FDA’s 34-Year Delay on Toxic Red Dye Ban: Why the Agency’s Failure Is Costing Lives

For more than three decades, the Food and Drug Administration has known about the dangers of FD&C Red No. 3, a petroleum-based dye linked to cancer and neurological harm. Yet only now, under mounting pressure, is the FDA considering a ban on the toxic additive—a decision that should have been made decades ago. At a Senate hearing last week, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Jim Jones admitted the agency is finally reviewing the carcinogen, with a decision expected “within the next few weeks.”

This delay is not just negligence—it’s complicity. Red 3, a dye already banned in cosmetics due to its carcinogenicity, remains in America’s food supply, tainting snacks, beverages, candies, and cereals that millions of children consume daily. Lawmakers like Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro have called the FDA’s inaction “unacceptable,” pointing out that safer alternatives are widely available and that the science proving Red 3’s harm has been conclusive for years. “Thirty-four years of inaction is far too long,” DeLauro wrote in a letter co-signed by 22 other members of Congress.

While the FDA dragged its feet, international agencies such as the European Commission, the World Health Organization, and even California’s state government took action, citing clear evidence of Red 3’s cancer risk and its neurobehavioral effects on children. Yet in the U.S., the FDA continued to rubber-stamp this additive, bowing to Big Food instead of protecting public health.

President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services may finally usher in meaningful change. RFK Jr. has long exposed the food industry’s double standards, such as Kellogg’s use of clean formulas abroad while selling Americans products laden with harmful dyes and additives. But one appointment cannot erase the FDA’s decades of failure.

The agency’s negligence has real consequences: a nation plagued by obesity, chronic disease, and an epidemic of early death, all fueled by an industrial food system that poisons for profit. Americans deserve better. Support local farms, grow your own food, and demand accountability from a regulatory system that has betrayed its most fundamental mission.