A ban on carcinogenic and neurotoxic food dyes is long overdue– if you were born after 1990, they should have been taken off the market before you were born! Beets, red cabbage, and black currants make great red dyes– that’s what’s used in organic food (if it’s colored at all). But, the FDA continues to allow petroleum-derived synthetics like Red 3 and Red 40 to be used in thousands of different foods and drinks sold in the U.S., including frozen desserts, cocktail cherries, breakfast cereals, candy, sugary drinks, and cake frosting.
TAKE ACTION: Tell the FDA to Ban Carcinogenic & Neurotoxic Food Dyes!
Red 3, manufactured by United States Biological, is banned in Australia, China, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, because long-term animal feeding studies show it causes cancer in animals, specifically thyroid tumors. As of 2027, Red 3 will be banned in California, too, and ten other states have introduced similar legislation.
The Food & Drug Administration is required to ban any color additive that has been found to induce cancer in humans or animals at any dose. The FDA determined that Red 3 causes cancer back in 1990, but it never took action–and it has ignored a 2022 petition filed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, even though it was supposed to respond within six months.
Red 40 isn’t allowed in foods in the U.K. or E.U. without labels warning it "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children." That’s after research commissioned by British food authorities in 2007 linked hyperactivity in children to mixtures of synthetic dyes. The FDA has never evaluated the science on the neurotoxic effects of Red 40.
In 2021, California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment published its investigation finding the seven most widely used synthetic food dyes—Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6—can cause or exacerbate neurobehavioral problems in children.
TAKE ACTION: Tell the FDA to Ban Carcinogenic & Neurotoxic Food Dyes!