Hearing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., say it, making America again healthy again means making American food again healthy.
The nation High Health Manager said hundreds of additives should be withdrawn from the American food supply by concern that they contribute to a wave of Chronic health problems.
Many Americans share his distrust. In a Gallup poll Directed in summer, 28% of respondents said they “did not” have “confidence in the federal government's ability to ensure that the food supply was safe, while 14% had” none “.
“Our food system as formed is not designed to maximize health,” said Dr James KriegerExecutive director of America of healthy foods.
Kennedy says it shouldn't be like that. And like the newly installed leader Among the Ministry of Health and Social Services, it is in a privileged position to change this.
But submitting food additives to a more scientific examination will not be cheap, warn experts. Additional costs would have an obstacle at any time, but especially now that President Trump is aimed at Reduce the price of eggs And Other grocery stores.
“Food security is in the best interests of everyone, including manufacturers,” said Michael T. RobertsExecutive director of the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at Ucla Law. “There is only one thing that cuts a full investment in food security, and that's the cost.”
One of Kennedy's largest priorities could be the most expensive: escape This allows companies to guarantee the safety of new food additives by declaring them “generally recognized as safe” or Fat. The designation was initially intended for familiar articles such as salt, vinegar and baking powder, but now applies to more than 1,000 compounds, Experts believe.
Food manufacturers who take advantage of the fatty flaw are supposed to carry out a scientific assessment to ensure that their new ingredients will not increase the risk of development disorders, disrupt the endocrine system, do not trigger allergies or cause other health problems. But companies are not required to share these assessments with the Food and Drug Administration, nor to inform the Agency when they introduce a new additive to food supply.
“Nowadays, someone finds a new product – a new seed or a new plant elsewhere in the world – and it begins to use it,” said Neal FortinDirector of the Institute for Food Laws and Regulations of Michigan State University.
This is how a substance called Tara flour has become an ingredient in a meat replacement product sold by daily harvest and Hundreds of overshadowed customers in 2022. More than 100 have been hospitalized with serious problems, including acute liver insufficiency, and The product has been recalled.
Tara Flour “has never been subjected to the FDA, and it should not have been subjected to the FDA,” said Fortin. The manufacturer “has self -deprecated as being safe and that has harmed many people”.
If this represented to him, said Fortin, he would have forced companies to share their security studies with the FDA so that regulators can verify them for red flags.
“All they have to do is look for problems,” he said. “If they see one, they can slow it or stop it, or ask for more information” before the ingredient continues on the market.
The researchers estimated This implementation of this type of plan would almost double the number of additives evaluated by the scientists of the agency each year.
Food security defenders also called on the FDA to intensify its supervision of additives which are already on store shelves.
“Things that can have been in food supply for 50 years must sometimes be reassessed,” said Fortin. “Food regimes are changing. The formulations change. Before, maybe we only get red coloring In the cherries Maraschino. Now it's in a ton of different things. »»
The agency has reorganized its system to reassess fatty ingredients, preservatives, food coloring and others, by giving priority to those suspected of presenting a risk to public health. Under the FDA proposal, a complete assessment of a food additive could take a year or more, the agency said.
In a statement on Monday at Times, an FDA official said that these efforts and other efforts “to protect food supply and make sure that food is a well-being vehicle” is always on the right track. “We are determined to move forward with our priorities to develop a new post-commerce security assessment framework and to improve pre-commercial examination processes for additives,” said the official.
A scientist from the Food and Drug Administration tests unknown and potentially dangerous ingredients in products marketed in the form of food supplements.
(Michael J. ERMARTH / US Food and Drug Administration)
Additive analysis – before or after their market – takes the workforce and more work will require more money. Yet the $ 1.2 billion budget For the FDA food program during the year 2024, was overshadowed by the $ 3.7 billion devoted to drugs, biological and medical devices for people.
Experts inside and outside the agency – including its recently deceased commissioner, Dr Robert Califf – called on Congress to appropriate more funds for food regulations, but they do not hold their breath.
“More money from Congress is not in cards,” said Dr Peter LuriePresident of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a non -profit organization focused on public health issues. “In a realistic way, it does not happen.”
Some therefore want to adopt a practice used elsewhere in the FDA – invoice costs so that their new products are checked by the agency. Such use of use explain $ 3.3 billion of the FDA $ 7.2 billion budget in 2024.
Although they have financed significant work, the costs of use also introduced the appearance of a conflict of interest. Kennedy has criticize them To give companies to deep pockets an advantage on startups and to have given the pharmaceutical industry the lever effect on regulators.
Lurie is sympathetic to these criticisms.
“My overall opinion on user fees is that they are not a good idea,” he said. “But the problem is that they are better than the alternative.”
Jennifer PomeranzPublic health lawyer at the New York University of World Health School, considers user costs as a reasonable means of paying more food security. Such fees do not change the work that FDA scientists are doing, she said. They simply allow you to do the work faster.
Although companies would pay opinions, this would not guarantee that their applications succeed. Many candidates for medicines and medical devices are rejected by regulators, said Pomeranz. User fees finance the process, not the result, she said.
Getting rid of the fatty escape and the implementation of user costs to pay independent regulatory opinions would in fact reduce the dependence on the FDA with regard to food companies, said Sean CashFood economist and president of the Food, Agriculture and Environment Division of Toft University.
“In the current regime, we are already counting strongly on inputs and industry certificates,” he said. Curtail that will increase confidence in the food system, he believes.
These changes, of course, would cost businesses money. Several experts have agreed that companies could react by increasing prices, although it is not clear to what extent they could get away before damaging their businesses.
Buyers are more sensitive to price increases for food than for drugs, which could minimize consumer balance sheet, Cash said. In addition, any inflationary effect of use costs is likely to be overwhelmed by the effects of other policy changes, such as the reduction in the number of immigrants on the workforce and the imposition of prices on imported goods.
The revision costs of the additives already used could be minimized if the FDA benefited from the work already carried out by the regulators of the European Union and elsewhere, said Pomeranz. “When other countries prohibit ingredients, why are we waiting for 20 years to do the same thing?”
Even if a stricter examination of additives leads to an increase in food prices, this may be preferable to maintaining the status quo, said Cash.
“If they are really not sure for us, is this a compromise that we want to make?” He said. If we do not take a closer look at these ingredients, “will we pay it by other means later?”
Kaplan is a former Times staff editor.
