AUSTIN, Texas — Some see the FDA’s ban on Red No. 3 dye as a monumental victory.
“Red dye No. 3 has been controversial for a long time,” said Dr. James Fleet, a Margaret McKean Love Endowed Professor in Nutrition, Cellular and Molecular Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.
Red No. 3, or Erythrosine, is a synthetic color additive that companies put into food, drinks and drugs to give them a bright red, cherry color. Scientists discovered its links to cancer in lab rats more than 30 years ago.
Fleet said the change mainly comes after a push from multiple advocacy organizations, not a new study.
Officials cited a statute known as the Delaney Clause, which requires the FDA to ban any additive found to cause cancer in people or animals.
“They’ve reviewed it a bunch of times and had previously decided they weren’t going to ban it,” said Fleet. ” So today was a little bit of a surprise in that regard. On the other hand, Europe doesn’t use it, some other countries don’t use it, we already took it out of cosmetics and ointments for medical purposes.”
UT Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, Dr. Elizabeth Klingbeil, said she’s not worried that this dye has been on the market for so long. She said there are bigger concerns, like maintaining a balanced diet to fight obesity.
“It’s not from a negative health outcome from human concerns, it’s something popularized in general consumers,” said Klingbeil. “Right now we don’t have any [clinical] evidence that it does anything negative in humans at the dosage that we currently consume it.”
Fleet said that despite animal studies showing that there’s a risk, it is a very low risk and he thinks they’re going for a zero-risk type of mentality right now, adding that there are natural red dye alternatives without the risk.
Food manufacturers will have until January 2027 to remove the dye from their products, while makers of ingested drugs have until January 2028.