FDA makes moves to phase out synthetic food dyes
Your food may soon be safer, with the FDA going after chemical dyes.
[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]
A scientist told Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Sophia Choi that this plan is more talk than teeth.
It's a voluntary recall, meaning the government is relying on companies to phase them out with no real oversight or regulation.
Chemical dyes, made from crude, are in a lot of foods - especially those targeted to kids.
Thomas Galligan with the Center for Science in the Public Interest says those dyes add bright colors but no nutritional value.
'They used these dyes to sell food,' Galligan said. 'If you see vibrant colors, you might be more inclined to buy it.'
It's a marketing tool that could pose a danger. This Georgia couple says synthetic dyes changed their son's behavior.
'He had lots of fits and hitting and biting and tantrums,' Whitney Cawood said.
They changed his diet and made a documentary to warn others.
'We did an elimination diet, and we determined that synthetic dyes were causing 98% of his issues,' Whitney Cawood said.
'It was kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,' Brandon Cawood said.
The FDA could ban chemical dyes outright but instead announced Tuesday it is establishing a national standard and timeline for the food industry to transition to natural alternatives.
It plans to revoke two synthetic food colorings citrus red No. 2 and orange B, within the coming months while authorizing four new natural color additives in the coming weeks.
It wants companies to remove red dye 3 sooner than the 2027-2028 deadline, and it's asking the industry to voluntarily remove six remaining synthetic dyes still in use by the end of next year.
'It's a lot of talk,' Galligan said. 'It's a lot of rhetoric, not a whole lot of action.
In Europe, leaders already took some steps, requiring a warning label on foods that contain chemical dyes.
Some states in the U.S. are now starting to limit or ban them too, but not here in Georgia.
[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
2 hours ago
- Business Insider
Johnson & Johnson announces new results from Phase 2 RedirecTT-1 study
Johnson & Johnson announced new results from the Phase 2 RedirecTT-1 study evaluating the investigational combination of TALVEY, the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved GPRC5D-directed bispecific antibody, and TECVAYLI, the first FDA-approved BCMA-directed bispecific antibody. The results show a high overall response rate with durability in patients with triple-class exposed relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma who have true extramedullary disease, EMD. EMD is defined as soft tissue/organ-associated plasmacytomas with no contact to bony structures as per International Myeloma Working Group criteria. RedirecTT-1 is the largest study dedicated to patients with EMD to date. These data were featured in a late-breaking oral presentation at the 2025 European Hematology Association Congress. Confident Investing Starts Here:
Business Insider
2 hours ago
- Business Insider
Genmab announces new results fom Phase 1b/2 EPCORE NHL-2 trial
Genmab (GMAB) announced new results from the Phase 1b/2 EPCORE NHL-2 trial Arm 10, evaluating epcoritamab, a T-cell engaging bispecific antibody administered subcutaneously, in combination with rituximab, ifosfamide, carboplatin, and etoposide, R-ICE, in adult patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, R/R DLBCL, who are eligible for autologous stem cell transplantation, ASCT. Results demonstrated an overall response rate, ORR, of 87 percent, a complete response rate of 65 percent and a partial response of 23 percent. The majority of patients proceeded to ASCT. At six months, an estimated 81 percent of responses were ongoing, 74 percent of patients were progression free, and 100 percent of patients were alive. These results were shared today during an oral presentation at the 30th European Hematology Association 2025 Congress. The safety profile of this combination therapy showed cytokine release syndrome being low grade and no discontinuations due to treatment-emergent adverse events. The most common TEAEs were neutropenia, anemia, and thrombocytopenia. CRS occurred in 52 percent; all were low grade and resolved. One patient had immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome, which resolved. No clinical tumor lysis syndrome was observed. Infections occurred in 18 patients; five had serious infections. There were no Grade 5 TEAEs. Confident Investing Starts Here:
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
A ‘war on children': as US changes Covid vaccine rules, parents of trial volunteers push back
As the Trump administration contemplates new clinical trials for Covid boosters and moves to restrict Covid vaccines for children and others, parents whose children participated in the clinical trials expressed anger and dismay. 'It's really devastating to see this evidence base officially ignored and discarded,' said Sophia Bessias, a parent in North Carolina whose two- and four-year-old kids were part of the Pfizer pediatric vaccine trial. 'It's infuriating. My kids contributed literal blood and tears to help demonstrate the safety of these vaccines,' Bessias said. Related: Doctors fear 'devastating consequences' for pregnant people after RFK Jr order on Covid-19 boosters 'As a parent and also a pediatrician, I think it's devastating that we might no longer have the option to protect kids against Covid,' said Katherine Matthias, a pediatrician in South Carolina and a cofounder of Protect Their Future, a children's health organization. Robert F Kennedy Jr, head of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has called for new trials using saline placebos for each of the routine childhood vaccines recommended by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), even though these vaccines have already been tested against placebos or against vaccines that were themselves tested against placebos. Marty Makary, the head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Vinay Prasad, the FDA's vaccines chief, outlined a plan in a recent editorial to restrict Covid boosters for anyone under the age of 65 without certain health conditions. For everyone else between the ages of six months and 64 years