The Kennedy Effect: FDA Banning Red Dye No. 3 From Food and Drinks
Meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is target of $1 million campaign to prevent him from becoming head of Health and Human Services Dept.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced plans to ban Red Dye 3, also known as FD&C Red No. 3 or erythrosine, from food products. This decision comes after decades of concerns about the potential health risks associated with this artificial food coloring.
The dye, a petroleum-based additive, has been used to give candy, soda and other products their vibrant cherry red hue. Consumer advocates said the F.D.A.’s decision to revoke the authorization was long overdue, given the agency’s decision in 1990 to ban the chemical for use in cosmetics and topical drugs.
Under federal rules, the F.D.A. is prohibited from approving food additives that cause cancer in humans or animals.
“This is wonderful news and long overdue,” said Melanie Benesh, vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, one of several organizations that petitioned the agency to take action on the additive. “Red Dye 3 is the lowest of the low-hanging fruit when it comes to toxic food dyes that the F.D.A. should be addressing.”
Red Dye 3 has been associated with several health concerns based on animal studies.
“The FDA is taking action that will remove the authorization for the use of FD&C Red No. 3 in food and ingested drugs,” said Jim Jones, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for human foods, in a statement.
“Evidence shows cancer in laboratory male rats exposed to high levels of FD&C Red No.3,” he continued. “Importantly, the way that FD&C Red No. 3 causes cancer in male rats does not occur in humans.”
Behavior issues in children were also cited as a reason for the decision.
…{R]esearchers concluded artificial food colorings “are not a main cause of (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), but they may contribute significantly to some cases, and in some cases may additively push a youngster over the diagnostic threshold.”
Then in 2021, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment study found red dye No. 3 can make children vulnerable to behavioral issues, such as decreased attention. The report also concluded that federal levels for safe intake of food dyes at that time may not protect children’s brain health. The study noted that the current legal levels, set decades ago by the FDA, didn’t consider new research, according to the Environmental Working Group.
The FDA’s decision “ends the regulatory paradox of Red 3,” said Dr. Thomas Galligan, principal scientist for food additives and supplements at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, DC. But the agency “has a long way to go to reform the broken system that allowed Red 3 to remain in foods decades after it was shown to cause cancer when eaten by animals.”
This is an intriguing development, given that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is poised to take over as head of the Department of Health and Human Services.
When Kennedy reviewed the ingredient differences between Canadian and American Froot Loops, The New York Times beclowned itself by saying:
He was wrong on the ingredient count, they are roughly the same. But the Canadian version does have natural colorings made from blueberries and carrots while the U.S. product contains red dye 40, yellow 5 and blue 1 as well as Butylated hydroxytoluene, or BHT, a lab-made chemical that is used “for freshness,” according to the ingredient label.
As it turns out, the dyes were the difference Kennedy endeavored to point out.
This is an exceedingly interesting move, in light of the upcoming confirmation hearing for Kennedy. One might even call it “The Kennedy Effect”.
BREAKING: The FDA is banning Red Dye 3, citing cancer concerns. RFK effect. pic.twitter.com/GvaY8KVIRx
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 15, 2025
If the recent hearings are any indication, be prepared for fireworks and flaming responses.
It is also worthwhile noting that over $1 million has been directed at efforts to ensure Kennedy does not get confirmed.
The efforts of the Stop RFK War Room — helmed by the group Protect Our Care — have included lobbying, grassroots advocacy urging Americans to contact their senators, paid advertising in Washington and in the states of key senators and a report on Kennedy’s anti-vaccine rhetoric that was hand delivered to Senate offices.
Protect Our Care is “fiscally sponsored” by dark money group Sixteen Thirty Fund, a progressive organization that doesn’t disclose its donors. It had more than $180 million in revenue in 2023, according to its tax filings, and has reportedly received contributions from labor unions, environmental groups and Democratic superdonors including George Soros.
Other progressive groups are joining the campaign to stop Kennedy. 314 Action, a group that supports Democratic scientists running for office, convened Democrats in Congress who are doctors or nurses last week to urge senators to block Kennedy — and has spent six figures on advertising with the same message, according to a spokesperson.
However, the MAHA part of the Trump Coalition is thrilled.
BREAKING: Red Dye 3 is banned!
To all my MAHA moms, we are just getting started 💪🏻 pic.twitter.com/pgqRcxddwm
— Tanya Tay Posobiec ☦️ (@realTanyaTay) January 15, 2025
Make America Healthy Again, indeed. This may be a good start, as well as a good sign.
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Since it kills male rats congress is right to be worried.
Look at them hustle to do their jobs and deny Kennedy a win.
