RFK Jr. Has Taken Aim at These Additives. What Could He Do as HHS Secretary?

“Americans are being poisoned,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeated throughout his presidential campaign. The environmental lawyer and son of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy linked the nation’s poor diet to shorter lifespans and rising health care costs for chronic diseases.

The average life expectancy in the United States is five years shorter than that in other developed nations. This may be because 50 percent to 70 percent of the American diet is ultra-processed foods—the highest consumption rate in the developed world. Additionally, many food additives and ingredients used in the United States are already restricted or banned in Europe.

If he is confirmed as secretary of health and human services under the Trump administration, Kennedy will oversee 80 percent of the country’s food supply, as well as all cosmetics, drugs, and pharmaceutical products.

Kennedy has primarily scrutinized several key food ingredients, including high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), seed oils, and food dyes. What is the evidence of harm around these ingredients, and what can he do to exclude them from the American diet?

High-Fructose Corn Syrup

During his campaign, Kennedy repeatedly emphasized the risks of HFCS, the most common sweetener in American processed foods.

Though approved for use in both the EU and the United States, the type of HFCS generally used in Europe is a modified form called isoglucose, which contains up to 30 percent fructose, whereas American HFCS contains 42 percent to 55 percent fructose.

HFCS 55, which contains 55 percent fructose, is used most commonly. This more concentrated formula allows food to taste sweeter with a smaller volume of added sweetener.

The sweetener is similar to table sugar in overall composition, though it goes through additional enzymatic processing during production. Research has not shown clear evidence that it is more harmful than sugar, though it has received a lot of scrutiny for being a common ingredient in ultra-processed foods.

Makers of ultra-processed foods adopted HFCS rapidly in the late 20th century. Between the 1970s and 1990s, HFCS consumption increased by more than 1,000 percent, the greatest change in the American diet over that time. Researchers have pointed out that this increase coincided with the emergence and rise of obesity in the 1980s.

Research, including a 2010 study from Princeton, has found that rats that consumed HFCS gained more weight than those that consumed table sugar. One study in 2012 found that countries that consumed more HFCS had a 20 percent greater prevalence of Type 2 diabetes.

Excess consumption of fructose can place stress on the liver, which must convert fructose to glucose, and lead to fatty liver disease. Fructose also doesn’t trigger the body to release hormones that tell the brain to stop eating. Research suggests this dynamic may lead to overeating and weight gain.

HFCS, like sugar, has also been linked to heart disease. Studies in rats have linked it to behavioral problems.

The sweetener is currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as generally recognized as safe (GRAS), which means that it underwent a less rigorous approval process by the FDA than products approved as food additives. While the FDA sets an allowable limit for food additives, it does not set one for GRAS substances.

Seed Oils

Kennedy has repeatedly criticized the wide consumption of processed vegetable oils, also called “seed oils.”

During his campaign, he said that seed oils are everywhere and are the most common ingredient in the processed foods that make up the American diet.

Most seed oils, such as soybean, canola, corn, and sunflower, are approved by the FDA as GRAS. Soybean oil is the most commonly consumed oil in the United States.

These oils are highly processed. They are extracted using a solvent (often hexane, which is toxic). Then, they are degummed using water and acids, neutralized with soda to keep them from going rancid, deodorized to make them non-pungent, bleached to remove color, and sometimes hydrogenated to keep them shelf-stable, in addition to other processes.

There is currently inconclusive evidence linking seed oils with major health risks. Some studies have suggested a correlation between popular seed oil usage and cancer, as The Epoch Times has previously reported.

Studies conducted in the late 1900s, which encouraged people to switch from animal fats to vegetable oils, found that while this dietary change slightly reduced the risk of heart disease, people who made the switch also had a small increase in cancer-related mortality.

Compared to fats like tallow, which is saturated, most processed vegetable oils are high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which make them more prone to oxidation when heated. When eaten, these oxidized fats can damage cells and genes in the body.

Seed oils also have a higher proportion of omega-6 fatty acids. Research has linked higher omega-6 fatty acid consumption with a whole host of chronic diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes, inflammatory diseases, and more.

Synthetic Food Dyes

Synthetic food dyes, which include yellow 5 (tartrazine), red 40, red 2, yellow 6, green 3, blue 1, and blue 2, are not used as prolifically or at all in other countries, Elizabeth Dunford, project consultant for The George Institute for Global Health’s Food Policy Division and adjunct assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, told The Epoch Times.

These food dyes have been linked to cancer and behavioral problems such as ADHD.

Most food dyes are made from petroleum, which makes them cheaper and more durable than the natural colors used in countries such as Canada and Australia.

In a campaign video released in mid-October, Kennedy specifically targeted tartrazine, which is used in foods ranging from Doritos to yogurt and supplements such as vitamin gummies and cough syrups.

In Europe, where food coloring is restricted, foods colored with some of these dyes require a label noting they are linked with behavioral problems.

