News Tip: Ban on Trans Fats Could Be First of Many

A proposed Food and Drug Administration regulation declaring partially hydrogenated oils -- trans fats -- unsafe and limiting their use in foods would be good policy and "a public health victory," according to Dean Kelly Brownell of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

Kelly BrownellDean, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke Universitykelly.brownell@duke.edu

Brownell has written a perspective piece on the trans fat policy that appears in the May 8, 2014 New England Journal of Medicine. The journal will have an audio interview available at NEJM.org after the embargo lifts.

Quotes:"Banning artificial trans fats would be a public health victory, made possible in part by limited resistance from the food industry."

"The fact that a regulatory arm of the U.S. government is now following the lead of other countries and some U.S. cities and states with regard to trans fat suggests that a watershed has been reached; regulatory reconsideration of ingredients such as sugar, caffeine and salt may well be next on the agenda."

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Duke experts on a variety of other topics can be found at http://newsoffice.duke.edu/resources-media/faculty-experts.