Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken a monumental step towards safeguarding American families by targeting hazardous chemicals in our food supply. Under the leadership of President Trump, Kennedy has declared his intention to close the FDA loophole that has allowed dangerous substances to go unchecked.
Through an X post and a compelling video message, Kennedy called out the failures of the FDA’s “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) designation. This rule, initially meant for harmless ingredients like salt and baking soda, has been exploited by corporate interests for too long.
“I am directing the FDA commissioner to start the process of changing the rules to eliminate the self-affirmed GRAS pathway for new ingredients,” said RFK Jr.
He added a call to action urging the FDA and NIH to enhance assessments of existing GRAS chemicals, aiming for a healthier America. Kennedy’s initiative underlines a critical mission to Make America Healthy Again.
The accompanying video highlights how bureaucratic complacency has endangered public health, prioritizing profit margins over the well-being of the American people. Shockingly, while the U.S. food supply contains 10,000 chemicals, Europe bans all but 400.
The GRAS standard allows corporations to approve their own chemicals without independent review. Unlike Europe, which mandates safety proof before use, the U.S. presumes safety until harm is proven—a grave oversight, according to Kennedy.
In his powerful video statement, Kennedy elaborates:
“In the final months of the election, President Trump repeatedly called for removing toxins from our food supply. He added his voice to the millions of MAHA moms who were touting the Make America Healthy Again agenda.
The first step is radical transparency because, right now, not even the U.S. government knows what’s in our food. In 1958, the government created a designation called Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) so that common ingredients like salt and baking soda could be exempt from testing.
But today, it isn’t just salt and baking soda. Food companies and cooperative regulators have expanded the GRAS exemption, allowing these companies to decide for themselves whether a substance is generally recognized as safe. No FDA approval is needed.
European nations, on the other hand, require that a chemical be proven safe before it becomes a food ingredient. In our country, the GRAS standard means that every chemical is presumed safe until proven dangerous. That proof might not come until millions of Americans are suffering from chronic disease. This mass experiment on the American population with GRAS has, in short, been a catastrophe.
We now have around 10,000 chemicals in our food. Europe has only 400.
For example, titanium dioxide—potentially linked to DNA damage and cancer—is banned in the EU, but it’s in our children’s food. Potassium bromate, a suspected carcinogen, is banned in Europe and Japan. You guessed it—it’s in our children’s bread.
Food dyes such as Red Dye 40 and Yellow 5 and 6 come with warning labels in Europe. They’re linked to behavioral issues in children. But in the U.S., they are generally recognized as safe.
We can’t really blame the food companies. They’re just doing what we’ve allowed them to get away with in a system that has taken on a life of its own. We all agree now that it’s time to change the system—and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
Today, I am directing the FDA Commissioner to start the process of changing the rules to eliminate the self-affirming GRAS pathway for new ingredients. I am also directing the FDA and NIH to ramp up post-market assessments of GRAS chemicals currently in our food so that we can rapidly identify the compounds making Americans sick and so that consumers and regulators can make informed decisions.
This issue isn’t going away. Moms aren’t going to go back to wanting chemicals in our food that are banned in other developed countries. Even the industry knows that we have to change.
So, I promise you, I am going to work with all parties—the companies, the moms, and the scientists—to make American food the healthiest in the world, just as it was when I was a child.”
WATCH:
I am directing the FDA commissioner to start the process of changing the rules to eliminate the self-affirmed GRAS pathway for new ingredients. I am also calling on the @US_FDA and @NIH continue to conduct and improve post-market assessments of GRAS chemicals currently in our…
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy)
March 13, 2025
