Research on chemicals that have been vetted by the F.D.A. tends to be extremely narrow in focus, looking mostly for cancer, genetic mutations or organ damage in animal or laboratory studies. This means the ingredients in our coffee creamer, cereal, ketchup and frozen pizza aren’t tested for more subtle effects on long-term health, or whether they may increase the risk of the other common chronic diseases, such as obesity, cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes. What’s more, most safety studies examine single chemicals in isolation, not how the hundreds or thousands of chemicals we consume might interact with one another or affect our long-term health.
Regulators also don’t routinely re-examine chemicals already on the market — checking if new science has emerged suggesting they might be dangerous — something European regulators do. “F.D.A. is stuck on decades-old science and making decisions based on scientific principles that in many cases are irrelevant,” said Maricel Maffini, a researcher who has studied GRAS for over a decade.
In short, the rules that are supposed to protect Americans from food hazards don’t reflect the reality of how people eat — or how they get sick — today. There are a couple of reasons for this. The F.D.A. was established in the early 1900s, as America was urbanizing and industrial food processing was taking off. Back then, food made people sick mainly through poisoning. Now our diets make us chronically ill, causing diseases that develop over decades.
Mr. Kennedy may be sloppy on the details, but his diagnosis of the broader problem is spot on. Americans have the shortest life span among our industrialized peers, in part because of chronic diseases such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes. The increases in these diseases are not driven by changes in our genes but caused by changes in our environments — in this case, our food. Scientists believe food additives play a role, though it’s unclear which ones and how.
Two biologists at Rockefeller University, Amy Shyer and Alan Rodrigues, are working to close the knowledge gap. They’re studying how common food additives that are considered safe according to regulators, such as aspartame, affect how cells organize on their way to becoming tissues and organs. When added to a cell culture, for example, they found that aspartame altered the way cells collectively formed structures. What that means for human health is worth exploring. It suggests there may be multiple ways chemicals harm us that regulators aren’t currently looking at, Mr. Rodrigues told me.
