Bid to ban trans fat statewide gets a boost

Health chief backs lawmaker's request

All of Massachusetts may soon become a trans fat-free zone.

The state's public health commissioner responded enthusiastically yesterday to a lawmaker's request that his agency impose a statewide ban on the artery-clogging fat in all restaurant food.

Last month, California became the first state to outlaw restaurant use of trans fat, found commonly in doughnuts, french fries, and chicken nuggets. Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge have also passed prohibitions. The Legislature came close to adopting a ban this summer but ran out of time.

"It is our responsibility to the residents of the Commonwealth to remove this poison from the food supply," state Representative Peter J. Koutoujian, cochairman of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Public Health, wrote to Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach yesterday.

Auerbach ardently supports the idea of a ban on trans fat, he said in an interview. The evidence is overwhelming that the artificial fat contributes to heart disease and other serious health problems, he said.

In his previous job as Boston's public health chief, Auerbach pushed for the ban, which enters its first phase Sept. 13: All food-service establishments must stop frying, grilling, or sauteing foods with oils that contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

In the coming days, Auerbach said, he will look into whether his agency has the regulatory authority to impose such a ban and also confer with the local health officials who would enforce it. Auerbach said he plans to visit New York City, where a ban on trans fat was approved in 2006, and learn from its experience.

"I believe that this kind of a measure would be as significant as the state's historic ban on smoking in workplaces, in terms of its affecting all of the residents of the state and in terms of reducing a contributing factor to a deadly disease," Auerbach said.

Koutoujian said he did not know with certainty that the state Department of Public Health has the authority to impose the ban by fiat, but the agency "has wide-ranging powers, and I believe that this prohibition may just fit within those powers."

The Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a statewide ban on trans fat in June, but the Senate did not vote on it before the Legislature closed its formal session at the end of July.

If he were to wait for legislative action, Koutoujian said, it might take another year or two. In that time, "hundreds of people may die from the continued ingestion of trans-fat," he said. "The federal government says there is no safe level of trans fat."

The bill faced virtually no opposition. Peter G. Christie, president of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, testified to the Legislature last year that if public health officials said trans fat needed to be removed from food, "the question would only be how and when."

Christie was on vacation yesterday and did not respond to a voicemail. He said last year that a statewide ban would be better than a patchwork of local regulations.

Sponsored by Koutoujian, the bill gave restaurants between 12 and 18 months to remove trans fats from all food. It also applied to cafeterias and other food establishments, but not to packaged foods sold in stores.

Many restaurants have already stopped using trans fats. Chains with branches in New York City have generally found substitutes for the harmful oils. Smaller restaurants are following suit, said Auerbach, but a statewide ban could accelerate that process.

"I think we're making good progress," he said, "but I also believe that banning it statewide will offer added protection for the health of the residents of the state. Heart disease is either the number-one or number-two cause of death in the state, and we think the evidence is undeniable that trans fat is a serious and harmful contributor to heart disease."

In his letter, Koutoujian cites a Harvard School of Public Health study estimating that a statewide ban on trans fats could prevent 1 in 4 heart attacks and 1,400 deaths per year in Massachusetts.

Trans fat is found most often in shortenings and oils for frying; it may also turn up in baked goods. Under federal law, foods sold in stores must list their trans fat content.

Trans fat is created when food makers add hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to solidify them. The substance adds to a food's shelf life, but offers no health or taste benefits. Widely seen as the type of fat that is worst for health, it both increases bad cholesterol and decreases good cholesterol and has been linked to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and stroke.

More information on trans fats and the Boston ban is at www.bphc.org/bphc/transfat.asp.