Nearly 40 years after the revelation that Red Dye No. 3 is associated with a risk of tumors in rats, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in January announced it will ban its use in food and medicines for humans.
The ruling, which takes effect in 2027 for food and in 2028 for drugs, references a 1987 study showing that male rats that consumed high doses of the dye had a significantly higher risk of developing abnormal cell growths in their thyroids.
Red Dye No. 3, also known as erythrosine or E127, is a synthetic dye used to color thousands of food products — including candy, baked goods, frosting, yogurt, and beverages, as well as ingestible drugs, such as cough syrups.
It’s also been the target of a decadeslong campaign of consumer resistance. Advocacy groups have fought to ban the dye from food and medications, citing studies suggesting it may cause cancer, thyroid dysfunction, neuroinflammation, and behavior issues in kids.
In 1990, the FDA banned Red Dye No. 3 in cosmetics and topical medications based on the evidence that it caused tumors in rats, but it declined to ban the dye in food and oral medications.
The recent change in FDA policy was prompted by a 2022 petition from the Center for Science in the Public Interest and a consortium of co-petitioners, including the Life Time Foundation.
“We’ve been working on this initiative for a long time, and many others have been working on it for much longer,” says Life Time Foundation director Sarah Emola. “This is a great success and an example of how we can all come together to make change.”
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Yay, no more red Skittles. Can we get back to work on preventing the next pandemic now?
It gets banned in the US but not in Canada. Canadians continue to get poisoned and nobody cares to ban these harmful chemicals or whatever they are called. I call it poison.