On Friday, RFK gave a speech at the FDA’s Maryland office and told them to “boldly avoid the impulse to protect the corporations they regulate”.
Yikes.
That is probably the strongest statement against the corporate capture of our government’s regulatory agencies I’ve ever heard.
Is the FDA a Tool of the Corporations They are Supposed to Regulate?
This has been a long time coming and will hopefully result in the people that are supposed to be protecting us from harmful foods actually doing their job.
GRAS
One of the main things that I hope RFK looks at is our existing GRAS system for food additives. GRAS stands for Generally Regarded as Safe and if an ingredient gets on the FDA’s GRAS list, the food companies can add it to our food with no limits and with no testing to make sure it is actually safe.
One example you might remember from a few years ago was when the Food Babe led a charge to get Subway to remove azodicarbonamide from the bread it serves. Azodicarbonimide is a chemical used in yoga mats and shoe soles. While the chemical has been banned in several other countries, it is on the GRAS list here in the United States.
There are 670 substances on the GRAS list but the FDA has only ever removed 15, suggesting it is far easier to get your chemical on the list than it is for anyone to get it back off.
Also, food companies can self-determine GRAS status without FDA review leading to an unofficial “shadow list” of GRAS substances that are in our food supply that have never been tested.
Other Areas of Concern
RFK has also called out the FDA’s suppression of other natural remedies such as psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk and a list of other issues he wants to look at. All I can say is more power to him.
I hope he really begins to make some serious changes to our food supply and Make America Healthy Again.
