CLAIM: A security information sheet for Apeel Sciences, an organization that makes a protecting coating used to maintain fruit and veggies recent, reveals that its product could cause eye injury and allergic pores and skin reactions.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The security doc being cited is for an unrelated cleansing product that makes use of the identical title. That product is made by a unique, U.Okay.-based firm.

THE FACTS: California-based Apeel Sciences markets that its plant-based answer can hold fruit and veggies recent and at their prime longer — and that it’s edible, too.

However social media posts are distorting the protection of that product, often known as Edipeel, by conflating it with an unrelated cleansing product that shares a reputation with Apeel.

“In case you see the Apeel brand on any fruit and veg don’t purchase it, this can be a Invoice Gates and WEF firm, this chemical makes issues final 3x longer and can’t be washed off, in US and Canada in the meanwhile,” a tweet reads.

The tweet features a screenshot of a security information sheet for a product known as “Apeel.” The doc contains “Hazard statements” that embody: “Causes severe eye injury,” “Might trigger an allergic pores and skin response” and “Dangerous to aquatic life with lengthy lasting results.”

The doc being cited, nevertheless, will not be for Apeel’s Edipeel. It was uploaded on-line by Evans Vanodine, a U.Okay. firm that manufactures a product known as “Apeel” that may be a arduous floor cleaner. That firm’s brand and title seem on the protection information sheet as nicely.

Apeel Sciences representatives emphasised that their produce-protecting product will not be associated to the cleaner and that it’s protected to devour.

The corporate makes use of plant lipids or plant oils naturally present in fruit and veggies and creates a coating utilized “to the floor of recent fruit and veggies with the intention to retain moisture and cut back oxidation,” stated Jenny Du, co-founder of Apeel and senior vp of operations. “Our product can also be meant to be edible.”

The coating consists of purified monoglycerides and diglycerides, which Du identified are additionally present in merchandise resembling toddler formulation; the compounds are designated by the Meals and Drug Administration as a “usually acknowledged as protected”, or GRAS, meals additive. Within the U.S., Apeel’s coating is used on merchandise resembling avocados and apples.

Apeel’s web site presents product security data sheets.

Confusion with the unrelated cleansing product hasn’t been a problem till the latest bout of misrepresentations on-line, Du stated. She identified that there’s additionally an Australian firm that manufactures an odor-neutralizer offered as “APEEL” that could possibly be stirring additional confusion.

“The unlucky factor is in fact you may have completely different firms with related names, trademarked as such, when they’re very completely different industrial lessons,” stated Du, who holds a Ph. D. in chemistry.

Apeel Sciences did obtain early developmental assist from the Invoice & Melinda Gates Basis in 2012 and once more in 2015.

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That is a part of AP’s effort to handle extensively shared misinformation, together with work with exterior firms and organizations so as to add factual context to deceptive content material that’s circulating on-line. Be taught extra about fact-checking at AP.