Althouse: "Research on chemicals that have been vetted by the F.D.A. tends to be extremely narrow in focus, looking mostly for cancer, genetic mutations or..."

May 12, 2025

"Research on chemicals that have been vetted by the F.D.A. tends to be extremely narrow in focus, looking mostly for cancer, genetic mutations or..."

"... organ damage in animal or laboratory studies. This means the ingredients in our coffee creamer, cereal, ketchup and frozen pizza aren’t tested for more subtle effects on long-term health, or whether they may increase the risk of the other common chronic diseases, such as obesity, cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.... Regulators also don’t routinely re-examine chemicals already on the market — checking if new science has emerged suggesting they might be dangerous — something European regulators do.... In short, the rules that are supposed to protect Americans from food hazards don’t reflect the reality of how people eat — or how they get sick — today. There are a couple of reasons for this. The F.D.A. was established in the early 1900s, as America was urbanizing and industrial food processing was taking off. Back then, food made people sick mainly through poisoning. Now our diets make us chronically ill, causing diseases that develop over decades...."

From "Kennedy Is Right About the Chemicals in Our Food" (NYT).

26 comments:

gilbar said...: you Know what makes the Perfect coffee creamer..
Delicious WHOLE MILK.. From COWS; 5/12/25, 9:11 AM
Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...: Back in my geochemist days half a century ago we often made our own coffee creamer by very finely grinding a plagioclase feldspar called "albite" as in "white", and it worked pretty well because it would stay in suspension long enough to do the job.

To this day, several artificial creamers continue to use albite as an ingredient, but it's listed using its chemical name -- sodium aluminosilicate -- rather than the mineral name. It's good fun when someone freaks out over that "chemical", which can be har to pronounce, to point out that it's really just ground-up rock.; 5/12/25, 9:19 AM
Rocco said...: gilbar said...
“you Know what makes the Perfect coffee creamer..
Delicious WHOLE MILK.. From COWS”

Cows are just four-legged steak.; 5/12/25, 9:26 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: The door is now cracked open. Cmon Times, just walk right in and get comfortable.; 5/12/25, 9:32 AM
Peachy said...: Democrat party is so corrupt- they chased away a Kennedy - and a person who cares about the health of the nation.

The Democrats are the party of biological weapons, fauci, and lies.; 5/12/25, 9:40 AM
Jupiter said...: That's not all Kennedy is right about.; 5/12/25, 9:40 AM
gilbar said...: "Cows are just four-legged steak."
four-legged steak, that ALSO make Delicious WHOLE MILK!
they're like the perfect food product!
cheese
butter
cream
Delicious WHOLE MILK!
Steaks
Prime Rib
Roasts
BBQ Brisket
Hamburger

Leather! Glue! you name it!; 5/12/25, 9:44 AM
Jamie said...: I wonder whether this would constitute an example of "positive Trump reporting."; 5/12/25, 9:51 AM
tim maguire said...: Every major government official is a grab bag of ideas, good and bad. Deciding whether or not you support them isn't just about whether they stuff they are right on is bigger than the stuff they are wrong on, it's also about what they are going to do about it.

However much Kennedy's ideas on vaccines may disturb me, the reality is, he will have little effect on vaccine policy. But he just might do something about making our food supply and approach to nutrition healthier and we'll be better for it.; 5/12/25, 9:57 AM
Tom T. said...: Most of the world is lactose intolerant.

I suspect we're in for a lot of silly little labels saying, "eating this food may contribute to obesity."; 5/12/25, 9:59 AM
Roger Sweeny said...: There is an ingredient allowed in almost all foods that causes obesity in the majority of Americans. It is called calories.; 5/12/25, 10:07 AM
Achilles said...: Almost every animal in the world has adapted to eat one or two things. Usually one.

Human gastrointestinal systems are adapted to eat red meat. Everything else is sub optimal, and most things ignite inflammatory response some things like wheat are just pure poison.

The only thing for humans that has more nutrient density than meat is a whole egg But even then you have to cook it and denature the proteins in the inner white because raw That protein causes problems too.

When you eat anything that should be considered bait like vegetables and fruits. Just remember that you’re getting almost nothing out of the fiber you’re feeding gut bacteria, which Is a mixed bag at best.

I always had a six pack But I also had bloat in my gut. People will be shocked at how good they look when they stop feeding all that bacteria and packing their gut full of stuff that they can’t really digest.; 5/12/25, 10:12 AM
Aggie said...: "Mr. Kennedy has deservedly earned a reputation for embracing pseudoscience and making hyperbolic claims about public health ....."

