any kind of impression. It would state facts. How
can you go wrong with that? Do it, do it once, and be done with it.
