Fruit by the Foot, a product that uses red coloring No. 3, can be seen on a supermarket shelf in this illustrative photograph from December 27, 2024.
ROBERTO SCHMIDT
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Outgoing US President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday announced a ban on Red Dye No. 3, a controversial food and drug coloring long known to cause cancer in animals.
Decades after the first scientific evidence raised alarms, Red 3, as it is also known, is currently used in nearly 3,000 food products in the United States, according to the nonprofit Environmental Working Group .
“FDA is revoking authorized uses in food and ingested drugs of FD&C Red No. 3 in the color additive regulations,” says a document from the Department of Health and Human Services, published Wednesday in the Federal Register.
The decision follows a petition filed in November 2022 by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and other advocacy groups, which cited the “Delaney Clause” – a provision requiring a ban on any additive dye likely to cause cancer in humans. or animals.
Notably, the FDA determined as early as 1990 that Red 3 should be banned in cosmetics due to its link to thyroid cancer in laboratory rats.
However, the additive continued to be used in foods, largely due to resistance from the food industry. Manufacturers of maraschino cherries, for example, have relied on Red 3 to maintain the iconic red hue of their products.
It is also found in thousands of candies, snacks and fruit products.
The United States is one of the last major economies to take action against the dye. The European Union banned its use in 1994, and similar bans have been implemented in Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
The CSPI welcomed the decision as long overdue and expressed hope that it would lead to further action against other potentially harmful chemicals in food.
“They don’t add any nutritional value, they don’t preserve food, they’re just there to make food pretty,” Thomas Galligan, a CSPI scientist, explained to AFP.
“There is a growing debate across the political spectrum over food additives and chemicals, which reflects the FDA’s continued failures.”