The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has filed two petitions by the Environmental Defense Fund, Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, the Center for Environmental Health, and Environmental Working Group (EWG) to rescind its approvals for four carcinogenic chemicals used as food additives and color additives—benzene, trichloroethylene (TCE), methylene chloride, and ethylene dichloride.
After reassessing the food safety of the popular zero-calorie sweetener erythritol, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has lowered the acceptable daily intake (ADI) for the additive and reported that, for all groups the EU included in the assessment, acute and chronic exposure to erythritol is above the newly set ADI.
The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) recently reaffirmed a “not specified” acceptable daily intake (ADI) for titanium dioxide, as well as concluded that there is no safety concern for and established the specifications for 21 flavoring agents.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recently assessed the food safety of eight smoke flavorings on the EU market, the authorization for which were due for renewal, and were unable to rule out concerns of genotoxicity.
Due to concerns about harms to human health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed to revoke the regulation that authorizes the use of brominated vegetable oil (BVO) in food. The agency also announced its intent to review three other possibly toxic, FDA-regulated food additives that were recently banned in the state of California, and announced that a decision about red dye 3 is forthcoming.
The European Commission has set significantly stricter limits for the use of nitrites and nitrates as food additives to reduce consumer exposure to carcinogenic nitrosamines. EU food business operators have two years to adapt to the new limits.
The California Food Safety Act—statewide legislation that bans the sale of foods containing red dye 3, potassium bromate, brominated vegetable oil, and propylparaben—was signed into California law by Governor Gavin Newsom on October 7, 2023.
California Assembly Bill 418, also called the California Food Safety Act, which aims to prohibit four food additives from being used or sold in the state due to associated health risks, recently passed the state Senate and is waiting to be signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recently updated its list of qualified presumption of safety (QPS) -recommended microbiological agents intentionally added to food or feed. QPS is a regularly updated generic pre-valuation of the safety of microorganisms based on an assessment of published data for each agent.
The Joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)/World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) has published the summary of its findings on the food safety aspartame and 15 other flavorings, which was discussed at the 96th meeting of JECFA that took place in Geneva, Switzerland from June 27–July 6, 2023.
