On August 1, American food manufacturers endorsed a measure pending in Congress to make it illegal to slip leaflets into food packaging without the manufacturer's consent, bolstering a law designed to prevent tampering with consumer products.
Senator Herb Kohl, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust and business rights subcommittee, has introduced a measure he said would close a "loophole" by strengthening a 1984 law adopted after Tylenol capsules were laced with cyanide, killing seven.
Under that law, it is a crime to tamper with a package or product.
According to the US Department of Justice, if the package remains intact and the product is untainted, no crime has been committed.
Paul Petruccelli, chief marketing counsel for Kraft Foods' North America Inc., urged the senators to pass the bill to protect companies' brand names and "prevent these product tamperers from commandeering a cereal box as their personal soapbox."
Petruccelli said his company has received 15 complaints of unauthorised messages in packages this year and 80 since 1997, but most likely go unreported.
Cereal maker General Mills said it receives 20 to 25 complaints of unauthorised messages in packages a year.
General Mills, Kraft, Kellogg Co. and eight industry groups signed a letter giving their support to Kohl's measure.
"Closing this gap in federal law would appropriately punish people who violate the integrity of the food product, compromise consumer's faith in the food they purchase in the grocery store and damage the good name and reputation of the food manufacturer," Kohl, a former grocer, said during a hearing.
The states of California and New Jersey have already adopted state laws in recent years after consumers found racist, anti-Semitic and graphic messages inside the packages of various products, including cereal and frozen pizza.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Food and Drug Administration's Office of Criminal Investigation cannot pursue these incidents because they are not covered by federal tampering laws.
"Even when the act of inserting such material does not involve adulteration of the product contained within the package, it clearly raises questions in the minds of consumers concerning the integrity of the product that they are about to use or consume," said Alice Fisher, deputy assistant attorney general for the criminal division at the Justice Department.
Kohl's measure would make such tampering punishable by a fine and possibly up to three years in jail.