FDA moves to let toxic chemicals into food without safety review
FDA may allow some toxic chemicals to be added to food without safety review
The FDA is proposing to expand a controversial loophole that would allow some of the world's most toxic chemicals to be added directly to food without safety review. The threshold of regulation exemption, which already allowed perchlorate in grain bags and increased the chemical in kids' cereal, would now cover flavorings, preservatives, and emulsifiers. Advocates warn the rule ignores hormone disruptors and cumulative effects, and accuse RFK Jr. of deception after he claimed to close a different loophole.
The FDA and industry have this position that if there's only a little bit of something in the diet, then it's not going to be problematic, but that isn't supported by science of any kind.
- NewJazz
I posted this because I thought it both interesting and troubling to see the disconnect between RFK Jr's stated goals and values and his actions in practice. Like many out there, I connected with some of the underlying messages and values that his campaign put forward. However, the more I learn about him and his past, the more I question not just his methods and expertise, but his truthfulness and genuineness.
I would really like to see more policy (from whomever: local, state, federal, judiciary, legislative, executive, red, blue, green, black) that actually accomplishes some of the things that RFK Jr says that he wants to accomplish.
- throawayonthe
it's weird how they say "One TOR exemption that allows the rocket fuel chemical perchlorate to be used in grain bags..." as well as the article they link to https://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/01/11/fda-perchlorate-in-f... focusing on it being a rocket fuel component
i guess it sounds scary? but it almost implies rocket fuel is somehow involved in grain transport lol. the real reason for its use i guess is to control static electricity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perchlorate#:~:text=control-,s...
this is like that one time people came to my school to talk about vapes, and one of their talking points was "vapes can contain formaldehyde, and formaldehyde is used to preserve dead specimens/tissue samples" ; they did not get my issue with the lack of causal reasoning in that argument :P
- edukite
In UE even cow meat is banned because of how unhealthy it is.
From European point of view even bread sold in USA is Molotov cocktail
- GuestFAUniverse
"generally regarded as safe” (Gras)
-- obviously thought out while smoking too much of it.
- stackghost
Americans are so bizarrely tolerant of having a food supply chock full of highly-processed, artificial everything.
The answer always seems to be “we don’t like these big companies putting additives in food but we’ve tried nothing and are all out of ideas”
- Madmallard
No matter what you may argue about whether or not these specific chemicals are safe at the contaminant dosage, we do not NEED more poorly studied chemicals present in our environment.
- 6510
Someone once told me that if you have an ingredient that may have 0.3% toxins and you bought a cheap badge with 0.4% and a quality badge with 0.25% it is awfully tempting to mix them as close to 0.29% as possible. You might even convince the quality supplier to aim for 0.2% so that you can use the almost worthless 0.5% It isn't unthinkable that some would use the food supply to somewhat legally dispose of 100% toxic materials. Properly mixing is really hard and you cant really trust people who would do such a thing to mix in the poisons "properly".
- Havoc
The self regulation worked great for Boeing so why not