I found this letter from the US Food and Drug Administration to General Mills interesting. It appears on the surface that the agency is trying to protect the American public from ungrounded persuasion, yet I can't find anything in the letter claiming that GM has made an unsupported statement.
Does anyone understand this better than I do?
If it seems like a senseless act, government act, its probably about bureacratic turf in some manner.
If I had to guess, it increases the FDA's regulatory muscle, since they can control drugs more carefully than foods.
Hmm, that doesn't seem like rent-seeking behavior though -- all these folks are still going to have stable jobs whether cheerios are a drug or not. Is it purely instinctive for humans to strive to increase their regulatory muscle whenever possible? Or do people with this trait simply get selected for in politics?