After a big buildup about a press conference on banning artificial food dyes, the country’s top food leaders offered little in the way of how they would do so.
On a stage with mothers and children behind them, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Maraky repeated what they said the day before. They promised to get petroleum-based dyes out of foods but did not offer any information about how they plan to achieve that goal.
Under the plan, the government will rely primarily on food companies to voluntarily stop using most of the dyes. The plan is short on details on what action the agencies will take if food companies fail to remove the dyes by the end of 2026.
Speaking first, Maraky said the dyes “mess with” children’s brains. He also said that the dyes are responsible for a host of medical problems affecting children, including diabetes and cancer. He said the answer is not insulin and chemotherapy. Rather he said, removing food dyes from food will help make children more healthy.
Maraky held up jars of fruit and vegetable juice and said there are healthy ways to replace chemical food dyes, especially in food marketed toward children. He said the country needs to get beyond “tribalism” to eliminate chemicals from food.
“Autism and obesity are things adults have done to children,” Maraky said.
He said the FDA and HHS are going to develop a timeline for removing dyes from food. Another step will be to initiate the removal of two rarely used dyes from foods in the coming months and that all artificial food dyes will be removed from foods within a year.
The FDA head did not outline how those goals would be achieved.
Kennedy also did not offer any specifics about how the administration would go about ensuring that artificial food dyes would be removed from foods. He invoked the name of his uncle President John F. Kennedy and said Americans were the healthiest people on earth when he was in office.
Then Kennedy blamed the media as being part of the problem with artificial food dyes saying that advertising dollars are more important than covering the real story.
Following Maraky and Kennedy’s press conference, the Center for Science in the Public Interest — which had a day before praised the two leaders for tackling the problem of food dyes — released a statement expressing disappointment in their remarks.
“It’s disappointing that Secretary Kennedy and Commissioner Makary would hold a press conference to announce the elimination of food dyes — only for reporters to learn that the only real regulatory moves here are to move to ban two rarely used dyes, Citrus Red 2 and Orange B, ‘within the coming months,’” said the Center’s leadership.
“They announced no rulemaking of any sort to remove the remaining six numbered dyes. Instead, we are told that the administration has an unspecified ‘understanding’ with some unspecified fraction of the food industry to eliminate dyes. . . . But history tells us that relying on voluntary food industry compliance has all-too-often proven to be a fool’s errand.”
A spokesperson with the Environmental Working Group also questioned how effective the promises from Kennedy and Maraky would be, but generally praised the move.
“To be clear, however, an understanding with industry is neither a settlement nor a ban,” said Melanie Benesh, EWG vice president for government affairs.
Consumer Reports also issued a statement questioning the effectiveness of the government’s plan.
“It’s encouraging to see the FDA working toward a ban on synthetic food dyes, but this multistep plan relies on voluntary industry efforts that will simply prolong the amount of time it will take to get dangerous dyes out of our food,” said Brian Ronholm, director of food policy at Consumer Reports. “We need an enforceable ban on harmful synthetic food dyes. States should continue to act on legislation to remove toxic chemicals and dyes from food. Consumers shouldn’t have to wait and rely on this industry to act voluntarily after years of resistance.”
A food industry group followed Kennedy and Maraky’s press conference with a statement asserting the safety of artificial food dyes.
“The ingredients used in America’s food supply have been rigorously studied following an objective science and risk-based evaluation process and have been demonstrated to be safe. Removing these safe ingredients does not change the consumer packaged goods industry’s commitment to providing safe, affordable and convenient product choices to consumers,” the Consumer Brands Association said.
In his remarks, Maraky said he wanted to work with food companies and not change the rules.
“Let’s start in a friendly way and see if we can do this without any statutory or regulatory changes. But we are exploring every tool in the toolbox to make sure this gets done very quickly,” Makary said.
Makary said he had had “wonderful meetings with the food industry” and claimed that they are eager to remove artificial dyes from the food supply.
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