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The US Department of Agriculture is once again deliberately shirking its responsibility to properly oversee the integrity of the certified organic program. After admitting in a recent letter that a chemically-derived, synthetic omega-3 fatty acid additive produced by Martek Biosciences Corporation is not legitimately organic, the USDA also said it does not plan to take any enforcement action against companies that use it in certified organic products. The Cornucopia Institute (CI), a leading organic industry watchdog, continues to call the USDA out on the matter, exposing the fact that the additive not only has a questionable safety record, but also does not belong in any organic product.

The saga dates back to around 2002 when practically every major brand of infant formula began fortifying its blends with docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (ARA), two omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids naturally found in human breast milk. Manufacturers began to claim these blends were superior than others, and the closest thing to actual human breast milk (http://www.naturalnews.com/027437_D…).

The primary type of DHA and ARA used in the formulas, however, is the same laboratory-grown, synthetic variety made by Martek, which is now showing up in Horizon organic milk products. A CI report explains that Martek’s synthetic DHA/ARA blend is created using genetically-modified organisms (GMO), and then extracted using the toxic chemical hexane. Since the time of its approval, there have been hundreds of adverse event reports submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about the additive causing serious health problems in children and babies (http://cornucopia.org/DHA/DHA_FullR…).