Toxic soup of Unknown: Kennedy is right about the chemicals in our food

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. believes toxic chemicals in food are behind the explosion in rates of obesity and a range of other chronic illnesses. “A facade of normalcy has masked this meteoric rise in chronic disease, and we can no longer ignore it,” he said recently. He intends to rid the US food supply of nine chemicals — all petroleum-based, synthetic food dyes — in as soon as 18 months.

Kennedy has deservedly earned a reputation for embracing pseudoscience and making hyperbolic claims about public health — autism, vaccines, fluoride. But when it comes to the chemicals in our food, the situation may be even worse than he describes. It’s certainly more mysterious than many of us appreciate when we sit down to dinner.

In the US, an estimated 10,000 additives are allowed in the food we eat — including flavours, emulsifiers, pesticides, preservatives, ingredients in packaging and, yes, dyes. These chemicals are used in many of the ultraprocessed foods that now comprise most of the calories Americans consume.

In Europe, new food additives are generally presumed unsafe until proved otherwise through scientific review. But the US allows food companies to self-certify the safety of many chemicals without prior Food and Drug Administration approval. This is because of a regulatory pathway known as GRAS, or “generally recognized as safe.” Under GRAS, companies are expected, but not required, to notify the FDA when they introduce a new chemical that experts they’ve hired deemed OK to use. As a result, the food industry is often vetting the safety of the ingredients in our food, not federal regulators. Researchers estimate that there are roughly 1,000 chemicals in the food supply whose identities are unknown to regulators.

Research on chemicals that have been vetted by the FDA tends to be extremely narrow in focus, looking mostly for cancer, genetic mutations or organ damage in animal or laboratory studies. This means the ingredients in our coffee creamer, cereal, ketchup and frozen pizza aren’t tested for more subtle effects on long-term health, or whether they may increase the risk of other common chronic diseases, such as obesity, cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes. What’s more, most safety studies examine single chemicals in isolation, not how the hundreds or thousands of chemicals we consume might interact with one another or affect our long-term health.

Kennedy may be sloppy on the details, but his diagnosis of the broader problem is spot on. Kennedy admitted in a recent press briefing that he only has an “understanding” with the food industry that the food dyes he’s focused on will be phased out. Further reporting suggested that few companies have committed to doing this yet.

Any administration that cares about rising chronic diseases should invest in research to understand the root causes. The government could better fund the FDA to address not just immediate food safety threats but also the chronic disease risks posed by our diet. It could invest much more in research funding for nutrition, which since 2015 has been flat at roughly five per cent of the National Institutes of Health’s budget. Regulators and research funders must also look harder at the food environment, as science is only beginning to uncover how recent changes, including but not limited to the rise of food additives, may be harming our health and diminishing our life span.

Without such careful science, Kennedy and others are left hand-waving about hunches. In this toxic soup of unknowns, it’s easy to get mixed up about what the real health threats are and to invest political capital and public money on so-called solutions that will ultimately fail. What’s already clear: A handshake deal with the food industry will never be enough.

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