You’re reading The MAHA Diagnosis, a STAT series that examines the major elements of the Make America Healthy Again movement led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A lot of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ideas about health are controversial. But when it comes to his pitch on increasing oversight of chemicals in the U.S. food supply, even the Food and Drug Administration agrees it needs to do a better job.
One of Kennedy’s specific targets is the exemption that’s long allowed food manufacturers to introduce new additives without first receiving approval from FDA. This loophole, known as “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS, “looks at any new chemical as innocent until proven guilty,” Kennedy said at his confirmation hearing as the nominee to head Health and Human Services.
The GRAS rule has paved the way for thousands of ingredients never reviewed by the FDA to become embedded in the foods Americans eat. Even as researchers raise concerns about their potential health consequences, additives have only increased in the U.S. food supply: Between 2001 and 2019, the portion of packaged foods containing additives grew from 49.6% to 59.5%.
“GRAS has been abused, and it’s ripe for reform,” said Stephen Ostroff, former acting FDA commissioner and deputy commissioner for foods.
But even as Kennedy on Tuesday highlighted plans to scrutinize the potential role of “artificial food additives” in rising chronic disease as part of a newly formed commission, cuts underway at the FDA call the future of that effort into question. Nine of 29 FDA staffers charged with reviewing the safety of food additives were dismissed over the weekend, said Jim Jones, who was head of the agency’s food division until he resigned this week. “That’ll be the hardest place to shore up,” he said in an interview with STAT. “And just listening to Secretary Kennedy, that’s one of his highest priorities, if not his highest priority.”
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