Planet Money
99% of chemicals in our food right now were added without FDA approval. Many were added in secret, through a sneaky loophole built into the 1958 Food Additives Amendment.
It was supposed to require FDA approval for new additives. But food companies and chemical makers found a workaround. And the FDA formally okayed the loophole in the 90s — in the process bringing attention to a loophole to the loophole.
The FDA has essentially admitted it doesn’t have the capacity to verify the safety of new food chemicals. So they leave it up to food companies and chemical makers to declare their brand new chemicals are safe. These chemicals are used in everything from chocolate and smoked fish, to tea bags, protein drinks, popcorn, and seeds.
So, how’d the loophole get there, and what does it tell us about the priority the U.S. places on safety versus speed and innovation? And, how much can one lawyer do about it?
Live show tour and book info. / Subscribe to Planet Money+
Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.
Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.
This episode was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez, produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, edited by Jess Jiang, fact checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodrguez with help from Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer. Â
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
-
Meow Money Meow Problems
More than 20 years ago, something unusual happened in the small town of Dixfield, Maine. A lady named Barbara Thorpe had left almost all of her money—$200,000—to benefit the cats of her hometown. When Barbara…
-
Hollywood’s Black List (Classic)
This episode originally ran in 2020. In 2005, Franklin Leonard was a junior executive at Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company. A big part of his job was to find great scripts. The only thing — most…
-
Jay & Shai’s debt ceiling adventure
Every year, the U.S. government spends more money than it takes in. In order to fund all that spending, the country takes on debt. Congress has the power to limit how much debt the U.S.…
-
Two Indicators: Inside the Fed, then and now
A lot of the time, economic policy can seem pretty impersonal — cold, hard, data-driven. But at the heart of the Federal Reserve are people: fallible, complicated people who are just doing their best to…
-
Our 2023 valentines
Every Valentine’s Day, we at Planet Money consider the things that we love, the things that we can’t stop talking about, the things that get our hearts racing…in a good way. And we give them…
-
The ice cream conspiracy
Take a look in any supermarket ice cream freezer section and you may see a mystery. There are big containers of the typical ice cream brands: Breyers, Turkey Hill, and Edy’s. And there are specialty…
-
Baby’s first market failure
Anyone who has tried shopping for day care knows that it is tough out there. For one, it is hard even to get your hands on information about costs, either online or over the phone…
-
Groundhog Day 2023
It’s Groundhog Day, and once again, the eyes of the nation have turned to a small town in Western Pennsylvania. Every February 2nd, the only story anyone can talk about is whether or not Punxsutawney…
-
To all the econ papers I’ve loved before
A great economics paper does two things. It takes on a big question, and it finds a smart way to answer that question. But some papers go even further. The very best papers have the…
-
The story of “Monopoly” and American capitalism
Monopoly is one of the best-selling board games in history. The game’s staying power may in part be because of strong American lore — the idea that anyone, with just a little bit of cash,…