The US secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has directed the Food and Drug Administration to revise safety rules to help eliminate a provision that allows companies to affirm that food ingredients are safe.
The move would increase transparency for consumers as well as the FDA’s oversight of food ingredients considered to be safe, Kennedy said on Monday.
“For far too long, ingredient manufacturers and sponsors have exploited a loophole that has allowed new ingredients and chemicals, often with unknown safety data, to be introduced into the US food supply without notification to the FDA or the public,” he said in a statement.
Kennedy has promised to address an epidemic of chronic illness with Donald Trump’s backing, but his broad agenda from making food healthier to studying vaccines could clash with government spending cuts.
Currently, the FDA strongly encourages manufacturers to submit notices under a rule known as “substances generally recognized as safe”, but they can also affirm the use of a substance without notifying the FDA.
Eliminating this pathway would make it mandatory for companies that want to introduce new ingredients in foods to publicly notify the FDA of their intended use and submit underlying safety data, HHS said.
The FDA maintains a public inventory where all notices, supporting data and response letters are available for review.
PepsiCo, General Mills, Kraft Heinz, Hershey, Mondelez and Kellanova did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
A few months ago the FDA had set in motion a restructuring of its food division to increase oversight of food supply and agricultural products under the former commissioner Robert Califf.
In January, it proposed that food companies display nutrition labels on the front of the packages.