The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Tuesday that it is reviewing whether butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) is safe when used in food and as a food contact substance.
The FDA called the review part of its “broader efforts to proactively review chemical additives in the food supply.” The administration identified BHA as a top priority for review after launching a strengthened program to assess chemicals in the food supply last May.
The NTP notes that the additive is “reasonably anticipated to be a human cardinogen” based on animal studies.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. referenced the NTP’s assessment Tuesday. Animal studies have found a link between exposure to BHA, and benign and malignant tumors of the forestomach and liver cancer, but there is insufficient data to evaluate the relationship between human cancer and exposure to the compound.
“This reassessment marks the end of the ‘trust us’ era in food safety,” Kennedy said in a statement. “If BHA cannot meet today’s gold-standard science for its current uses, we will remove it from the food supply and continue cleaning up food chemicals—starting where children face the greatest exposure.”
