By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – People interested in food safety are optimistic the federal Food and Drug Administration will finally get a handle on what goes into our food.

One of those people is Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, whose office oversees the state’s organ and tissue donor program.

“Americans today are consuming foods with thousands of added flavors, preservatives, and other ingredients that have never been studied by the FDA.”

Giannoulias boasted legislation to ban five additives, but it has only passed the Illinois Senate and has not even been assigned a committee in the House.

Giannoulias and other advocates are optimistic that the FDA will develop a system for reviewing such additives, even the ones previously deemed to be safe.

Melanie Benesh of the Environmental Working Group says the food manufacturers skate around regulation.

“Today, there are thousands of chemicals that are used in food and food packaging, and many of those chemicals were approved decades ago and have never meaningfully been reassessed for safety by the FDA. even when new evidence of that safety has emerged. Some chemicals have never been reviewed by the fda at all bc food and chemical companies are exploiting a loophole that lets them, and not the FDA, decide whether a chemical is safe.”

The additives in question are  brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, Red Dye No. 3, and titanium dioxide.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected].