Corn oil -- good for you?

Last month, the agency said corn oil manufacturers could claim that their product might reduce the risk of heart disease, even while acknowledging that there is little scientific evidence to support the link. Called a "qualified health claim," these bragging rights raised more than a few eyebrows among nutritionists.

"It's hilarious," says Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at New York University. "They get funnier and funnier. This one is at the far end of hilarity."

Like Nestle, many nutrition experts say qualified claims can confuse consumers, who may assume the science is more definitive than it actually is. "I worry about these qualified health claims," says Susan Roberts, a professor of nutrition at Tufts University in Boston. "I worry, agonize and don't honestly know the right answer to this general big issue."

Before 2002, the FDA only allowed "unqualified health claims" for food. Such claims require so-called significant scientific agreement -- a general consensus among experts who have considered all publicly available scientific evidence and decided that the claim is valid.

As the name implies, unqualified claims can be stated plainly, without qualification, on packaging and in marketing. Here is the claim for low-sodium foods, for example: "Diets low in sodium may reduce the risk of high blood pressure, a disease associated with many factors."

A qualified claim does not require significant scientific agreement. But it does require a qualifying statement -- or disclaimer -- describing how strong the supporting evidence is thought to be.

The strongest of such statements is: "Although there is scientific evidence supporting the claim, the evidence is not conclusive." The mid-level statement is: "Some scientific evidence suggests

The FDA determined that the corn oil claim has the weakest level of supporting evidence.

The agency says the broader allowances for qualified claims give Americans more information than they would have if only unqualified claims -- with their hard-to-meet requirements -- were allowed. And the agency believes that the qualifying statements should keep consumers from being misled.

But Bruce Silverglade, legal director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, suspects that the looser standards do more harm than good. "It's almost disingenuous of a public health agency to authorize claims that are unlikely to be true," he says.