old, each updated Covid vaccine would need to undergo another randomized controlled clinical trial, Makary and Prasad said. It's not clear when, how or whether this plan will be implemented officially. On Tuesday, top US health officials said on the social media site X that they would remove the recommendation for Covid vaccination from the childhood immunization schedule, and would also cease recommending it for pregnant people, who have much higher risks of illness, death and pregnancy complications with Covid. On Friday, the CDC appeared to contradict that announcement by keeping Covid vaccines as a routine immunization for children – though the agency now says health providers 'may' recommend the vaccine, instead of saying they 'should' recommend it. Changing recommendations could affect doctors' and parents' understanding of the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines. Vaccines recommended by the CDC are also covered by the federal Vaccines for Children program, and health insurers are required to cover the costs of routine vaccines. It's not clear if the wording change from 'should' to 'may' will affect that coverage. If insurance no longer covers the vaccines, pediatricians are less likely to keep many of the shots in stock, Matthias said, and pharmacies are limited by different state laws on which ages they may vaccinate – which means families who want the vaccines may not be able to find them. Matthias drove her children, then aged 15 months and 14 years old, two hours each way to a Moderna pediatric trial. They did six or seven visits, plus two visits to receive the actual vaccines after they learned they had received placebos. Child participants spent hours on each visit and endured blood draws, Covid swabs, regular symptom and temperature monitoring, and, of course, several shots. Each shot was followed by a week of daily journaling and side-effect reporting. Participants who got Covid, even months later, had blood draws to check their antibody responses. 'It was a pretty big commitment of our time and energy. But I did it because I wanted to be sure that my kids and all kids had access to vaccines,' Matthias said. Laura Labarre, a parent in Oregon, said the trials involved 'committing to something that felt important but larger than ourselves, because it ended up being a lot of work and a lot of logistics and a lot of effort'. She drove her two kids, then aged one and three, an hour and a half each way to a Pfizer trial, and searched for ways to keep them occupied for hours on end. When most people hear about new developments in pediatric medicine, such as new vaccines, they don't often consider the hard work of volunteers, some only a few months old, who made the trials possible, Labarre said. 'I don't think people consider the toll on the families who are the ones who bravely and nervously put their children up to be the first to try it out,' she said. When Nick Giglia got the call asking if he still wanted to enroll his one-year-old daughter in the Pfizer pediatric vaccine trial, he immediately said yes. For eight visits, extending over nearly a year, he would drive an hour each way to a trial in New Jersey. In all, his daughter received seven shots – three saline placebos, three vaccines and a booster. 'It was very rigorous,' Giglia said of the study design. Now, he said, 'it's really difficult to hear people harping on the thoughts of there not being the placebo group. Well, it's news to me. My kid was in the placebo group,' he said. Parents who were eager to enroll in the original trials now wonder whether families would want to endure another round of placebo-controlled trials for updated vaccines. 'Finding the number of participants that they would need would be extremely difficult,' Matthias said. 'To think that they would subject anyone, let alone children, to potentially getting the placebo in a trial where we know that the control is already so beneficial for health, just seems highly unethical and really disturbing,' Labarre said. 'A new trial today would not add anything we don't already know,' Bessias said. 'It would feel like actually participating in a project of undermining the existing evidence, rather than contributing new evidence.' And the whole point of updating the vaccines is to counter new strains, Matthias said. Those vaccines would be out of date by the conclusion of a new study, which could take years. 'People should have the option' to get Covid vaccines, Matthias said. 'The people who don't want it don't have to get it.' When Matthias enrolled her kids in 2021, she felt as though they were in a limbo, and 'we were all just desperate to get our kids protected', she said. 'To kind of have that feeling coming back now – we worked so hard and we advocated so much to get our kids access and now it might just be taken away – is really upsetting.' While Covid mortality rates are highest among people over the age of 65, Covid is still the eighth leading cause of all deaths among children. Any child dying a preventable death is a tragedy, Bessias said. 'We have to take a step back and realize that absolute numbers matter, too. And we can really avoid a lot of hospitalizations and deaths and transmission and horrible experiences for families by reaching those younger children. It's baffling because that seems to be completely left out of these discussions.' Labarre feels 'profoundly enraged and betrayed' by the Trump administration's actions. Limiting access to the vaccine, especially while proposing cuts to Snap and Medicaid, feels like 'an additional audacious battlefront they've opened up in this sort of war on children', she said. 'It is destabilizing, frustrating and enraging to feel like my daughter, who wasn't even 18 months old, has done more for public health than some people who are now currently in charge of it,' Giglia said. 'It is very frustrating to hear that sacrifice that we volunteered to make for the country, and frankly, the world, belittled.' At the end of the trial, Giglia's daughter was given a stuffed teddy bear in a sweater that said 'Covid-19 vaccine study hero'. 'I don't care what anybody says. That's what she is,' Giglia said. 'I look forward to one day being able to tell my little girl all about how she helped save the world. And it's hard to hear that many people think that we did the exact opposite.'
