Fox News senior medical analyst, Dr. Marc Siegel, discusses the FDA considering a ban on food dyes, major food companies facing lawsuits for advertising ‘addictive’ foods to children, and Eli Lilly testing anti-obesity drugs to treat addiction.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman criticized Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week, saying the agency took too long to ban Order No. 3 in the US food supply.
“For how many years how many children and adults were exposed to this dangerous poison and the @US_FDA did nothing?” Ackman announced X Thursday.
He speculated that the new Trump administration had moved the needle, telling his followers that the FDA had “finally decided to do its job” days before President-elect Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
FDA BANS ARTIFICIAL RED DYE: WHAT IT MEAN FOR CONSUMERS
Ackman also argued that Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, “will have to clean house at the FDA.”
“We also need to understand how the food industry pressured the FDA to continue to allow them to poison the American people,” Ackman continued.
However, the federal agency said that any “claims that the use of FD&C Red No. 3 in foods and in drugs that are consumed put humans at risk are not supported by available scientific information.”
However, on Wednesday, the FDA issued an order revoking the approval for the use of red no. 3 – also known as erythrosin and emits a bright, cherry-red color – in foods and medicines that are consumed.
The decision followed a review of a petition that argued, under a rule called the Delaney Clause, that the FDA should ban this color additive in food and drugs at the federal level because it has been shown that cause cancer in animals.
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The color was primarily used in a wide range of food products, such as candies, cakes and cookies, cookies, frozen desserts, frostings and frostings, as well as certain ingestible medicines. However, it was banned from cosmetics and topical medicines for more than three decades after data showed it was linked with animal carcinogenicity.
The FDA said male laboratory rats in two different studies developed cancer after being “exposed to high levels of FD&C Red No. 3 due to a rat-specific hormonal mechanism.”
Federal officials said the way Order No. 3 causes cancer in male rats does not occur in humans and that the relevant artificial dye exposure levels for humans are usually much lower than those causing the effects shown in male rats.
“Studies in other animals and humans have not shown these effects; claims that the use of FD&C Red No. 3 in food and in ingested drugs put humans at risk are not supported by available scientific information,” the FDA continued.
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Going forward, any manufacturer that uses the dye in food and consumable drugs will have until January 15, 2027 and January 18, 2028, respectively, to reformulate their products.
That means consumers may still see it as a food or drug ingredient on the market after the above dates if the product was manufactured before the effective date, according to the FDA.
