The US Food and Drug Administration has proposed revoking its regulation authorizing the nationwide use of brominated vegetable oil, or BVO, as an additive in food.
The FDA’s decision comes after California banned the ingredient in October by passing the California Food Safety Act, the first state law in the United States to ban brominated vegetable oil. The additive is already banned in Europe and Japan.
“The agency concluded that the intended use of BVO in food is no longer considered safe after the results of studies conducted in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health … found the potential for adverse health effects in humans,” said James Jones, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for human foods, in a statement.
Absolutely, I mean just look at the new privacy bill, which the very latest revision has them hijacking website certificates so they can spy on people as they please.
However, when it comes to food safety, the EU has been far ahead of the US. The US basically dismissed a bunch of concerns back in the 1970s, and outside of California they’re only now just reviewing them and accepting that they aren’t that great. Things under the classification “Generally Recognised As Safe”, or GRAS, which are unlikely to cause accute harm when taken in normal doses, however for many of them there is strong evidence of harm when taken frequently over a long time.
Suffice it to say, food in Europe is generally of a higher quality and standard than the US, because the EU has better regulations in this field.