Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is attempting to use states’ growing interest in banning specific food dyes and additives to accelerate his efforts to reshape America’s diet.
The big picture: West Virginia is serving as an early testing ground, having passed a new law banning nine synthetic dyes and additives from state-sold food and intending to seek a federal waiver to prohibit soda in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
- Since California passed a first-in-the-nation food dye law last year, at least two dozen other states have taken up legislation addressing chemicals allowed for use in food.
- But while there’s bipartisan sentiment for policing or even eliminating some substances, the new bans could trigger fights with powerful food and beverage interests.
Driving the news: Last week, Kennedy praised West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey (R) for “leading the nation in passing a bill to clean up our food supply and submitting a waiver to remove soda from SNAP.”
- “I urge every governor to follow West Virginia’s lead,” Kennedy said. “If there’s one thing we can agree on, it should be eliminating taxpayer-funded soda subsidies for lower income kids.”
- Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose department oversees SNAP, said Morrisey was “willing to cut through the D.C. noise to help families move toward healthier behaviors and healthier outcomes.”
- Meanwhile, some conservative influencers on social media have criticized efforts to restrict soda from SNAP as government overreach and a violation of personal choice, per the Daily Wire.
Between the lines: For decades, studies have suggested a link between artificial colors and flavors and children’s hyperactivity.
- The Food and Drug Administration this year banned Red Dye No. 3, two years after a petition from consumer advocates cited studies showing a link between the dye and increased risk for cancer in rats. The agency concluded the rat studies are of “limited relevance” when it comes to determining increased cancer risk posed to humans.
- The advocacy organization Environmental Working Group says the FDA seldom reviews additives for safety before they are cleared for sale, and relies heavily on industry scientists to track safety once they’re on the market.
Dyes and additives are common ingredients in highly processed snacks, cereals, and candies. The FDA states that the additives are safe when used in accordance with its regulations.
- “Common beverage ingredients, including these colors, are safe. That’s not the beverage industry’s belief. That’s fact supported by decades of data,” Merideth Potter, spokesperson for the American Beverage Association, told Axios.
- Prohibiting dyes in certain states would create major supply chain issues that would take years to resolve and drive up prices for products at a time when Americans already are grappling with inflationary pressure, Potter said. The beverage industry group estimates West Virginia’s law effectively outlaws 60% of grocery store food items.
- “FDA is the rightful decision-maker when it comes to a consistent science-based national regulatory framework,” Christopher Gindlesperger, a spokesperson for the National Confectioners Association, told Axios.
However, the framework could change. Kennedy is advocating for a revision to the FDA’s “Generally Recognized as Safe” pathway for food ingredients, which currently leaves it up to manufacturers to determine whether a substance is safe for use or should be submitted to the FDA for review as a food additive.
- Earlier this month, he directed the agency to explore ways to eliminate the pathway for food companies to self-affirm that their products are safe. The change would require companies to notify FDA and provide safety data before they are permitted to introduce a new ingredient into the food supply, per a backgrounder from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
- Taking a hard look at the makeup of our food and increasing regulation is long overdue, Jerold Mande, a senior adviser to the FDA commissioner during the Obama administration, told Axios.
- “We just don’t know how food companies are designing the food. That’s why FDA needs to get in there, like we did with tobacco, and regulate and understand how they’re designing foods that people overeat,” he said.
Yes, but: The issue is complicated. Mande stated that while dyes and additives make food more appealing, there is ample evidence that obesity is the leading cause of cancer.
- What’s less clear is the link between chemicals and cellular toxicity that might increase the risk for developing cancer. Such connections are largely based on animal studies and don’t take into account interactions between different chemicals in our food, Mande said.
- “If this new administration invests in the science at FDA and [the U.S. Department of Agriculture] and [the National Institutes of Health], we may be able to answer some of those questions. But you need to be able to do clinical trials,” Mande said.
What we’re watching: The sweeping DOGE-ordered cuts to the FDA may make achieving that goal more difficult, particularly given the loss of expertise within the agency’s fledgling human foods program.
- “Everything that they’ve done so far has taken us further away from that,” Mande said.
