Jean Halloran
Director, Food Policy Initiatives
Jean Halloran is Director of Food Policy Initiatives at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports. In her 25 years at Consumers Union she has led many projects on food safety, sustainable consumption and trade issues. She is currently responsible for developing policy and staff initiatives on biotechnology, mad cow disease prevention, mercury in fish, bacteria in meat, poultry and produce, and waste recycling.
As Director of the Consumers Union Consumer Policy Institute from 1981 to 2005, she developed and supervised conferences, reports and input to government agencies on pesticides, sustainable agriculture, organic labeling, toxic chemicals, as well as intellectual property issues and health care, funded by the National Science Foundation, government agencies, and numerous private foundations.
She presently serves on the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, and on the National Academy of Sciences’ Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources. Ms. Halloran helped organize the TransAtlantic
Consumer Dialogue (TACD), a coalition of groups in Europe and the US, and serves as its US liaison point. She represented Consumers International at Codex Alimentarius, in negotiations that developed standards for safety assessment of genetically engineered foods.
Ms. Halloran speaks frequently at conferences and to media. She served on the US FDA's Food Advisory Committee from 2004 to 2006. In 1996, she co-authored the recent Consumers Union book Pest Management at the Crossroads, which discusses how to move the United States toward Integrated Pest Management, an approach that minimizes pesticide use.
Ms. Halloran came to Consumers Union's Consumer Policy Institute in 1981 to direct the Regulatory Information Network project, whose goal was to help consumer groups participate in federal regulatory decisions on issues such as getting lead out of gasoline.
In 1979-1980, as a staff member of the President's Council on Environmental Quality, Ms. Halloran was one of the principal drafters of an Executive Order issued by President
Carter designed to prevent export of banned and severely restricted pesticides, pharmaceuticals and consumer products.
From 1972 to 1979, Ms. Halloran was Director of Research at INFORM, an environmental research organization in New York City, where she did research, writing and editing on land use, pollution and other environmental issues. Ms. Halloran has also served on the staffs of the Council on Economic Priorities and of Harper's Magazine. Jean Halloran received her B.A. with Honors from Swarthmore College. She resides in Brooklyn, New York.