Also, a good time to stock up on Hawaiian Punch! The “classic” recipe will be a collectors item next year lol
Everything causes cancer in lab rats, in sufficiently enormous doses. They’re specifically bred to be vulnerable to cancer. For that matter just about everything causes cancer in humans, in sufficiently enormous doses; that doesn’t mean it’s at all harmful in normal doses.
The most basic rule of toxicology is that the dose makes the poison. Something that is toxic in large doses is harmless in smaller doses, and usually beneficial in even smaller doses.
And it’s generally the left that gets its jollies by scaring people about everything, and wanting to ban everything just on the off chance that it may harm someone. It’s a fundamentally pessimistic way of looking at the world, where everything is presumed to be harmful until it’s proven harmless. That’s a mentality that would urge us not to climb out of the ocean, let alone down from the trees.
The right is typically characterized by an optimistic view of the world as generally benevolent, and presumes new things to be harmless or beneficial unless proved otherwise. It is very skeptical of bans, and always considers the cost of avoiding something against any potential benefit of doing so. It also views lost enjoyment as a cost, while the scaremongers on the left are fundamentally joyless and so don’t see enjoyment as a benefit, or its loss as a cost.
I’m still confused as to what benefit red dye no. 3 has – is it simply aesthetic? Does it increase sales? Increase consumption? Increase happiness? Increase shelf-life?
It may be that all of that benefit actually accrues to the food producer, rather than the food consumer – in which case, it’s really hard to justify it even if it doesn’t cause cancer.
Increasing sales, consumption, happiness, and shelf-life are all benefits to the consumer. Making something look more appealing is a benefit to the consumer, exactly like making it taste better.
Well yes, aesthetic benefits are useful benefits, so long as there are no safety issues. You might find pleasure in seeing that your “cherry drink” is appropriately red in color — but what if the dye is a problem?
I’m a physician — I deal with benefit/risk ratios all the time in medicine. Yes, a chemotherapy drug might cause real harm but there’s a potential benefit. Happiness from a red-colored drink? The risk had better be really, really, REALLY low.
Not all strains are bred to be cancer prone. That’s simply untrue. However, lab rats have a higher rate of chronic disease simply because they live longer than wild rats.
This is an excellent first step in reforming our food industry. Get the chemical.additives out as much as possible. Other longer term societal reforms will require a change in policy to drop the current farm policies that benefit particular crops and where benefits seem to accrue to the largest competitors. We need to replace the current system of govt support with a focus on small to medium integrated farms producing food for local consumption. IOW the goal should be not just ‘farm to table’ with as few intermediaries as possible but local farms to local table. Unfortunately the Biden admin put in new regs for processing plants that the larger corporate processors wanted and are at least in part designed to be too cost prohibitive for smaller independent local processors to implement.
Local farm to local table has appeal but for any number of foods that just isn’t possible. We don’t grow bananas anywhere near southern Illinois where I shop for bananas. Ideally we get the best of both worlds — local food can get to local markets, and we can enjoy food produced elsewhere in the world.
Certainly the tilt of the regulatory apparatus to favor conglomerates is something we should fix.
Yes!! “Regulatory capture” must go.
so much winning …not even
official yet … and if the byeden
folks put something in place
it can be canceled but Trump.
If it’s deemed unsafe for topical use, I find it odd that it’s really safer internally.
And yes, the dose makes the poison but we don’t need things to be that virulently red.
Think about it. If you ask someone the flavor of a drink or candy and they say “red”, you know exactly what it is, right? And those are the ones that almost invariably use this dye.
David Brinkley must be laughing in his grave. How on earth can I ever again savor a very dry Rob Roy without the bright red maraschino cherry? The very thought is sufficient to drive one to drink.
Tennessee has a bill coming up to ban red dye 40 from any foods or snacks sold at schools.
I personally watched the effects of artificial food dyes on my step son who has ADHD. He developed a craving for foods containing them. It was difficult to find some kinds of items which did not have them. Halloween was rather difficult.
The combination of ADHD and the government school system was a complete disaster for him, as it has been for many other children. I am quite happy that red dye no. 3 is banned, and look forward to more such bans.
“Making something look more appealing is a benefit to the consumer” sounds like “the ends justify the means”.
Ask perplexity.ai “is the use of food dyes connected with the increase of ADHD diagnosis”.
An older red dye is the extract from the anal glands of a beaver. Should we switch back to that?
Where in the constitution does thAt power exist? askin for a friend
Bear in mind that the FDA doesn’t do its own testing of drugs or food. Instead it reviews the data that industry hands it.
It is only with great reluctance that it will review data from non-industry linked sources, unless, of course that source is ideologically acceptable.
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