Two more consumer groups are calling on Congress to reject the FDA Review and Evaluation for Safe, Healthy and Affordable Foods Act, or FRESH Act, citing industry interference in the legislative process.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Kat Cammack, R-FL, would “further hobble an already broken system that allows scores of food chemicals to come onto the market with little government oversight,” according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
The EWG contends that the proposed Act would gut rules on the information companies must submit to the Food and Drug Administration on food chemicals that are “generally recognized as safe (GRAS)”. Such chemicals are not subject to FDA inspection, testing or oversight.
Consumer Reports has also come out against the Act, saying it would block states from reviewing food chemicals.
“At a time when consumers are demanding the removal of toxic chemicals in their food and greater transparency about food ingredients, the FRESH Act would instead weaken existing regulations that provide a layer of critical protections for consumers,” said Brian Ronholm, Director of Food Policy at Consumer Reports.
“By blocking important state food safety laws and further weakening FDA oversight, this bill would represent a significant step backward for our food oversight system. Consumer Reports calls on Congress to reject this bill.”
Similarly, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is already on record opposing the Act. The CSPI contends the FRESH Act would broadly block state food safety policies while weakening current FDA authority over premarket safety review for substances used in foods.
“The bill contains industry-backed preemption provisions that would broadly wipe out state protections ‘related to the use, labeling, sale, or marketing’ of food or dietary supplements,” according to CSPI.
“This effort squarely targets recent progress on food policy in the states, which includes new bans on harmful chemicals, requirements for heavy metal testing, restrictions on the sale of harmful dietary supplements to children, and new allergen and nutrition menu disclosures. This extreme preemption language will hurt consumers but serves as a major win for big food companies, which last year launched a multimillion dollar effort to broadly preempt state safety and labeling laws.”
The EWG also calls into question the true sponsorship of the Act, which it says is the food industry.
“Blocking state action and further weakening FDA review of chemicals is the food industry’s dream come true: no state regulation, no federal regulation, no problem,” said Melanie Benesh, the EWG’s vice president for government affairs.
“In addition to allowing new chemicals to be added to food without FDA review, the FDA does not regularly reconsider the safety of the chemicals we’re already eating. But the industry bill will not require the FDA to review a single food chemical for safety.
“The funding proposed by this bill is a fig leaf. This proposal will make our food less safe, not safer, by letting industry experts, not the experts we can trust, decide whether new food chemicals are safe and by failing to make sure the chemicals we’re already eating are safe.”
The FRESH and Affordable Foods Act, the bill would:
Preempt, retroactively and prospectively, all state food chemical laws, including those banning the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS from food packaging and artificial dyes from school food;Allow new food chemicals linked to cancer and reproductive harm to be considered “safe;”Allow new food chemicals to be added to food without an affirmative finding of safety by the FDA;Retroactively approve all food chemicals currently considered GRAS;Allow new chemicals to be added to food if the FDA does not respond to a GRAS notice within 90 days;Allow new chemicals to be added to food as long as the food chemical company submits a “synopsis” of the chemical company’s safety conclusion;Allow new chemicals to be added to food without giving the FDA basic information, such as estimates of dietary exposure;Allow new chemicals reviewed by industry-funded expert panels to be automatically GRAS and used in food immediately;Allow companies to use food chemicals in new ways, without asking the FDA for approval; andAllow chemicals to be added to food for two years after the FDA determines they are no longer safe, unless there is a severe and imminent risk of harm.
Under current law, chemical companies – not the FDA – decide whether a food chemical is safe. Since 2000, almost all new food chemicals – nearly 99 percent – have come onto the market through the GRAS loophole, according to the EWG.
Currently, many though not all chemical companies wanting to bring a new chemical onto the market submit a GRAS notice to the FDA, and the FDA responds with a “no questions” letter.