Food companies agree to phase out synthetic dyes, handing MAHA a victory – statnews.com
2025-04-22T22:23:26Z
Food manufacturers will phase out eight synthetic dyes from all U.S. products by the end of 2026.
Sarah Todd returned to reporting in January 2025 after being assignment editor at STAT since October 2022. You can reach Sarah on Signal at sarahlizchar.47.
Lizzy Lawrence leads STAT’s coverage of the Food and Drug Administration. She was previously a medical devices reporter. You can reach Lizzy on Signal at lizzylaw.53.
Food manufacturers will phase out eight synthetic dyes from all U.S. products by the end of 2026, the federal government announced today in a move that reflects the growing reach of the Make America Healthy Again movement.
Decrying the “toxic soup of synthetic chemicals” in Americans’ food supply, Food and Drug Administration head Marty Makary said removing the dyes from food as well as medications is part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to address the underlying, preventable root causes of chronic disease, particularly among children. “ADHD is not a genetic problem and our obesity epidemic is not a willpower problem, it’s something adults have done to children,” he said at the event in Washington, D.C.
Food companies have voluntarily consented to getting rid of the artificial dyes, Makary said, but there is currently no formal agreement or ban. “I believe in love, and let’s start in a friendly way and see if we can do this without any statutory or regulatory changes,” he said.
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Six of the dyes affected by the measure are common ingredients in brightly colored foods like M&Ms, Froot Loops, and Gatorade, as well as more unexpected products like pickles, chocolate milkshakes, and packaged mashed potatoes. These are Blue No. 1, Blue No. 2, Green No. 3, Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, Yellow No. 6. The other two are less common: Orange B, approved for use in sausage casings, and Citrus Red 2, used to color orange peels.
“To companies that are currently using petroleum-based red dye, try watermelon juice,” Makary said, pointing to the availability of natural dyes that companies like Mars and Kellogg already use in versions of their products sold in other countries. (All eight dyes affected by the new measure are petroleum-based.)
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The FDA also plans to speed up the authorization of four natural color additives in coming weeks and request that companies accelerate the removal of red dye No. 3, which was banned by the Biden administration in January from the food supply. Makary said the FDA will work with the National Institutes of Health on more research into food additives on children’s health.
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Research has found links between synthetic food dyes and behavioral problems in children, and some studies have also identified potential associations between certain dyes and cancer in animals. California kicked off the U.S. crackdown on food dyes with a 2023 law that banned four food additives, including the red dye No. 3, which has been found to cause cancer in rats.
Makary also suggested on Tuesday that the bright colors that characterize some ultra-processed foods may encourage children to eat more, contributing to health issues like obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Reactions from consumer food safety advocates and nutrition experts were mixed.
“This is certainly a good thing for consumers and public health but it doesn’t address the underlying problem, which is the FDA’s system for regulating food chemicals is broken,” said Thomas Galligan, principal scientist for food additives and supplements at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit that’s long advocated against artificial dyes in foods. “What we’d like to see the MAHA shift toward is addressing these systems-level failures.”
Nutritionist Marion Nestle told the podcast Conversations on Health Care that while she was all for getting rid of artificial color additives, improving Americans’ diets will require “changing the food system to one that focuses on public health rather than corporate health” and introducing more regulations on how food companies market to children.
Many states have bills in various stages of legislation that take aim at dyes and other additives. The Consumer Brands Association, which represents manufacturers of packaged goods, thanked the Trump administration in a statement on Tuesday for providing national guidance for its members rather than having them navigate a “state patchwork of differing laws.” But CBA president and CEO Melissa Hockstad also said that the ingredients currently in use are safe. “As we increase the use of alternative ingredients, food and beverage companies will not sacrifice science or the safety of our products,” she said.
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Some food manufacturers were already getting out ahead of the announcement on Tuesday. The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) said that its members will eliminate the use of seven artificial dyes in milk, yogurt, and other dairy products sold to school lunch and breakfast programs by July 2026.
Makary told reporters after the event that he was optimistic food companies will comply.
“We’ve had very positive conversations this week,” he said. “They want to do this, they have offered time frames by which they can do it. So we welcome that.”
But not all food companies appear enthusiastic about removing artificial dyes. Speaking in March shortly after West Virginia banned most food dyes by 2028, Merideth Potter of the American Beverage Association said that companies would comply with such laws but estimated that it could take five years to build up the supply chain of natural dyes, and said that they cost five to 10 times more than synthetic ones. “You don’t have to be an economist to understand what that would do to grocery prices,” she said.
The International Association of Color Manufacturers echoed this concern in a statement Tuesday. “Requiring reformulation by the end of 2026 ignores scientific evidence and underestimates the complexity of food production,” the group said. “This process is neither simple nor immediate, and the resulting supply disruptions will limit access to familiar, affordable grocery items.”
Makary, however, said on Tuesday that the change won’t lead to higher food prices. “We know that from other countries that have already made the transition,” he said.
Other speakers at the event included Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and familiar MAHA faces like food blogger and activist Vani Hari, physician Mark Hyman, and health entrepreneur Calley Means. West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrissey, who signed a law in March banning most artificial dyes in food, spoke about action on the state level. Kennedy framed the dye announcement as just the beginning of efforts to improve the food Americans eat.
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“We’re gonna get rid of the dyes, and then one by one we’re going to get rid of every ingredient and additive we can legally address,” he said.
Means has previously outlined the strategy of tackling low-hanging fruit like artificial dyes in order to build popular support for the MAHA movement.
The deeper solutions called for by CSPI would involve closing the loophole known as GRAS, or “generally recognized as safe,” that allows food companies to add new chemicals to their products without government review. “Then you have to clean up the mess,” Galligan said — that is, create a system for the FDA to assess the safety of the thousands of chemicals that have already been introduced into the food supply, including some that research suggests may be harmful to health. The massive staffing cuts at the FDA don’t bode well for those efforts, Galligan said.
“Conducting rigorous scientific evaluations of food chemical safety requires expertise, which is to say it requires people — good scientists, good staff, and other resources,” he said. “If the Trump administration continues to make cuts to the FDA it’s going to further hamstring them and prevent them from fixing this broken system.”
STAT’s coverage of chronic health issues is supported by a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Our financial supporters are not involved in any decisions about our journalism.
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