AMERICANALMANAC (Ken Jacobs) - FDA moves to close decades-old loophole letting food makers add ingredients without telling regulators
The Trump administration's FDA proposed a rule requiring food manufacturers to notify the agency before slipping new additives into the food supply, ending a self-certification system that let companies decide on their own what was safe to eat. Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas announced the proposed rule on Monday, calling it a fix for a […] The post FDA moves to close decades-old loophole letting food makers add ingredients without telling regulators appeared first on American Almanac .
The Trump administration's FDA proposed a rule requiring food manufacturers to notify the agency before slipping new additives into the food supply, ending a self-certification system that let companies decide on their own what was safe to eat. Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas announced the proposed rule on Monday, calling it a fix for a gap in federal food oversight that has been widening since the late 1950s. Under current practice, companies can declare a new chemical additive "generally recognized as safe", known by the acronym GRAS, and start using it in packaged food without ever telling the FDA. That voluntary system expanded in 1997, and an estimated 10,000 additives now sit in the American food supply, many of which have…Open
