The FDA and NIH are pushing out a joint research initiative that will explore nutrition issues and infant dietary exposures, fueling US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda to scrutinize the food supply.
The two federal health agencies announced Friday the Nutrition Regulatory Science Program, a plan that seeks to accelerate comprehensive nutrition research and provide information that will help inform effective food and nutrition policy actions.
The program aims to answer questions about the risks of ultra-processed foods to human health, how certain food additives affect metabolic health and possibly contribute to chronic diseases, and the role of maternal and infant dietary exposures on health outcomes across the lifespan.
“The FDA is focusing resources on the greatest contributors to the staggering health care crisis: chronic diseases,” Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary said in a statement. “Mirroring the highly successful FDA and NIH Tobacco Regulatory Science Program, we’re bringing together scientific expertise from both agencies to transform nutrition and food-related research.”
The FDA continues to support Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda since he took over as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The agency has already shared plans to increase oversight of infant formula safety, assess an FDA pathway that allows food manufacturers to self-affirm their food ingredients are safe without agency review, and issue a plan to phase out petroleum-based synthetic dyes from the US food supply
The FDA through the new nutrition program will now provide its expertise in regulatory science, while the National Institutes of Health will provide the infrastructure for the solicitation, review, and management of scientific research, according to the agencies.
The NIH’s investment will help tackle the “chronic disease crisis head-on,” Jay Bhattacharya, NIH director, said in the statement.
“Nutrition has always been a priority at NIH,” Bhattacharya said. “By teaming up with the FDA, we’re taking a major step toward answering big questions about how food affects health—and turning that science into smarter, more effective policy.”
