Reducing harmful chemicals in our food

Our food contains chemicals that may carry serious health risks, especially for pregnant women and young children. These chemicals can be used to flavor, color, preserve, process and store our food, whether added as ingredients or used in packaging. Because of flawed laws and regulations and weak enforcement by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), many chemicals are inadequately tested or not tested at all. Others haven’t been independently reviewed for safety in decades — if ever.

EDF focuses our efforts on areas of chemical safety where we can have the largest impact, in particular:

• Setting up a post-market assessment process to ensure chemicals already in our food are safe
• Closing the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) loophole
• Dealing with the cumulative health effects of chemicals in food
• Modernizing the scientific methods used by the FDA to assess chemical safety
• Enforcing existing food chemical safety standards

A broken system

The Food Additives Amendment of 1958 gives the FDA oversight of chemicals added to our food directly as ingredients and those that end up in food as contaminants. Unfortunately, the agency has not used all its tools and authority to protect consumers from harmful substances in their food. For the FDA to ensure our food is safe, we must:

Reassess the chemicals allowed in our food: Thousands of chemicals were approved by the FDA decades ago, when we knew far less about their health impacts. It’s long past time for the agency to reassess their safety. Congress needs to provide the FDA with the tools it needs to get key information, set priorities and make decisions about the chemicals already in our food.

End secrecy: The Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) loophole allows companies to secretly decide on the safety of chemicals in our food, without FDA review or the public's knowledge. Congress should create a more streamlined, public process for the FDA to make safety decisions and encourage innovation.

Deal with cumulative effects: Most Americans consume multiple chemicals with each meal as ingredients, additives and food packaging. These chemicals can build up over time, with serious consequences for our health. Although Congress mandated that the FDA address the cumulative health effects of chemicals years ago, enforcement action has been lacking. 

Use modern scientific methods: To ensure our food is safe, the FDA should use the best, most modern available science and methods. Unfortunately, the agency does not currently do this uniformly in its role assessing food safety.

Enforce food chemical safety standards: The FDA should take action when it has evidence that a substance is unsafe, carcinogenic or is self-certified by a company as GRAS but does not meet safety criteria. The FDA should use its existing tools and authority to enforce and prohibit the use of these chemicals.

Consumer concerns about chemicals in food are mounting. In the FDA's absence, states are stepping up to fill the gap with their own protective measures, but the need is urgent for federal regulatory changes that rescind approvals for toxic food additives, close the GRAS loophole and strengthen enforcement to ensure food is safe for all Americans.

Read more about the FDA on the EDF Health blog