FDA Bans Food Coloring Red Die #3 from Ingested Products

  January 15, 2025

The FDA is revoking the authorization for the use of FD&C Red No. 3 as a matter of law, based on the Delaney Clause of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act). The FDA is amending its color additive regulations to no longer allow for the use of FD&C Red No. 3 in food and ingested drugs in response to a 2022 color additive petition. The petition requested the agency review whether the Delaney Clause applied and cited, among other data and information, two studies that showed cancer in laboratory male rats exposed to high levels of FD&C Red No. 3 due to a rat-specific hormonal mechanism. The way that FD&C Red No. 3 causes cancer in male rats does not occur in humans. Relevant exposure levels to FD&C Red No. 3 for humans are typically much lower than those that cause the effects shown in male rats. Studies in other animals and in humans did not show these effects; claims that the use of FD&C Red No. 3 in food and ingested drugs puts people at risk are not supported by the available scientific information. 

FD&C Red No. 3 is a synthetic food dye that gives foods and drinks a bright, cherry-red color. The FDA estimates that FD&C Red No. 3 is not as widely used in food and drugs when compared to other certified colors based on information available in third-party food product labeling databases, food manufacturers’ websites and other public information, and the FDA’s certification data. FD&C Red No. 3 has been primarily used in certain food products, such as candy, cakes and cupcakes, cookies, frozen desserts, and frostings and icings, as well as certain ingested drugs. 

Manufacturers who use FD&C Red No. 3 in food and ingested drugs will have until January 15, 2027, or January 18, 2028, respectively, to reformulate their products. Other countries still currently allow for certain uses of FD&C Red No. 3 (called erythrosine in other countries). However, foods imported to the U.S. must comply with U.S. requirements.

Enforcement of the new law came swiftly. Within two months of the passage of the act, the FDA began to identify drugs such as the sulfas that simply could not be labeled for safe use directly by the patient--they would require a prescription from a physician. The ensuing debate by the FDA, industry, and health practitioners over what constituted a prescription and an over-the-counter drug was resolved in the Durham-Humphrey Amendment of 1951. From the 1940s to the 1960s, the abuse of amphetamines and barbiturates required more regulatory effort by the FDA than all other drug problems combined. Furthermore, the new law ushered in a flood of new drug applications, over 6,000 in the first nine years, and 13,000 by 1962.

A new drug law in that year, the Kefauver-Harris Amendments, derived in large part from hearings held by Senator Estes Kefauver. As with the 1938 act, a therapeutic disaster compelled the passage of the new law; in this case, the disaster was narrowly averted. Thalidomide, a sedative that was never approved in this country, produced thousands of grossly deformed newborns outside of the United States. The new law mandated efficacy as well as a safety before a drug could be marketed required the FDA to assess the efficacy of all drugs introduced since 1938, instituted stricter agency control over drug trials (including a requirement that patients involved must give their informed consent), transferred from the Federal Trade Commission to the FDA regulation of prescription drug advertising, established good manufacturing practices by the drug industry, and granted the FDA greater powers to access company production and control records to verify those practices. Three years later Congress gave the FDA enhanced control over amphetamines, barbiturates, hallucinogens, and other drugs of considerable abuse potential in the Drug Abuse Control Amendments of 1965. That function was consolidated with similar responsibilities in 1968 under an organization that gave rise to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The first food standards to be issued under the 1938 act were for canned tomato products; by the 1960s about half of the food supply was subject to a standard. As food technology changed and the number of possible ingredients--including fortifying nutrients--grew, the agency developed recipe standards for foods, and lists of ingredients that could lawfully be included in a product. A food that varied from the recipe would have to be labeled an imitation. 

Following hearings in the early 1950s under Representative James Delaney, a series of laws addressing pesticide residues (1954), food additives (1958), and color additives (1960) gave the FDA much tighter control over the growing list of chemicals entering the food supply, putting the onus on manufacturers to establish their safety. While tolerances could be established for many chemicals, a provision of the 1958 law, the Delaney Clause, banned any carcinogenic additive.

FDA pursued numerous cases of food misbranding in the 1950s and 1960s, most deriving from false nutritional claims and unscientific enrichment, with mixed success in the courts. In 1973, following hearings the agency convened to address the vitamin fortification of foods and the claims made for dietary supplements, the FDA issued regulations for special dietary foods, including vitamins and minerals. The public response to these regulations helped lead Congress in 1976 to prohibit the FDA from controlling the potency of dietary supplements, although the agency maintained the authority to regulate enriched foods.

The Delaney Clause, enacted in 1960 as part of the Color Additives Amendment to the FD&C Act, prohibits FDA authorization of a food additive or color additive if it has been found to induce cancer in humans or animals. This is not the first time the agency has revoked an authorization based on the Delaney Clause. For example, in 2018, the FDA revoked authorization for certain synthetic flavors