FDA to require notice of additives in food supply for the first time

The Department of Health and Human Services announced a new effort to catalog the many additives in the U.S. food supply, most of which entered with little oversight. The current GRAS (generally recognized as safe) scheme has allowed thousands of chemical additives to be used without any vetting of their health effects, meaning even the FDA does not know what food companies are putting in products. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and consumer advocates have long criticized this opaque loophole, and the announcement is a response to those calls.

Under the proposed rule, companies adding a new substance to human or animal foods must notify the FDA and provide details on how they deemed the additive GRAS. Manufacturers with GRAS substances already on the market would, for the first time, need to tell the FDA how the additive is used, and that information would be made public in a database. The FDA would review new ingredient notifications within 45 days to ensure they meet legal requirements, and within 180 days complete a more substantive review, potentially asking manufacturers for more information. The proposal stops short of establishing pre-market approval, which would require Congress to amend the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938.

Advocates like Vani Hari (FoodBabe) called the move a major step forward, emphasizing transparency as the biggest benefit. FDA acting commissioner Kyle Diamantas said the mandatory notification system 'closes a decades-old information gap' while respecting the agency's authority limits. The new database would give FDA staff and outside researchers a clearer log of chemicals Americans ingest, enabling them to study which additives may be harmful. The announcement follows recent actions like the Biden administration's ban on red dye No. 3, which has been linked to health problems in mice.