Lining the shelves of American supermarkets are food products with chemicals linked to health concerns. To a great extent, the FDA allows food companies to determine for themselves whether their ingredients and additives are safe.
Companies don’t have to tell the FDA about those decisions, and they don’t have to list all ingredients on their product labels. Instead, companies can use broad terms such as “artificial flavors.”
In 1958, Congress mandated that before additives could be used in foods manufacturers had to prove they were safe and get FDA approval. However, Congress carved out an exception for substances “generally recognized as safe,” which came to be known simply as GRAS.
As conceived, GRAS promised regulatory relief for standard ingredients like salt, sugar, vinegar, and baking powder. Over time, “the loophole swallowed the law,” said a 2014 Natural Resources Defense Council report.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to close or tighten the GRAS loophole. He has railed about the risks of food additives for years and has said he wants to end “the mass poisoning of American children.”
Whether changes come from the FDA or the food companies, it’s clear Americans are becoming more concerned about what they’re buying.
David Hilzenrath:
dhilzenrath@kff.org,
@DavidHilzenrath
Hannah Norman:
hannahn@kff.org,
@hnorms
Oona Zenda:
ozenda@kff.org
Author: David Hilzenrath
David Hilzenrath, senior correspondent and a veteran of The Washington Post, joined the staff in 2022. At KFF Health News, he was lead author of coverage that exposed a crisis in the Social Security system, spurred sweeping policy changes, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. The reporting showed how the Social Security Administration was crushing many of the people it was designed to help. The coverage, a collaboration with Cox Media Group television stations, received a gold prize in the Barlett and Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism, a first-of-its-kind Goldsmith Award for reporting on government from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a National Headliner Award for public service. From the National Press Foundation, it received the Feddie Award for reporting about the impact of federal laws and regulations on local communities. It also was recognized with honors from the Association of Health Care Journalists, the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, and the D.C. chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Excerpts or more from this article, originally published on KFF Health News appear in this post. Republished, with permission, under a Creative Commons License. Learn more about third-party content on ZanyProgressive.com.
