For nearly six decades, Fred Kummerow warned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about the dangers of trans fats. As a young researcher, he made a startling discovery when he examined tissues taken from the arteries of people who had died from heart disease.
The tissue contained high levels of trans fats, an artificial substance discovered years earlier but had become ubiquitous in processed foods throughout the country. He published his research in 1957 warning about the dangers of trans fats and the development of atherosclerosis. A decade later, he insisted that the American Heart Association urge members of the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils to eliminate or at least decrease the trans fat amounts. Although they would not eliminate trans fats, they did replace some with essential fatty oils. Those changes were eventually made coinciding with a significant decline in coronary heart disease mortality beginning after 1968. Despite his research and further warnings over the years, the dangerous artificial trans fats still remained a major part of processed food for decades. Every time a group formed to study the issue Kummerow said, “It always ended up that you had to have more research before you could come to a conclusion.” In 2009, frustrated and fed up by the lack of action, he filed a 3,000-word citizen petition with the FDA citing the growing body of evidence against trans fats. The first line in the petition read: “I request to ban partially hydrogenated fat from the American diet.” The FDA ignored the petition for four years. In 2013, Fred Kummerow sued the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services. Three months later, the FDA announced that trans fats would no longer be assumed safe for use in human foods. Thank you Fred Kummerow for your persistence to save lives!