The Meals and Drug Administration mentioned Wednesday it’s banning the usage of Red No. 3, an artificial dye that provides meals and drinks their shiny crimson cherry colour however has been linked to most cancers in animals.
The dye continues to be utilized in hundreds of meals, together with sweet, cereals, cherries in fruit cocktails and strawberry-flavored milkshakes, in response to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a meals security advocacy group that petitioned the company in 2022 to finish its use. Greater than 9,200 meals objects include the dye, together with a whole bunch of merchandise made by giant meals corporations, CSPI mentioned, citing Agriculture Division knowledge. The FDA isn’t prohibiting different synthetic dyes, together with Pink No. 40, which has been linked to behavioral points in youngsters.
The FDA’s choice is a victory for shopper advocacy teams and a few U.S. lawmakers who’ve lengthy urged it to revoke Pink No. 3’s approval, citing ample proof that its use in drinks, dietary dietary supplements, cereals and candies might trigger most cancers in addition to have an effect on youngsters’s habits.

“In the end, the FDA is ending the regulatory paradox of Pink 3 being unlawful to be used in lipstick, however completely authorized to feed to youngsters within the type of sweet,” mentioned Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the CSPI. The company banned the additive in cosmetics in 1990 below the Delaney Clause, a federal legislation that requires the FDA to ban meals components which can be discovered to trigger or induce most cancers in people or animals.
Meals producers could have till Jan. 15, 2027, to reformulate their merchandise. Firms that make ingested medicine, comparable to dietary dietary supplements, will get a further 12 months.
“The FDA can’t authorize a meals additive or colour additive if it has been discovered to trigger most cancers in human or animals,” Jim Jones, the FDA’s deputy director for human meals, mentioned in an announcement. “Proof reveals most cancers in laboratory male rats uncovered to excessive ranges of FD&C Red No. 3.”
What’s Pink No. 3?
Red No. 3, permitted to be used in meals in 1907, is created from petroleum.
The FDA’s effort to ban the dye has been within the works for many years. The company first turned conscious that the additive was presumably carcinogenic following a research within the Nineteen Eighties that discovered tumors in male rats who had been uncovered to it in excessive doses.
“It removes an pointless hazard from the American meals provide, and we welcome that motion, though it ought to have occurred greater than three a long time in the past,” Lurie mentioned.
“It is a massive win for shoppers, that this cancer-causing chemical is lastly going to be out of the meals provide. It’s lengthy overdue,” mentioned Melanie Benesh, vp for presidency affairs on the Environmental Working Group, a analysis and advocacy well being group that joined the petition to finish the usage of Pink No. 3. “We’re thrilled that the FDA has lastly managed to get it over the end line.”
Benesh added that she was hopeful that federal regulators would take a better have a look at different synthetic dyes that advocacy teams have lengthy expressed concern over.
“The FDA, I feel, is feeling that strain from shoppers who’re nervous about what’s of their meals,” she mentioned. “That is actually an essential optimistic step ahead.”
The Client Manufacturers Affiliation, a commerce group, mentioned meals security is “the primary precedence” for corporations and that they’d adjust to the FDA’s ban.
“Revoking the approved use of Pink No. 3 is an instance of the FDA utilizing its danger and science-based authority to evaluate the protection of merchandise within the market,” senior vp of product coverage and federal affairs Sarah Gallo mentioned in a written assertion. “Meals and beverage corporations will proceed to comply with the newest science and adjust to all meals security laws to make sure secure and obtainable selections for shoppers.”
The Biden administration’s transfer comes earlier than the Senate affirmation hearings for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect-Donald Trump’s decide for well being and human providers secretary. Kennedy has mentioned he would make eradicating synthetic dyes from the meals provide a spotlight of the administration.
California in addition to 10 different states have already made strikes to ban the meals dye, in response to CSPI. It is also banned or severely restricted in locations exterior the U.S., together with Australia, Japan and international locations within the European Union.
Some U.S. meals producers have already eliminated synthetic dyes, together with Pink No. 3, from their merchandise.
In an announcement, a spokesperson for the Nationwide Confectioners Affiliation, a commerce group that promotes chocolate, sweet, gum and mints, mentioned it can proceed to comply with and adjust to the FDA’s steerage.
“Our shoppers and everybody within the meals business need and anticipate a powerful FDA, and a constant, science-based nationwide regulatory framework,” the spokesperson mentioned. “We have now been saying for years that FDA is the rightful nationwide regulatory choice maker and chief in meals security.”
All colour components have to be permitted by the FDA earlier than they’re utilized in meals offered within the U.S. There are 36 FDA-approved colour components, 9 of that are artificial dyes.
The FDA has mentioned it has been actively reviewing Pink No. 3’s approval following a petition filed by a coalition of organizations, together with the CSPI, asking the FDA to revoke the additive’s approval in meals, noting its potential most cancers dangers.
There are additionally issues about whether or not synthetic meals dyes may have an effect on youngsters’s habits. The FDA in 2011 reviewed the possible link between artificial dyes and hyperactivity in youngsters. It decided, nevertheless, that no causal relationship might be established.
Though the FDA is now revoking its approval, ending its use nationwide, different states had already taken motion.
In California, which in 2023 turned the primary state to ban Pink No. 3 and several other different meals components linked to potential well being issues, Democratic Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel mentioned he was happy with the FDA’s choice.
“To me, it is a clear indication that our technique of placing strain on Washington and placing strain on the FDA to take a look at these points extra carefully, to step as much as the plate and take their regulatory duties severely, is working,” mentioned Gabriel, who launched California’s invoice banning Pink No. 3 statewide in addition to the California School Food Safety Act, which bans six different artificial dyes from meals served in public faculties.
Gabriel mentioned he has heard from Democrats and Republicans who’re excited concerning the FDA’s ban.
“There’s a rising nationwide motion round this that now we have seen. It’s a bipartisan motion,” he mentioned. “This is a vital second, however I feel it’s just the start of much more to return.”