Experts Believe FDA May Be Allowing Unsafe Additives In Food Supply

Experts say the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may be allowing unsafe ingredients to enter the nation’s food supply.

According to a new editorial in the American Journal of Public Health, the agency has failed to take quick action to protect Americans from food additives such as brominated vegetable oil and red dye No. 3.

But, just this past July, the FDA banned the use of brominated vegetable oil. Studies showed it could be potentially harmful to the liver and heart and might be linked to neurological problems. The ingredient is banned in the U.K., European Union, India and Japan.

“The FDA really needs to re-evaluate our system,” said Jennifer Pomeranz, associate professor of public health policy and management at the NYU School of Global Public Health and the lead author of the editorial. “We cannot say that our food supply is safe.”

Pomeranz and the other authors focused on the FDA’s “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) designation. GRAS is used by the agency to label ingredients that outside experts consider to be safe for use in foods and doesn’t require FDA approval. This frees up the agency from using its limited resources to vet commonly used ingredients such as salt and vinegar.

From 1990 to 2010, 1,000 substances were approved as GRAS by manufacturers and were used without notifying the FDA. Pomernaz said many more ingredients may have been added to the nation’s food supply without notifying the FDA since then. She believes food manufacturers have taken advantage of GRAS. They even found some companies have used the rule to justify adding higher levels of caffeine to their products. Food manufacturers are not required to request a FDA review of new ingredients before they are added to products.

“We have no idea how many substances are in the food supply based on this self-GRAS mechanism,” Pomeranz said. “The food industry has basically made their own decisions about what is GRAS.”

The FDA has not commented on the new editorial.

Pomeranz said she wants the FDA to receive more funding so it can review ingredients before they are allowed on the market. She believes Congress can play a role in making that happen.

“It’s really about safety,” she said. “Safety is something I think all parties can agree on.”

 

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