#bvo

An ingredient once commonly used in citrus-flavored sodas to keep the tangy taste mixed thoroughly through the beverage could finally be banned for good across the US.

The FDA proposed in November to revoke the registration of a modified vegetable oil known as BVO in the wake of recent toxicology studies that make it difficult to support its ongoing use.

"The proposed action is an example of how the agency monitors emerging evidence and, as needed, conducts scientific research to investigate safety related questions, and takes regulatory action when the science does not support the continued safe use of additives in foods," James Jones, FDA deputy commissioner for human foods, explained when announcing the proposal.

BVO, or brominated vegetable oil, has been used as an emulsifying agent since the 1930s to ensure citrus flavoring agents don't float to the top of sodas. Sticking a dozen bromine atoms to a triglyceride creates a dense oil that floats evenly throughout water when mixed with less dense fats.

Yet that's not BVO's only trick. Animal studies have strongly implied the compound can slowly build up in our fat tissues. With bromine's potential ability to prevent iodine from doing its all-important work inside the thyroid, health authorities around the world have been suspicious of the emulsifier's risks for decades.

In fact, BVO is already banned in many countries, including India, Japan, and nations of the European Union, and was outlawed in the state of California in October 2022 with legislation due to take effect in 2027.

Yet the FDA has been slow to convince. In the 1950s, the agency regarded the ingredient as generally recognized as safe (GRAS); an official classification afforded items that have either been appropriately tested or – for ingredients in common use prior to 1958 – don't appear to be harmful.

That changed the following decade when questions were raised over its possible toxicity, prompting the FDA to overturn its GRAS classification for BVO and temporarily limit its use to relatively small concentrations of no more than 15 parts per million exclusively in citrus-flavored drinks.

Data on the risks posed by even these small amounts of BVO over time hasn't been easy to collect, relying heavily on long-term studies that re-evaluate health effects in a significantly-sized sample of people. Yet the evidence has been slowly mounting.

A UK study in the 1970s found bromine was building up in human tissues, with animal studies linking high concentrations of BVO with heart and behavioral problems.

It's taken time, and a number of further studies, but on the back of more recent animal studies based on relative concentrations of BVO humans are likely to ingest, the FDA is finally convinced there is sufficient evidence to ban its use altogether.

Most major soda drink companies are fortunately ahead of the game. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Co. have been phasing the ingredient out of their products over the past decade.

"Over the years many beverage makers reformulated their products to replace BVO with an alternative ingredient, and today, few beverages in the US contain BVO," said Jones.

The ban could be a sign of more things to come, with Jones announcing the agency is reviewing regulations that authorize the use of certain food additives, with a view to automatically prohibit the approval of any food coloring agents found to cause cancer in humans or animals, making for a more nimble bureaucratic process.

A final call on the FDA's reclassification of BVO still needs to go through a lengthy review process that will take time to complete.

Five Times Our Muses Almost Hold Hands, and the One Time They Do:

{{Spectrum}}

I.  HollowHe’s sitting there, head down, ends of his hair spilling over his hands, and for the first time Riley notices they are darker than the rest of him. Years of oil and grease and wrenches have built up callouses but it’s built something else. Shadows of all the things those hands are capable of that no matter how much pumice-soap he scrubs with it doesn’t wash away. Only closer inspection shows that there’s more. Hints of rust under his nails…no. Rust is a different shadow of red. Rust doesn’t leave someone scourged and empty. Rust doesn’t cause shoulders to shake. Hesitantly, Riley reaches out and Baz pushes him away, shakes his head. Saying with actions he doesn’t need this.

Riley nods and grabs whiskey instead.

II.  Two Man TeamThe rain was coming fast, hard and heavy. A storm brewed in the background, lighting striking haphazardly in the distance. But the thunder isn’t from crashing clouds. Riley holds up a fist. Holds up a finger. Then two. Makes a fist, and he’s moving. Low crouch, rifle braced shoulder high. Kevlar soundless. They move and breath as one.  Riley doesn’t have the luxury of wondering how exactly he’d gotten here, on this Strike Team. It’s a by product of too many late nights spent worrying. It’s because Baz is transparent as glass. When the younger walks into a room and looks around before his blue eyes finally fall on him, Riley knows it’s gonna be an issue some day. Riley’s not stupid. He knows that look well. And he loves the guy, really he does. It’s just…just…. So this is the best he can do.

