Food Companies Need to Stop Using Artificial Dyes, RFK Jr. Says

U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken a key first step toward eliminating artificial dyes from the American food supply.

The HHS department has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to end a longstanding program that allows companies to declare ingredients in their products safe for human consumption without going through a regulatory review.

HHS said that companies should no longer be able to self-certify that ingredients are “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS, and instead should submit those products for FDA safety review.

“For far too long, ingredient manufacturers and sponsors have exploited a loophole that has allowed new ingredients and chemicals, often with unknown safety data, to be introduced into the U.S. food supply without notification to the FDA or the public,” Kennedy said in the statement.

“Eliminating this loophole will provide transparency to consumers, help get our nation’s food supply back on track by ensuring that ingredients being introduced into foods are safe,” Kennedy said.

Separately, Kennedy met privately with food industry executives and told them he wants them to remove artificial color additives from their products by the end of his time in office, according to ABC News.

Loophole Allows Chemicals to Enter Food Supply Without FDA Vetting

Ninety-nine percent of the chemicals that have been introduced to the food supply since 2000 did not undergo FDA review because of the GRAS loophole, according to a 2002 analysis by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), an advocacy group based in Washington, DC, that has a long history of criticizing additives in food and personal care products.

Over this period, companies sought FDA approval to use new chemicals, including dyes, in foods just 10 times, according to the analysis.

The FDA has approved 36 food dyes, of which nine are artificial color additives used in foods and beverages, according to Michigan State University.

Artificial food dyes previously approved by the FDA include:

Blue No. 1
Blue No. 2
Green No. 3
Orange B
Red No. 2
Red No. 3 (now banned)
Red No. 40
Yellow No. 5
Yellow No. 6

Because of the GRAS rule, food companies basically get to decide for themselves whether artificial food dyes and other additives are safe — and they’re not even required to notify the FDA when they do this, says Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH, a professor emerita of nutrition and food studies at New York University in New York City.

“The companies appoint their own experts to decide. This allows potentially unsafe additives into the food supply,” says Dr. Nestle, who has written about the influence of industry in food research and regulation in her books Food Politics and Unsavory Truth.

Where Did ‘Generally Recognized as Safe’ Come From?

The GRAS loophole was part of the 1958 Food Additives Amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

The rule said that “any substance intentionally added to food is a food additive and is subject to premarket approval by FDA unless the use of the substance is generally recognized as safe (GRAS; the GRAS provision) (or otherwise excepted from the definition of food additive — e.g., color additive).”

This “loophole” was originally intended to make easier for companies to manufacture and sell products containing food additives that had a history of safe use (like vinegar, for example) without seeking FDA review, says Jerold Mande, MPH, chief executive of Nourish Science, a nonprofit nutrition research organization, and an adjunct professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

“Companies later became unhappy with how long it was taking the FDA to review new food additives, so they started abusing the GRAS exemption, claiming that new chemical additives without a history of safe use were nevertheless generally recognized as safe,” Mande says.

At the same time, the main reason FDA reviews took so long is because companies used their political power to limit FDA funding that would be necessary to accelerate this process, Mande says.

“Allowing companies to make this decision rather than FDA is a problem because companies have a conflict of interest — their focus is making money,” Mande says.

By contrast, the FDA’s focus is protecting public health, Mande notes. “Consumers are better protected when the individual deciding the safety of a chemical food additives is a government scientist who works for us and whose job it is to protect the public safety, rather than a company executive whose job it is to increase company profits.”

How Can the Government Ban Artificial Dyes in Food?

Kennedy can’t remove artificial food dyes from products overnight, but there’s a good chance the regulatory process he’s kicked off at the FDA can ultimately succeed, says Mande.

“This type of rulemaking typically takes at least two years, plus an additional year or more for companies to have time to reformulate their products,” Mande says. “Some companies will choose to change their products much faster, to be seen as leading a change they know is coming.”

In January, the FDA banned the artificial coloring Red Dye 3, after years of public concern over data showing it causes cancer in rats. There is no research suggesting the food dye causes cancer in humans. Food makers have two years to remove it from their products. Drug manufacturers have three years.

How to Avoid Artificial Food Dyes

For now, the best way to avoid artificial food dyes is to eat fewer heavily processed foods and shop for organic products, says Michael Hansen, PhD, a senior staff scientist at Consumer Reports.

“For synthetic food dyes, it’s best to read the label carefully, since those dyes are usually, but not always, on the ingredient list,” Dr. Hansen says. “Also, the fresher and less processed the food, the higher the likelihood that it doesn’t contain artificial food dyes.”

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