The FDA’s current regulations allow food companies to independently determine the safety of thousands of ingredients considered “generally recognized as safe” , often without notifying the FDA or disclosing safety data. This practice has led to the addition of many unreviewed substances to the U.S. food supply, raising concerns about the adequacy of post-market oversight and the potential risks of such ingredients.
The current FDA process allows the food industry to regulate itself when it comes to thousands of added ingredients—by determining for itself which ingredients should be considered “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS—and deciding on their own whether or not to disclose the ingredients’ use and the underlying safety data to the FDA. As a result, many new substances have been added to our food supply without any government oversight.
In their analysis, the researchers review the history of the FDA’s and industry’s approach around adding these new compounds to foods and identify the lack of any real oversight. This includes a federal court case in 2021 upholding the FDA’s hands-off approach. An example of the 21 food additives to be reviewed is potassium bromate, a chemical added to baked goods and drinks with evidence that it may cause cancer. Potassium bromate is banned in Europe, Canada, China, and Japan;recently passed a law to ban its use, along with three other chemicals, and similar bills have been introduced in Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania.
“The sheer number of GRAS substances and food additives on the market, combined with the lack of knowledge about the existence of self-GRAS ingredients, insufficient resources, and documented time delays even for well-supported action, renders reliance on post-market authority flawed and unreliable to ensure a safe food supply.