Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
The latest on closing the GRAS loophole
The GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) loophole refers to the way the FDA allows food manufacturers basically to decide for themselves whether the additives they are using are safe, voluntarily or not.
Closing the loophole is a key goal of the Make America Healthy Again Movement (MAHA), and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has made closing this loophole a key goal of his administration, and he has directed the FDA to “explore rulemaking” on this issue, meaning write real regulations.
We have yet to see any sign of what the FDA is proposing.
In the meantime, Yuka, maker of the popular product-scanning app, and Consumer Reports have petitioned FDA to get busy on this.
Now, product-scanning app Yuka and watchdog group Consumer Reports are urging the FDA to tighten regulation of food additives and close the GRAS “loophole”, after their investigation found that 25 out of 40 popular food and drink products contain at least one additive at levels identified as concerning by peer-reviewed research.
“Americans shouldn’t need a chemistry degree to eat safely – but today, no one, not even the FDA, can say exactly what’s in our food,” reads the organisations’ petition, which has already surpassed its goal of 35,000 signatures.
This is an old issue. My contribution to this discussion was published in 2013: Nestle M. Conflict of interest in the regulation of food safety: a threat to scientific integrity. JAMA Internal Medicine 2013;173(22):2036-2038. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.9158.
So what’s the holdup? Two reasons:
- RFK, Jr is on record as saying he doesn’t like regulation. Regulation is nanny state. He much prefers education.
- Lobbying by the users of unregulated food additives; they like it just the way it is.
NOTUS has a remarkable investigative report on lobbying over the GRAS loophole. The number of lobbyists on this issue has tripled, it says.
After Kennedy directed the Food and Drug Administration to explore closing the GRAS loophole in March 2025, the number of trade associations, companies and organizations that reported lobbying on the pending regulation have nearly tripled, according to a NOTUS analysis of federal lobbying disclosures.
In-house and hired lobbyists for 35 organizations — from food chemical suppliers to packagers and manufacturers — disclosed lobbying specifically on GRAS reform during the first quarter of 2026, up from 12 during the same period in 2025 and one during the same period in 2024.
NOTUS gives one example:
AFIT [Americans for Ingredient Transparency] paid the Russell Group $240,000 between August 2025 and March, including $170,000 in the first quarter of this year, to lobby on “issues pertaining to ingredient transparency,” according to its quarterly lobbying disclosures.
If MAHA wants to close the loophole, it has to take on the food industry, big time.
No wonder RFK Jr is switching to physical activity: shades of Let’s Move!