Rounding the corner, he scans through the scope. He reaches behind his back. Hand glances off the fucker’s wrist, just shy of his intended target. There’s no sound over the comms, but he feels his head duck forward as the fucker tags his helmet.“Got this. Laying down cover fire. Go.”

III. Paradox

It was the turkey sandwich that woke him up.

He stares at the unholy alliance of bread, turkey, lettuce and cheese, thinking I’m stuck. Stuck in this perpetually shifting span of time, in which the same day is repeated over and over again. Like Groundhog Day which was a stupid movie. Only worse because time was actually continuing to move forward. Mondays became Tuesdays which turned into Wednesdays. Months still passed by synonymously with the changing of seasons. Children grew into adults. Adults still sank in their depression.Yet the events that occurred in each individual day were exactly the same. Every day Riley would wake up and go to work. He’d be stuck with the same case as the day before and the day before that. Then he’d eat lunch with people who talked in a language he did not understand.  Then he goes home to a world that chooses not to understand. Sleep.

Rinse and repeat.But that turkey sandwich. Something inside of him had gone missing. The anger rises in response. He was sick of the sandwich. Sick of the watery-crunch sound the lettuce made when he chewed it. Sick of the cheese. Sick of soggy bread that almost dissolves in his mouth. The same thing he’s eaten for years now.

He averted his gaze and looked around. He saw fellow cops sitting at the same tables, wearing the same clothes, conversing with the same people about the same things. Amidst the sea of voices he could make out snippets of conversations he’d heard countless times before. All the meaningless gossip and small talk wrapped around his brain.His head begins to throb furiously, a circuit board overloading with too much data. Squeezes his eyes shut only to see the sickening mirrors reflecting infinity on the back of his eyelids. It was like someone had put the feeling of deja vu in liquid form and shot it through his veins. He gets up and sprints.

In the men’s room, there’s silence. He looks at himself in the mirror and his reflection stares back, seemingly surprised by direct-eye contact.“Are you done yet?"What?”“Are. You. Done. Yet?”“I don’t know what you’re talking-”

The mirror splinters in cobweb fragments.

He only just manages to throw his arm up to shield his face.

“"Fa'fuc'sake s'only a'sandwich, asshole. Don'want it? Don'eat it.”

If Baz only knew. His first instinct to grab the kid’s hand, make sure he’s real. But that’s a whole lot of crazy he doesn’t want to get into, because how do you explain Quiet, a mage’s version of metaphysical time-out for bad behaviour?

He eats the sandwich.

IV.  Six

“Be there n'six”The last thing B says to him. He wonders, after six minutes has passed, if the shithead meant six hours, but somehow that couldn’t be right.  He doesn’t remember there being a job out of town.

An hour later and he’s worried. Calls his cell, sends texts, wonders what else he could do.  The worst part about it, Riley broke his word. Long distance knocking around the castle walls, even though he promised he wouldn’t. But the gates are all shut up, the windows bricked up and despite the power he commands, he can’t find a way inside.

And that sparks a wildfire of well…not jealousy exactly. Nor anger.

Hurt, asshole, the word your looking for is…hurt.Normally sleepers have little resistance to his magick, though Baz isn’t technically a sleeper. Nor is he awakened. The best way he could put it was the kid’s a kind of sorcerer, and that’s not right either. It is what it is, but the point was…to get around Riley like he’s doing… SOMEONE has to have shown him how. And that someone isn’t Beth because she couldn’t will her way out of a wet paper bag without him knowing about it.

So that means Baz has been hanging out with someone else.

Someone who’s deliberately shutting Riley out.He paces his way through a half bottle of Glen Livet before he switches to Vodka.Two hours.Three.At this point Riley’s grabbing his keys and his jacket, mentally composing a missing persons report for his missing person, because the inner cop won’t let this shit go.Throws the door open and there’s a strange collision of puffed up chests. There’s a spectacular display of juggling as the plastic sack hits the floor, ass over tea-kettle, though Baz manages to retain his grasp on the bottle, because of course he has priorities.

“‘Y'fuckin’ kiddin’ me? S'fuckin’ dinner, jackass.”The words don’t matter. Riley grabs his hands, and then takes it a step further by dragging the fucker into a hug, arms like vices around his neck and shoulders. 

“Next time, fucking call.”

This is how Baz discovered Riley doesn’t do surprises well.

