In April, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) proposed a draft bill that would, if enacted, further hobble an already broken system that allows scores of food chemicals to come onto the market with little government oversight.
The bill is known as the FDA Review and Evaluation for Safe, Healthy and Affordable Foods, or FRESH and Affordable Foods Act. If enacted, it would preempt, or override, retroactively and prospectively, all state food chemical laws.
This includes those banning the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS from food packaging, artificial dyes from school foods and heavy metals from baby food and infant formula.
In addition, the FRESH Act would gut rules on the information companies must provide the Food and Drug Administration when submitting a notice that a food chemical is “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS.
States with legislation that are threatened by the FRESH Act:
Learn about how state legislation is protecting the safety of food across the country and how policymakers are shaping the future of food protections.