There it is, right there. The journalist's stealth editorializing, that trick of presenting an opinion as if it were an accepted fact, reinforcing the polarization in his audience. Making sure to offend some, and gratify others in as few words as possible. That's a bad habit that really, desperately, needs to be broken like a rat's neck, for the good of society.

What could be an objective, constructive editorial betrays its compulsive need to bash Kennedy in bad faith, but only because he's associated with Trump.; 5/12/25, 10:12 AM
Ambrose said...: It must have hurt them to the core to put Kennedy and Right in the same headline; 5/12/25, 10:15 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: “ The F.D.A. was established in the early 1900s, as America was urbanizing and industrial food processing was taking off. Back then, food made people sick mainly through poisoning. Now our diets make us chronically ill, causing diseases that develop over decades...."

Obviously Kennedy needs to ban all food until this research is completed to his satisfaction. Just tighten your belts, folks, this will only take a few decades.; 5/12/25, 10:43 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: "There is an ingredient allowed in almost all foods that causes obesity in the majority of Americans. It is called calories."

This. Your food isn't poisoned; you're just eating too much.; 5/12/25, 12:41 PM
Howard said...: Ultra processed food is hyper palatable and appetite stimulating. They destroy beneficial gut bacteria which makes healthy short chain fatty acids required by every cell and every organ in your body to function properly. The messed up brain chemistry invites depression and enhances the hunger pangs in a vicious cycle that is extremely difficult to stop and reverse. Willpower alone obviously will not work.; 5/12/25, 12:48 PM
Howard said...: Oh, the best part is that these ultra processed foods that are irresistible are extremely cheap and available everywhere for impulse buys. Much of it convenient finger food that can be consumed in the automobile alone; 5/12/25, 12:50 PM
Ted said...: "To this day, several artificial creamers continue to use albite as an ingredient, but it's listed using its chemical name -- sodium aluminosilicate -- rather than the mineral name. It's good fun when someone freaks out over that 'chemical', which can be har to pronounce, to point out that it's really just ground-up rock."

Considering that the "rock" consists of about 20% aluminum -- something most people would like to limit in their diets -- I'm not surprised they're avoiding this gross fake coffee creamer.; 5/12/25, 12:57 PM
BG said...: In just the last few years I found out I can't eat wheat that's grown in the U.S. unless it's organic. During my last colonoscopy I had two polyps removed that were precancerous. I'm not saying there's a correlation but I wouldn't be surprised if there was.
As far as childhood vaccinations, what in the world are they thinking when they administer more than one or two at a time? For heaven's sake, little ones' immune systems shouldn't be asked to build up so many antibodies at once. It's an unnecessary overload.; 5/12/25, 1:33 PM
Sean said...: If there is one common poison in food it is likely sugar.

Everything else is caused by the notion that you need to eat as much as you do. Three large meals a day is good for teenagers on sports teams. Excessive for most adults.; 5/12/25, 3:16 PM
Jamie said...: Unlike Achilles and, I think, Howard, at least, on this blog, I've not studied up on the carnivore diet thing (though we do eat a lot of red meat). But with regard to Achilles' comment above about most organisms' being adapted to eat only one or a very limited number of things, I have reservations - it seems like a very poor evolutionary strategy (to use shorthand for how evolution actually works), though some critters certainly employ it (pandas, for instance).

Maybe "optimized" would be a better term than "adapted"? Because an organism that can only use one or a couple of types of food is dramatically limited in environment, and is very vulnerable to even short-term fluctuations in that food supply.

Who was hypothesizing about a link between human hairlessness and eating carrion? It seems to me we are clearly omnivorous according to our dentition, clearly not vegetarian according to our digestive structures, and I'd say clearly able to eat, and thrive on, a very wide range of foodstuffs (including fresh-ish carrion, I guess, though I hope I never have to) according to our environmental range and reproductive success. But I know very little about humans' microbiomes and what they tell us.; 5/12/25, 3:54 PM
Gospace said...: My big bugaboo as food additive is iron- which I brought up a little bit ago.
There are two main types of damage to both living things and complicated machinery- acute and cumulative.

I don't know exactly how many children in the USA as a whole die from acute iron poisoning each year- but it's not zero. "During 1991, 5144 ingestions of iron supplements were reported to poison control centers in the United States; 11 were fatal." All of them cause by carelessness in storage- lock up all your meds and supplements with children around.

