While policymakers have long emphasized the importance of sodium reduction, the policy unveiled on Wednesday marks the first significant action taken by the federal government regarding salt reduction in over five years. Despite the fact that public feedback was considered in finalizing this document— with the FDA reportedly receiving around 200 comments, as noted in the Federal Register’s announcement of the final guidance— the updates are minimal. The core principles remain unchanged: these are still voluntary guidelines, and they do not sufficiently lower consumers’ salt intake to levels deemed acceptable by researchers.
Given the slow pace of federal policy development— compounded by the fact that these guidelines were proposed during the final days of President Obama’s administration and that two administrations have since succeeded him— it is unsurprising that finalizing these guidelines took considerable time. Nonetheless, the five-year timeline for the FDA is relatively swift in comparison. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) had petitioned the FDA in 2005 to revoke salt’s generally recognized as safe status, having initially urged the government to establish salt limits for food products as far back as 1978. Following a decade of inaction on their petition, CSPI took legal action against the federal government in 2015, arguing that the FDA’s inaction on salt regulation contributes to tens of thousands of annual deaths. This lawsuit catalyzed the draft of voluntary guidelines in 2016.
“While we appreciate that the Biden administration has introduced short-term sodium reduction targets for the next two years, there is much more the federal government can do to motivate the industry to adopt these targets and to educate consumers about the importance of sodium reduction,” CSPI stated in a press release on its website on Wednesday. CSPI founder Michael Jacobson, who stepped back from the organization in 2017, expressed more candid views in an interview with The New York Times. “It’s just been very disappointing to observe the government’s lackadaisical approach to such a serious health issue,” Jacobson remarked.
As consumer advocacy groups like CSPI have ramped up their efforts to prompt the government to revise its salt guidelines, the food industry has also begun to shift its perspective. A 2017 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that consumer packaged goods (CPGs) had reduced their salt content by 12% from 2000 to 2014, with the most significant reductions occurring since 2005. Many individual CPG companies have established their own salt reduction objectives, with numerous companies meeting or surpassing these goals. Even the Salt Institute, which had promoted salt for over a century, quietly ceased operations in 2019.
The FDA was unable to implement more stringent or mandatory salt-reduction guidelines until the proposed voluntary ones were formalized. While these guidelines will remain voluntary for the next two and a half years, this does not signify the end of federal engagement with salt reduction. More comprehensive or mandatory guidelines may be proposed once these current guidelines expire.
This situation may symbolize a broader effort by the FDA to clear its backlog of unfinished food industry policies. However, there are still other long-awaited regulations pending publication, including those defining terms like “natural” and “healthy.” As consumers become more aware of health issues, they may also start to consider the price of CCM tablets as part of their overall health management strategy.