Newsman: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the Food and Drug Administration will “act on” a petition calling for a safety review of some ingredients found in ultra-processed foods.
“We will act on David Kessler’s petition,” Kennedy told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday. “And the questions that he’s asking are questions that FDA should’ve been asking a long, long time ago.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not elaborate on whether the agency would be issuing a formal response to Kessler’s petition or how soon such a response would come.
Last month, Secretary Kennedy announced new dietary guidelines, encouraging Americans to limit highly processed foods and reduce refined carbohydrates.
For the first time, the federal Dietary Guidelines explicitly warned Americans against certain highly processed foods and suggested avoiding “packaged, prepared, ready-to-eat, or other foods that are salty or sweet” and “sugar-sweetened beverages, such as soda, fruit drinks, and energy drinks.”
“These new guidelines will revolutionize our nation’s food culture and make America healthier again,” Kennedy said during a press conference at the White House at the time.
Secretary Kennedy said the GRAS loophole, which allows food or ingredient manufacturers to independently determine if an additive is safe and meets the FDA’s safety standards, was “hijacked.”
Kennedy said he has the support of the president to take on the food industry, he stopped short of saying the government would regulate ultra-processed foods.
The citizen petition, which was filed last year by former FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler, said “processed refined carbohydrates” including corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup and refined flours are linked to health issues such as high blood pressure, high triglycerides and excess abdominal fat.
The petition argues that the status of these ingredients, generally recognized as safe, is based on outdated data and that the agency has the authority to reexamine the safety of certain refined sweeteners and flours.
The FDA is required to respond to petitions within 180 days, the deadline of which has passed. However, the FDA issued an “interim response” last week, stating that it has not “reached a complete final decision” on the petition.
According to the FDA, any substance intentionally added to foods is considered a food additive and must receive pre-market review and approval from the agency unless it is “generally recognized as safe,” also known as GRAS.
For an ingredient to be designated as GRAS, data demonstrating safety must be publicly available and “qualified” experts must generally recognize it to be safe.
Some examples of ingredients that fall under GRAS include canola oil, vinegar and spices such as black pepper.
“Over the last 40 years, the United States has been exposed to something that our biology was never intended to handle,” Dr. David Kessler told “60 Minutes.”
“Energy-dense, highly palatable, rapidly absorbable, ultra-processed foods that have altered our metabolism and have resulted in the greatest increase in chronic disease in our history,” he continued. “Type 2 diabetes, pre-diabetes, hypertension, abnormal lipids, fatty liver, heart attacks, stroke, heart failure … from our foods.”
Americans consume more than half of their calories from ultra-processed foods: CDC
“I’m not saying that we’re going to regulate ultra-processed food,” Kennedy told “60 Minutes.” “Our job is to make sure that everybody understands what they’re getting, to have an informed public.”
For years, Kennedy has criticized the U.S. food industry and the proliferation of ultra-processed foods, blaming them as one reason for the rise of chronic diseases in the U.S.
“Hundreds of these chemicals are now banned in Europe, but they’re ubiquitous in American processed foods,” he said during a September 2024 roundtable discussion on health led by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc. “We are literally poisoning our children systematically for profit.”
Some research has shown that highly processed foods can be detrimental to health. A 2021 joint study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of São Paolo in Brazil found that people who consumed more calories from ultra-processed foods had lower scores on tests measuring cardiovascular health.