BHA and BHT

Used in chips, crackers, cereals, premade baked goods, and granola bars, butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) are approved in the United States as GRAS substances.

These chemicals prevent oils from oxidizing. However, unlike antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables, they affect immunity and are also carcinogenic. Both chemicals are “anticipated to be a human carcinogen” by the National Toxicology Program.

BHA and BHT have been suggested to act as hormone disruptors in animals.

Some studies suggest that BHT may protect against cancer, though other studies in animals show that exposure to the chemical is linked to kidney damage and liver enlargement.

Potassium Bromate

Potassium bromate is added to dough when making bread and baked goods to increase its volume and improve its texture. The compound is considered a possible human carcinogen; rats fed potassium bromate had a higher rate of thyroid and abdominal cancers, according to a summary by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

A 2020 study published in the journal Food Chemistry suggested that potassium bromate could be safe for human consumption because it breaks down into bromide during the cooking process. However, “it cannot be assumed that all the bromate is reduced to bromide,” the authors wrote.

Other Additives Used in the US That Are Banned in the EU

Besides the food additives Kennedy mentioned during his presidential campaign, other common ones have come under similar scrutiny.

Titanium Dioxide

Titanium dioxide is approved by the FDA as a color additive and is often used in foods such as salad dressings, bread, and cheese to give products a white appearance.

Titanium dioxide was deemed unacceptable for food products by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in May 2021 because scientists “couldn’t exclude genotoxicity concerns,” Maged Younes, chair of EFSA’s Food Additives and Flavorings Panel, said in an EFSA assessment. Genotoxicity refers to the properties of a chemical that can impair DNA or chromosomes.

Azodicarbonamide

Azodicarbonamide (ADA) is most commonly used in plastics and as a bleaching agent in flour-based foods. It is currently approved by the FDA as GRAS.

One animal study concluded that ADA “could be injurious to the body cells and organs in rats.” ADA exposures in humans may cause respiratory and skin reactions, according to a report by the World Health Organization. Another study found that rats fed a diet containing ADA experienced “significant behavioral changes.”

Benzoyl Peroxide

Benzoyl peroxide is most commonly used to remove color from flour, milk, and whey used for cheesemaking. It is currently approved by the FDA as GRAS.

The EU banned the use of the chemical in food in the 1990s due to concerns about potential toxicity to the liver and poisoning.

Benzoyl peroxide can also break down into benzene, a known carcinogen, at temperatures above 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Benzene is classified as a type A carcinogen, meaning that it can cause cancer.

What to Do?

The GRAS system, introduced in 1958, is one of the most criticized aspects of American food regulation.

Food ingredients that are categorized as food additives undergo relatively rigorous premarket safety reviews, with the FDA setting allowable limits for their inclusion in products. But GRAS ingredients do not have to undergo this premarket review if the substance has a long history of use, or if there is deemed to be a scientific consensus on safety.

In 1997, the FDA proposed a new regulation that allowed companies to self-determine GRAS status without submitting it for affirmation from the FDA. This change was gradually phased in and made official in 2016. As a result, companies no longer have to notify the FDA when they have a new GRAS substance.

This created a major loophole, with the primary one being that “there are unknown ingredients in the food supply that the FDA and the public doesn’t know about,” Jennifer Pomeranz, associate professor of public health policy and management at NYU’s School of Global Public Health, told The Epoch Times. Since these rules were made by the FDA, the agency could amend the rule to close the loophole, requiring companies to declare what GRAS ingredients they have used.

Europe tends to ban food additives faster than the United States and requires a rigorous premarket approval process for new ingredients. The FDA is much slower than agencies in other countries to make these changes—often 30 years slower or more, Pomeranz said.

If the FDA is able to lower the criteria needed to ban a product, that could allow potentially harmful substances to be taken out of food faster, Pomeranz said. The agency’s criteria for banning a product is also not transparent to the public.

Additionally, there is currently limited evidence linking various food additives with conclusive findings of harm, mostly due to limited research funding.

“The FDA will need more resources in order to review the unbelievable amounts of ingredients we have,” Pomeranz said. These resources would need to come from Congress.

In September, the FDA held a public meeting on developing a systematic process for reviewing products on the market, with the growing list of GRAS substances as a major focus.

The FDA may not know what to review, though, if food makers do not clearly label what is in their products, Pomeranz said. The new ingredients may be given a vague label of flavoring or preservatives that doesn’t name the actual chemical.

Kennedy mentioned during his campaign that he would have the National Institutes of Health, which has an annual research budget of more than $45 billion, fund research on the causes of chronic disease. This would include finding the health and safety risks of various food chemicals.

Pomeranz said this would be a welcome change.

Some large industry groups have publicly expressed their support of more rigorous food regulation, she said.

According to Pomeranz, companies that give consumers safe and nutritious food are currently at a disadvantage.

“It’s really hurting competition to allow companies that are not doing right to just get into the marketplace,” she said. “If there’s no regulation to even the playing field, companies have less incentive to protect us, right?”