The FDA banned a red dye today. The reason is in the fine print.

The FDA announced today that it is revoking the authorization for FD&C Red No. 3 in food and ingested drugs. The dye is the bright cherry red in candy, frosting, maraschino cherries and some medicines. Food makers have until January 2027 to reformulate; drug makers until January 2028. The headlines will say the FDA found it dangerous. Read what the agency actually said, because it is more interesting than that.

What the FDA said. The legal basis is the Delaney Clause, a 1958 provision that forbids the agency from authorizing any food or color additive found to cause cancer in humans or animals, at any dose. The 2022 petition that triggered today's action showed cancer in male laboratory rats exposed to high levels, through a hormonal mechanism specific to male rats. The agency's own statement is that the effect was not seen in other animals or in humans and that there is no evidence the dye causes cancer in people. In other words: a rat result is a rat result, and this time the law says a rat result is enough. The same dye has been barred from cosmetics since 1990 on the same reasoning.

Loree’s take

The patients who will ask me about this eat the foods it is in. The dye was never the problem with those foods. A maraschino cherry without Red 3 is still a maraschino cherry. I would rather my patients spent their worry on the ingredient list as a whole — if it reads like a chemistry set, the color is the least of it — than on one molecule the law happened to catch.

Ben’s take

Reformulation is cheap. Within two years the same products will be on the same shelves, colored with something else, and the press releases will say "now Red 3 free" as if that were a health claim. A ban on one ingredient is a headline, not a diet. Watch who markets the absence of a dye as a reason to buy the product.

Why it matters to a recovering optimizer. Today's action is a clean illustration of the evidence hierarchy at work: animal data, a mechanism that does not apply to humans, a legal rule that does not weigh dose. That is exactly the kind of result the longevity industry uses in the other direction — a mouse lives longer, a supplement is born. The FDA is at least honest about what it has: a rat, a rule, and no human evidence. Hold the supplement aisle to the same honesty.