Removal of cancer-linked Red Dye from food supply via RFK Jr leading HHS

The Food and Drug Administration has said it will soon act on a longstanding petition to ban Red Dye No. 3, an artificial dye used in food in the U.S. but banned other countries.

Before she became a parent, Erin Seraydian says she didn’t give much thought to food coloring. 

“Fifteen plus years ago, my sister-in-law, we were visiting them in Texas and they made a comment like, ‘The kids can’t have anything with dye in it because it makes them hyperactive.’ And my husband and I, at the time we weren’t married, we were like, “Oh, OK, you know, they must be crazy. Like that’s not a real thing,” Seraydian told me.

Years later when they had their own son, Jack, it no longer seemed “crazy.”

“Every time he had anything with dye in it, he had the hardest time focusing,” Seraydian also said. “He was more irritable, cranky, angry. And you would be surprised how many food products contain food dye. So to this day, now when he eats anything with dye in it at school and he comes home, I can tell right away and sure enough I look in his backpack and I find something that has dye in it.”

Scientific studies back up a connection. Over time, hundreds of artificial food dyes have been created – many made from crude oil. Most were eventually pulled from the market for being toxic. Only nine are still allowed in food in the U.S.

Synthetic colors are often cheaper and brighter than natural dye, and often don’t add unwanted flavor. Red Dye No. 3 is in many bright-colored sodas, juices, candy, yogurt, cereal, baked goods and snacks.

At a hearing last month, an FDA spokesman told Congress to expect action “soon” on the petition to ban Red Dye No. 3.

Such action will almost certainly not happen, considering the Biden administration, under which the agency is run, ends in a matter of days.

However, advocates for getting artificial colors out of the U.S. food supply are poised to make significant headway in their effort if the Senate confirms Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the incoming Trump administration’s Health and Human Services secretary.

He has vowed to remove dye for the county’s food supply, particularly in cereals.

“I’m just gonna tell the cereal companies, ‘Take all the dyes out of their food,’” Kennedy said last October during his earlier presidential bid.

Sarah Sorscher is with the Center for Science in the Public Interest which, two years ago, petitioned the FDA to ban Red Dye No. 3.

“Some of the synthetic food dyes have been associated with cancer risks,” says Sorscher. “Red 3 was associated with cancer in animal studies, this very clear evidence tying Red 3 to cancer risks in animals. And those studies were conducted in the 1980s. In 1990, the Food and Drug Administration actually acted on those studies to ban Red 3 from cosmetics.

“So currently you can’t go to the store and buy lipstick with Red 3 in it, but FDA never took action on Red 3 and foods. So you can still go to the store and purchase Halloween candy or Easter candy that contains Red 3.”

Today, numerous studies have linked artificial dyes and other food chemicals to cancer, immune problems, and brain issues like hyperactivity. The FDA recently banned Brominated Vegetable Oil or BVO, used in some sports drinks and sodas. It’s linked to brain, thyroid, heart, liver, developmental and reproductive problems. 

I asked Sarah Gallo about the safety questions. She’s with the Consumer Brands Association, a trade group that represents food and beverage companies.

“I think, you know, these additives have been studied for decades and it’s really important to know too that nothing is just going into the marketplace without there being a rigorous science system in advance of those products being added to what we purchase every day for our families,” she said. “And to date, there have not been any studies that show causation between any specific additive and a certain outcome.”

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For more on this story, watch “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson” on Sundays. Attkisson’s most recent book is “Follow the Science: How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails.”