America’s children have been living – for the last 50 years – in “a toxic soup of synthetic chemicals,” a situation that studies show is tied to chronic health conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obesity, diabetes, cancer, gastrointestinal (GI) issues, and allergies.
That was the message Tuesday afternoon from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, who announced during a press conference that the FDA is establishing a national standard and timeline for food companies to end the use of petroleum-based dyes in their food products.
The move is in keeping with President Donald Trump’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) campaign to promote a healthy American diet and end chronic disease.
Makary acknowledged the many “MAHA Moms” who attended the press conference. “We have been running one of the largest uncontrolled scientific experiments in the world on our nation’s children without their consent,” he said, “and today, we are removing these petroleum-based chemicals from their food supply.”
Authorization for two synthetic food coloring additives – Citrus Red No 2 and Orange B – will begin to be revoked within the coming months, the commissioner said. By the end of next year, he said, the FDA will also be working with the food industry to end use of six other dyes – FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Yellow No. 5, FD&C Yellow No. 6, FD&C Blue No. 1, and FD&C Blue No. 2.
Additionally, the FDA will be asking food companies to remove FD&C Red No. 3 from the food supply earlier than the 2027-2028 deadline required previously.
The FDA also plans to authorize four new “natural color additives” in the near future while it accelerates the review process and approval of other similar substances.
Makary referred to studies that link food colors directly with obesity and diabetes.
“Well, America’s children are sick and suffering,” he observed, noting that “41% of children have at least one health condition, and one in five are on medication. The answer is not more Ozempic, more ADHD medication, and more antidepressants. There’s a role for those medications, but we have to look at underlying root causes.”
Many food manufacturers have been “extremely cooperative,” Makary said, noting that the companies have “done exactly what we have asked them to do.”
“One hundred years ago, we asked them to focus on mass food production to solve food insecurity,” he explained. “Now, given our child chronic disease epidemic, an enormous suffering and cost has ensued. We have to come together to address the new problem … If we can get beyond the tribalism in our society, rampant in our culture, we will realize that we all want the same things.”
“Republican, Democrat, and independent moms showed up in high numbers to vote for President Trump on this very issue that Secretary Kennedy has championed,” Makary observed.
“In summary, we are simply asking American food companies to replace petroleum-based food dyes with natural ingredients for American children, just as they already do for children in other countries,” the commissioner said. “American children deserve good health.”
Kennedy compared the current-day situation with some statistics from the time of the administration of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy.
“When my uncle was president, 3% of American kids had chronic disease; today it’s around 60% and these are a broad category, the ones that Marty mentioned, like ADHD, neurological disorders, add … speech delay, language delay, tics, Tourette Syndrome, narcolepsy, ASD – autism,” he explained. “There was zero spent in this country treating chronic disease when my uncle was president. Today, it’s about $1.8 trillion annually – it’s bankrupting our nation.”
The secretary highlighted that one of the problems in tackling the issue has been the “suppression of science” due to multiple conflicts of interest.
“There’s shockingly few studies even on food dyes and on all these other industries, all these other ingredients as well,” he added.
The new plan includes the FDA partnering with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – now led by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya – to further comprehensive research into the effects of food additives on children’s health.
“As Jay pointed out, ADHD is associated with all these behavioral disorders, but those disorders are treated, not by changing our diet, but providing medications to treat our kids – and they get medicated and medicated, and that is the only solution,” Kennedy lamented, adding that media have also suppressed this issue of overmedication.
“And one of the possible reasons for that is the amount of money that’s coming from the pharmaceutical companies into our media and from these food companies for the advertising,” the secretary explained.
Food activist and “MAHA Mom” Vani Hari, aka the “Food Babe,” celebrated the announcement of the plan to eliminate synthetic dyes from the food supply, attributing the move to Kennedy.
“Today marks the beginning of restoring the trust at the FDA and our regulatory institutions,” Hari said. The food industry has been inserting these additives into the food supply in the United States even as other nations have prevented companies from doing so elsewhere in the world.
“Last September, I testified at the U.S. Senate about the blatant hypocrisy of American food companies selling safer products in other countries while selling inferior versions of the same exact products here in the United States – with artificial food dyes made from petroleum,” she said, adding that the outrage in response to this revelation “spawned a massive grassroots movement to hold these companies accountable.”
“Secretary Kennedy took our unheard voices to the campaign trail and elevated them all the way up to President Trump,” Hari said. “We now have made history together, and now we have intellectual honesty coming out of the FDA focused on looking at updated science on food additives that American food companies are not using in other countries.”