Popcorn Makers Say They Will Quit Using Diacetyl. Why now?
September 11th, 2007 laurie
The makers of microwave popcorn like ConAgra Foods and Weaver Popcorn are busy patting themselves on the back for recent decisions to remove the chemical diacetyl from their popcorn products. Diacetyl is a chemical that gives foods a buttery flavor, but it has been linked to an incurable lung disease called bronchiolitis obliterans. The popcorn manufacturers claim that their concern for the health of their popcorn factory employees and customers prompted their decisions to stop using diacetyl. But if that were the case, why didn’t they quit using the chemical in 2002 when then Centers for Disease Control blamed it for high rates of bronchiolitis obliterans –also known as Popcorn Workers Lung – among workers in the flavorings industry? Or, why not end the use of diacetyl in 2004 when the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health linked diacetyl to an outbreak of the disease in hundreds of workers at six Midwestern popcorn factories? The problems with diacetyl have been well-known for several years, so why are these manufacturers only taking action now?
It could be because of last week’s report that a microwave popcorn lover, with no other connection to the industry but a two-bag-a-day popcorn habit, had developed Popcorn Workers Lung. The Food & Drug Administration is now investigating what is believed to the first case of the disorder in a consumer. Or, it could be that the popcorn industry is anticipating the release of a report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that details the risk diacetyle in microwave popcorn could present to consumers. That EPA study was finished in 2005, but only the popcorn industry has seen it. Now, an investigation by Cox Newspapers has found that the EPA bowed to popcorn industry pressure to withhold the investigation’s preliminary results. In a 2004 email to an EPA scientist, a Weaver Popcorn vice president asked the agency not to release the preliminary study, saying that it could “irreparably damage the industry”. A few days later, the EPA agreed to keep study’s early findings secret.
Now the EPA is facing public pressure to release its finalized diacetyl report, and the agency has said that it would be published in a scientific journal in the next month. Weaver, ConAgra and the other microwave popcorn manufacturers already know what the EPA study says. Could their decision to remove diacetyl from their popcorns be an attempt at damage control prior to the report’s release?
