WASHINGTON – Today the Food and Drug Administration issued a “request for information” about the food chemical preservative butylated hydroxyanisole, or BHA. Studies show BHA may cause cancer in rats, mice, fish and hamsters exposed to it through what they eat.
BHA has been listed as a known carcinogen under California’s Proposition 65 since 1990. The National Toxicology Program in 1991 classified it as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.”
In 1990, a doctor petitioned the FDA to ban the chemical from food, but the FDA has not yet issued a response. In 2025, West Virginia banned BHA from all food sold in the state beginning in 2028.
The following is a statement from Melanie Benesh, vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group:
This is yet another instance of the FDA planning to plan instead of taking decisive action. And this time the FDA’s plan is more than three decades late. A petition to ban BHA has been pending for over 30 years, during which time evidence of risk has accumulated, consumers have voiced concern, and states and retailers have stepped in where federal regulators would not.
BHA has already been banned in West Virginia. Major retailers like Kroger, Hy-Vee and Aldi prohibit BHA from their store brands.
This raises the obvious question of what, exactly, the FDA is hoping to learn now. Instead, the FDA could simply grant the pending petition and get BHA off the shelves everywhere much more quickly.
A request for information that follows decades of inaction is not leadership; it’s a paper exercise. Americans deserve timely, decisive food safety regulation, not another slow-walked process that treats urgency as optional.
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The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.
