RFK Jr. and I agree on pretty much nothing, but I happen to agree with his stance on getting rid of some food dyes. More or less. And with a cacophony of caveats.
Cancer is exploding, but only in RFK's imagination
“It’s very clear the dyes that Gov. Morrisey is banning, all of them are linked in very, very strong studies to ADHD and to cancers. So we’re seeing an explosion in cancers in this country.”
--Kennedy, March 28, 2025, while speaking alongside West Virginia's Governor Patrick Morrisey at an event celebrating the state's new legislation banning seven dyes from school meals.
Are we seeing an explosion of cancer? Hardly. Figure 1 shows this clearly.
Figure 1. The incidence of all cancers (light green squares) has been stable or slightly dropping in the past 30 years. Source: National. Cancer Institute
No, there is not an "explosion" of cancer.
Do food dyes cause cancer?
If they do, it's not obvious. Here are some of the top causes of cancer (excluding genetic factors)
- Tobacco
- Alcohol
- Obesity
- Radon gas
- Air pollution
- UV radiation
- Certain viral infections** (e.g. HPV, Hepatitis B)
[Food dyes - not on any list]
Time for an unreality show
** Kennedy's tweet from 2023 defies belief:
Yes, Kennedy, who played a major part in a lawsuit against Merck over its lifesaving Gardasil vaccine, wants to get rid of ONE of the only TWO vaccines that actually prevent cancer, but is worried about the color of Fruit Loops.
Oops, make that BOTH of the vaccines that prevent cancer. Kennedy also has serious reservations about the Hepatitis B vaccine, also a Merck product, as demonstrated by (surprise) a conspiracy theory:
“Merck went to the agencies and said you told us to develop a Hepatitis B vaccine…but nobody was buying it. The CDC said, ‘Don’t worry…we'll recommend it for children…which will force them to buy it’…that’s how it got on the schedule.”
Petroleum-based nonsense
Another knock on food dyes is that they are "petroleum-based." This term is based on ignorance:
- Anyone with a marginal understanding of chemistry will know that the source of a substance, whether it be a chemical, drug, or food additive, is irrelevant. A chemical produced from dandelions will be identical to the same chemical produced from crude oil. Or, for that matter, anything else.
- Whether we know it or not, we use "petroleum-based" substances all the time, for example, aspirin, ibuprofen, Benadryl, hydrocortisone, melatonin, sunscreens, toothpaste...
and...
Get ready, it's irony time!
→ Vitamin A, which Kennedy has falsely claimed to prevent/treat measles [2], is synthesized from a bunch of petrochemicals, including:
- Acetone
- Isoprene
- Acetylene
- Benzene
Virtually all of commercial vitamin A is synthesized using these (and other) chemicals. Does Kennedy want to ban vitamin A? Don't bet on it. So, in effect, he's recommending a "petrochemical" while rejecting a safe, highly effective vaccine.
The sum of absurdities
- Kennedy claims that we are in the midst of a cancer explosion. We are not.
- He also suggests that food dyes are a major contributor to the non-explosion of cancer. They are not.
- He makes a distinction between chemicals that are derived from petrochemicals and those that are formed naturally. This is wrong.
- One of his "favorites" is vitamin A, which he touts as a prevention or treatment for measles. It is neither.
- But in most cases it is synthesized from a slew of petrochemicals.
- There are precisely two cancer-preventing vaccines in the world.
- He opposes both of them.
- This would seem to be a strange way to battle the "cancer explosion."
Why Kennedy is somewhat correct.
I happen to agree with him about getting rid of food colorants, albeit for different reasons. Red dye #3 may show possible carcinogenicity in rats, but the odds of it being a major contributor to human cancer are vanishingly small.
The chemical structure of Red #3. I don't love all the iodine atoms in it. For a reason. Can you guess what it is?
But, as a medicinal chemist with 25 years of drug discovery under my belt here's my opinion: All of these dyes should be banned. Why?
In the world of drug discovery, a constant theme is the relationship of risk and benefit of an experimental drug. This can be exemplified by a number of scenarios:
- High risk, high benefit: The most obvious example here is cancer drugs. Most are toxic or very toxic. Many are also carcinogens in their own right. But in many cases these drugs, despite their awful side effects, are life-saving.
- Low risk, high benefit: This is what we strive for, but coming up with a drug that works well with little or no downside isn't trivial. One example is (arguably) Claritin. It is an effective antihistamine with few side effects.
- Low risk, low benefit: A drug or supplement may be of limited utility but its potential for doing harm is also low. An example is vitamins. In most cases a daily vitamin will have little impact [1] either in the positive or negative column.
- High risk, no benefit: No approved drug should be in this category.
Finally:
- Low risk, little or no benefit.
This is where (in my opinion) food dyes lie. Why? Using the drug discovery paradigm, the benefit (to the consumer) is zero [3]. The risk is very low, but the risk-to-benefit ratio is infinity. The only benefit of using these dyes is to the companies that use them. To that, I say "too damn bad." People will seamlessly adapt to non-orange Orange Crush or ordinary looking Fruity Pebbles. Or companies will figure out another way to make orange soda to look orange using something like beta-carotene or paprika. Saffron can be used for yellow, and chlorophyll for green. [4]
But there is another reason for getting rid of the dyes. Harmless or not, they are unnecessary and they are manufactured in huge quantities only to be pissed away. Literally. These dyes are typically excreted in the urine. Think about it. Billions of dollars are spent on something to make foods look like (something?) only to have it flushed away, where it goes into wastewater. Yes, it's a complete waste, not to mention all the oil used to manufacture and transport tons of dyes that are used for decorative purposes.
Lawyer, heal thyself.
It’s bad enough to have someone with no background in medicine leading health policy. It’s worse when that person is a lawyer with just enough of a scientific vocabulary to be dangerously wrong.
Color me frustrated.
NOTES:
[1] The irony here should be obvious. There are exactly two vaccines in the world that prevent cancer: Hepatitis B (Recombivax HB, others) and HPV (Gardasil). Kennedy played a major role in the lawsuit against Merck's vaccine in addition to his ridiculous assertion about Gardasil.
[2] Although vitamin A is neither a prevention nor a treatment for measles in the traditional sense, it would be unfair to say it has no value at all. In regions where vitamin A deficiency is common—such as Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia—infections tend to be more severe, since the vitamin plays a crucial role in immune function. In these cases, vitamin A supplementation can help the body fight off infections—not just measles—by restoring baseline immune competence. However, in people with adequate vitamin A levels, supplementation offers no additional benefit against measles or any other infection.
[3] By zero I mean no health benefits. Although the colors may make foods visually appealing are people going to eat fewer hot dogs because they are really beige colored or stop drinking sports drinks because they are colorless?
[4] These natural substitutes are not "safer" because they are natural; it's because they are found in foods we already eat.