Everyone needs some iron. To prevent anemia, for one thing. Hence, by mandate, only iron enriched flour can cross state lines and all commercial breads must be made with iron fortified flour. "Wonder Bread, it builds your body in 12 ways!" And one of those ways is with iron. Iron fortified bread isn't going to give you an acute iron dose. No matter how much you eat. And, adding the iron to the flour absolutely did what it was supposed to do- just about eliminated the scourge of childhood anemia. All children eat bread- it's cheap and affordable. Iron containing meat is or was, often missing in the diet of the poor. Score- Plus 1 for public health.

Then, 40 years later-
Early Symptoms: Fatigue, joint pain, abdominal pain, and skin darkening.
Advanced Symptoms: Organ damage, including liver cirrhosis, heart failure, diabetes, and endocrine gland dysfunction
All those are symptoms of hemochromatosis, iron overload. And- all of them have been increasing. Even if you don't actually have genetic hemochromatosis, you can still suffer iron overload. It's cumulative damage- from taking in more iron then your body can get rid of. And if you're male- or post-menopausal woman- your body doesn't easily shed excess iron.

IMHO, increasing because of routine iron fortification of foodstuffs, particularly bread. Solved a young people problem on one end, created an old people problem starting with the first group of people eating that food as they aged. It's easy to connect iron fortified bread with sudden drops in childhood anemia. Much harder to connect it with increasing symptoms of iron overload 4 or more decades later, especially since the symptoms are symptoms of a lot of things, not just iron overload. Liver cirrhosis, heart failure and diabetes can all be caused by cumulative damage from a lot of things.
Excessive alcohol-cirrhosis
Frequent alcohol and/or tobacco or drug use- heart failure.
Sugar or sugar spiking carbohydrates- diabetes.

We should be able to buy iron free bread. But we can't. That needs to be changed.

Meanwhile, I can give you one piece of health advice based on statistics. Blood donors live longer. Self selection or getting rid of excess iron? Or both? Donate blood or platelets frequently. Good for you- and good for the person who receive your donation. A twofer.

My surprise for the day right there- Spell check didn't flag twofer.. Originally posted in the wrong thread...; 5/12/25, 5:00 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: It’s interesting to see what we can eat easily, what is harder to eat, and what we really can’t digest very well. Starting out backwards, we can’t digest fiber, bark, etc. Mammals that can, tend to have multiple stomachs. We can’t digest very kinda digest grains, but don’t do it well, and a reliance on them, as many humans do, is bad for your health. Which is to say that the ~10k years that we have been farming and living off of grains, hasn’t been long enough for us to adapt to them. Best plant matter to eat is probably vegetables and after that, fruits. If you are going to eat plant matter - stay away from grains. That means not just flour, but also seed oil, seed (typically corn) based sugar, etc.

We do best with plenty of animal flesh in our diets, and probably more for males than females. But what’s interesting is that we seem best optimized to eat fish, then white meat, followed by red meat, and rich bottom feeding seafood. This suggests that we had a significant history living by an easy source of fish, as well as maybe birds. There is no skeletal anthropological record of this, but maybe that was because the climate was inimical to that. That theory is possibly bolstered by our unique ability as apes to swim. We have more flexible backbones, subcutaneous fat, and are mostly hairless - in a pattern seemingly optimized for swimming.; 5/12/25, 9:23 PM
gadfly said...: Why would anyone listen to an idiot who eats road-kill, and consumes uncooked contaminated food that caused a worm infestation in his brain. Further he wants dairy farms to sell unpasturized raw milk direct to consumers. Chemicals in food? Perhaps flouride to prevent tooth decay or aspirin to prevent heart attacks or fungicides such as captan or sulfur to prevent food rot. Yes, Virginia, we have many farmer-added chemicals afloat at the mouth of the Mississippi but I am not drinking that stuff.; 5/13/25, 4:53 AM
Norpois said...: Well, frankly, I don't want anyone telling me what I can eat and what I can't. Disclosures, yes. Research, yes. But you know where this leads -- "Ingredient X increases your chances of
getting cancer, and while YOU may be willing to take that risk,
the taxpayers/government will have to pay for your medical
care so, no, you don't get the choice."
Most of these metabolic syndrome type conditions like "obesity" do not have a single cause, and causation is poorly understood. There are, for example, genes that predispose
some people to obesity. Are they to be deprived of ice cream,
while others are not? Or maybe all Americans should only be allowed, say, 10,000 calories a week. You will say I exagerrate.
I say, just you wait. Eating too much of the wrong stuff is kind
of like deciding you're not going to exercise. It may shorten your life. But...it is...none of the government's business (to do
anything other than research and inform; but it never stops
there.); 5/13/25, 6:55 PM