V.  HettiquetteRiley’d heard, knew Beth and Jay went to these kinds of things in support of their friends, but it’s goddamn fascinating. Like if someone took Carnival and mated it with Mardi-Gras and somehow incubated the result inside of a Vegas Strip floor show. It was absolutely mesmerizing.  And there’s a lot he didn’t inspect. There’s a man and his wife not far away, a group of teenagers. A couple wearing 'Theirs’ and 'Theirs’ tee-shirts that he makes a mental note to ask about later.

And Riley has to wonder if he’s even got a right to be here, that maybe his attempt to offer B moral support isn’t actually having the opposite effect, even if he laughed in his very Baz way over the 'Not Gay but my Boyfriend is’ shirt. Beth had given him one piece of advice before they separated for the day. 

“No dare aks wen Straight Pride is. Jus’…no. If ya do… no gonna be let out of da hale wi'out woke adult supervision, yeah? An’ wha'evah ya do…no embarrass. If I hear ya make him uncomfortable….I will make YOU uncomfortable.”Then she vanished into sequins and feathers and flower crowns.She hadn’t needed to warn him.

Despite everything that marks him as out of place, the people are welcoming. They’re warm and beautiful and the beer flows. Sees a couple people he would never have thought ought to be here. The only awkwardness is when he comes across Wojakovitz. Riley’s not usually intimidated but the rookie is six foot seven and about as wide across. Apparently, his partner…boyfriend… is a school teacher at PS 182. Good on them.At some point, in the bar later, Riley’s managed to hit his limit, and teeters his way over to Baz whose been strangely quiet most of the night, more so than usual. Arm around the younger’s shoulder, Riley leans down and lays his cheek atop Baz’s head.“C'mon asshole. Dance with me. This is a good song.”The look he gets  from both of them would have curdled paint.

He asks twice more in variations.

Twice more he’s rebuked.So he sits down next to B and his hand falls to the other’s side. Trying not to make an issue of it, one pinkie curls around Baz’s and then Baz is up and muttering something about hitting the head.“Did I…say something wrong?”No one answers him. Not even his sister.

VI. The Hang of Thursdays

         “Pick sum’m else dickhead.  Shit’s kill yer dog depressin’.”

There’s a point where his face is pale and haggard, where lack of sleep has left him looking five days dead on a three day weekend,  and the next line of the song stutters into a choking breath. He doesn’t imagine it, Baz’s mouth had moved, had formed the words and it’s stolen all of the oxygen from Riley’s brain. He doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry or …there was a phrase for this, they used to call it 'don’t know if he should shit or go blind’. 

His hands tighten around the fucker’s, careful not to dislodge the IV shunt.It’s a process. Rough palms sliding against each other. Long, blunt fingers seeking the crevices between the other’s hand. The grasp is as tight as he can make it, a warning that if Baz slips out of consciousness, he’s dragging Riley’s two hundred and five pounds with him.Baz’s scarred and battered knuckles are brought up, pressed against Riley’s lips. They’re dry and chapped but gentle as Riley bows his head over their joined hands. It takes him long minutes to compose himself enough to actually speak.

Unatoč prilagodbi plana i smanjenju broja predviđenih vjetroturbina, općina Ottobrunn ostaje čvrsto pri stavu protiv izgradnje vjetroelektrana u zaštićenom vodoopskrbnom području Höhenkirchner Forst. Nova faza prijedloga – ovaj put s dvije umjesto tri turbine – također je naišla na otpor lokalnih vlasti, i to zbog zabrinutosti za dugoročnu sigurnost vodoopskrbe. Provjeri još i… Novi zahtjev,…

Brominated vegetable oil, a food additive found in citrus-flavoured soft drinks, has now been banned in Canada, though consumers may still see it on ingredient labels for another year.

Health Canada removed BVO from its list of permitted food additives on 30 August after completing a safety assessment.

“The outcome of the assessment does not support BVO continuing to be permitted for use as a food additive,” the agency stated last month.

Since its updated safety analysis “did not find an immediate health concern with the current permitted use of BVO as a food additive,” Health Canada has provided a one-year transition period, concluding on 30 August 2025, “to allow impacted products to be reformulated and relabelled.”

Breaking News: Brominated Vegetable Oil (BVO) – Unmasking its Damaging Effects on the Body With the FDA back In the 1950s, the agency regarded the ingredient as generally recognized as safe (GRAS); an official classification afforded items that have either been appropriately tested or – for ingredients in common use prior to 1958 – don’t appear to be harmful. Decades later questions were raised…