Food publicity and health protection for the celiac disease carrier

Abstract

Celiac disease is a permanent food intolerance to gluten. The 10674 Act, from 16 May, 2003, states that commercialized food products must inform the existence or not of this ingredient in its formulation. The warning message must be printed on the labels, wrappings, posters, and publicity material, in bold, highlighted, and easy-to read manner. This work has analyzed 226 leaflet-like pieces of publicity of industrialized foods collected from commercial establishments in the municipalities of Juiz de Fora, Viçosa, Belo Horizonte, and São Paulo, Brazil, from March/2006 to March/2007, by means of non-probabilistic convenience sampling. A prevalence of samples mostly not in accordance with the legislation (n=221; 97,8%) was observed. More efficient sanitary surveillance is mandatory in order to promote protection of public health.