A 1997 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule allowed food manufacturers to use ingredients "generally regarded as safe," or GRAS, like vinegar and lots of other things, without needing approval all over again.

Food advocates say the current GRAS process allows substances into the food supply that might pose a health risk. How can safe products be risky?

The logic used by food safety advocates in implying safe products might be risky is worrisome - they contend that if industry has in-house experts making assessments, the assessments will be unethical. This thinking is a large reason why the public trusts scientists far less than they did just a few years ago - some groups contend academics are producing results designed to get grants while other groups insist corporate scientists must be unethical if they are not working for the government. The public, hit by these claims from all sides, now just believes scientists have stopped acting in the public interest.

Is the current review practice for safety, toxicity and other effects of new ingredients reliable? If it were not, we would know after 37 years, but information on many safe additives is not publicly available and so activists contend it can't be trusted. This is also the charge leveled against many studies in journals, which may not be peer reviewed at all, or may have not included data for reviewers due to competitive concerns - the same reason companies do not make it public.
 
The Grocery Manufacturers Association is already tackling the issue without another government layer - they are sponsoring a database that will house information on all GRAS assessments. 

Food safety advocates say it's the FDA that should undertake such an initiative - but then other food groups say the FDA is controlled by industry anyway.

The culture war against science on all sides is not ending any time soon. 

Published in Chemical&Engineering News.  Source: American Chemical Society