Two members of Congress have reintroduced the Food Chemical Reassessment Act of 2025 (H.R. 4306) that would ensure chemicals introduced into our food supply years ago are still safe today.
H.R. 4306 would require the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Food Chemical Safety, Dietary Supplements, and Innovation to ensure chemicals that entered the food supply chain through self-reporting or that were reviewed by the FDA decades ago are safe to eat now. The Act would also reestablish the Food Advisory Committee to provide public input to the FDA on the best methods used to review the safety of food chemicals.
Review and Discussion Period
Under the bill, the FDA’s recently-created Office of Food Chemical Safety, Dietary Supplements, and Innovation would reexamine the safety of at least 10 previously approved priority food additive chemicals every three years starting in 2026 and publish its findings.
The initial chemicals include: tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), titanium dioxide, Red Dye No. 40, Yellow Dye No. 5, Blue Dye No. 1, Blue Dye No. 2, Green Dye No. 3, perchlorate, butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), trichloroethylene, methylene chloride, benzene, ethylene chloride, propyl gallate, sodium nitrite and sodium benzoate.
Currently, thousands of chemicals are added to food primarily to make it last longer, taste better, or look more enticing. The FDA is not required to reassess the estimated 7,000 FDA-approved food additives even as new science emerges. In addition, an estimated 3,000 additional chemicals added to food have never been reviewed by the FDA at all. They
entered our food supply through a system called GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe), under which food producers self-determine their additives are safe and are not required to disclose them to the FDA or the public.
When Congress created the GRAS exception in 1958, it clearly intended to apply it to a relatively few common ingredients like vinegar and salt; not new substances like benzophenone, ethyl acrylate, methyl eugenol, myrcene, pulegone, pyridine, and styrene, which were ordered phased out of the market by FDA in 2018 in response to a lawsuit citing their carcinogenic properties.
Improving Food Safety Oversight
The Food Chemical Reassessment Act is the third time this legislative effort has been introduced in Congress.
“Citizens for Health applauds the efforts of Congressmembers who want the FDA to use its existing powers to enforce greater oversight of the safety of the food supply chain. We urge the House and Senate to come together to develop a single common-sense proposal that will yield greater food safety security and justify consumer trust,” said Betsy Lehrfeld, President, Citizens for Health.
In the first half of 2025, we’ve also seen the following agency actions:
- In January, the FDA pledged to remove Red Dye No.3 from foods.
- In March, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., directed the FDA to explore closing the GRAS self-affirmation “loophole” for additives in food products. If the “loophole” is closed, companies would be required to notify FDA and provide underlying safety data before introducing a new food ingredient. HHS says it is, “Committed to working with Congress to explore ways legislation can completely close the GRAS loophole.”
- In June, the FDA asked industry to remove even more synthetic food dyes used to enhance the color in everyday foods like candy and cereals (e.g., Green dye No. 3, Red Dyes Nos. 3 and 40; Yellow Dyes Nos. 5 and 6; and Blue Dyes Nos. 1 and 2).
- In June, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) also introduced the 2025 SAFE FOOD Act, or the Study and Framework for Efficiency in Food Oversight and Organizational Design Act, aimed at creating more agency efficiencies, building stronger food safety standards and ensuring better food safety outcomes for consumers.
Next Steps
Urge your Congressional representatives to support one or all these efforts.
“We need to hold their feet to the fire to ensure the food we feed our families is safe and that chemicals which don’t add nutritional value are disclosed to consumers and pass strict safety review,” said Lehrfeld.
