State lawmakers in three states have introduced bills seeking to prohibit the use of food additives, building on a first-in-the-nation law passed in California in 2023. In California, a state lawmaker has proposed a bill, AB 2316, that would ban public schools from serving foods with titanium dioxide and the synthetic food dyes Red Dye No. 40, Yellow Dyes No. 5 and 6, Blue Dyes No. 1 and 2 and Green Dye No. 3.
In Pennsylvania, a bipartisan team of state lawmakers introduced two bills that would collectively ban nine chemicals from food made, distributed or sold in the state: HB 2116, which seeks to ban six food dyes—Red Dyes No. 3 and 40, Yellow Dyes No. 5 and 6,Blue Dyes No. 1 and 2—and HB 2117, which seeks to ban potassium bromate, brominated vegetable oil and butylated hydroxyanisole.
Two New York lawmakers introduced bills seeking to ban the use of seven food and beverage additives and require companies to disclose when they add chemicals self-determined to be Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS). AB A6424A/SB S6055B would prohibit the use of azodicarbonamide, brominated vegetable oil, butylated hydroxyanisole, potassium bromate, propylparaben, Red Dye No. 3 and titanium dioxide. The second bill, SB S8615/AB A9295, requires companies to disclose to New York when they add chemicals to foods or beverages that the company self-determines are GRAS without notifying the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“While the FDA does approve a small fraction of new food chemicals, it does not require premarket approval, notice, or its own safety review for the vast majority of chemicals, which instead are self-determined as GRAS by the food companies who use them,” one lawmaker said in a news release. “These GRAS determinations currently can be conducted in secret by experts or employees paid by the companies, without notifying FDA or the public.”
