CLAIM: A safety data sheet for Apeel Sciences, a company that makes a protective coating used to keep fruits and vegetables fresh, shows that its product can cause eye damage and allergic skin reactions.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The safety document being cited is for an unrelated cleaning product that uses the same name. That product is made by a different, U.K.-based company.
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THE FACTS: California-based Apeel Sciences markets that its plant-based solution can keep fruits and vegetables fresh and at their prime longer — and that it’s edible, too.
But social media posts are distorting the safety of that product, known as Edipeel, by conflating it with an unrelated cleaning product that shares a name with Apeel.
“If you see the Apeel logo on any fruit and veg do not buy it, this is a Bill Gates and WEF company, this chemical makes things last 3x longer and cannot be washed off, in US and Canada at the moment,” a tweet reads.
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The tweet includes a screenshot of a safety data sheet for a product called “Apeel.” The document includes “Hazard statements” that include: “Causes serious eye damage,” “May cause an allergic skin reaction” and “Harmful to aquatic life with long lasting effects.”
The document being cited, however, is not for Apeel’s Edipeel. It was uploaded online by Evans Vanodine, a U.K. company that manufactures a product called “Apeel” that is a hard surface cleaner. That company’s logo and name appear on the safety data sheet as well.
Apeel Sciences representatives emphasized that their produce-protecting product is not related to the cleaner and that it is safe to consume.
The company uses plant lipids or plant oils naturally found in fruits and vegetables and creates a coating applied “to the surface of fresh fruits and vegetables in order to retain moisture and reduce oxidation,” said Jenny Du, co-founder of Apeel and senior vice president of operations. “Our product is also intended to be edible.”
The coating consists of purified monoglycerides and diglycerides, which Du pointed out are also found in products such as infant formula; the compounds are designated by the Food and Drug Administration as a “generally recognized as safe”, or GRAS, food additive. In the U.S., Apeel’s coating is used on products such as avocados and apples.
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Apeel’s website offers product safety information sheets.
Confusion with the unrelated cleaning product hasn’t been an issue until the most recent bout of misrepresentations online, Du said. She pointed out that there is also an Australian company that manufactures an odor-neutralizer sold as “APEEL” that could be stirring further confusion.
“The unfortunate thing is of course you can have different companies with similar names, trademarked as such, when they are very different industrial classes,” said Du, who holds a Ph. D. in chemistry.
Apeel Sciences did receive early developmental support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2012 and again in 2015.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHY
