• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    This is barely “the good.”

    A 1990 study concluded that “chronic erythrosine ingestion may promote thyroid tumor formation in rats via chronic stimulation of the thyroid by TSH.” with 4% of total daily dietary intake consisting of erythrosine B.[10] A series of toxicology tests combined with a review of other reported studies concluded that erythrosine is non-genotoxic and any increase in tumors is caused by a non-genotoxic mechanism.[11]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythrosine#Safety

    Humans are not rats and no one is eating that much Red Dye No. 3 a day.

    • Carnelian@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      From reading about it, it’s really a risk/reward call. Red 3 has no nutritional or flavor-enhancing purpose. It’s just a decoration, so why take any risk, however small?

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        Because this took a hell of a lot of time and effort and taxpayer money that the FDA could have spent on so many other more important things.

        • Carnelian@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          I’d be curious about what the cost actually is?

          Right so I mean—the cost of research and analysis and the entire process of determining the possible risks is money that simply must be spent either way, even on products that are ultimately deemed suitable for market. That’s the entire purpose of the FDA, to find these things out.

          So we’re really just looking at the costs associated with the ban itself. Such as the labor hours of FDA employees setting it up? Communicating it to people? I agree with your concerns I’m just trying to get a sense of what we actually spent to arrive here

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            14 days ago

            I can’t give you numbers, but it’s a federal regulation. A lot of reports have to get written and a lot of research has to be done, especially in the field of federal regulation as a whole, which is so insane that we literally have no idea how many federal laws there are. And then all of that documentation has to be read by other people and approved all the way up the chain. So we are talking a lot of people’s time and effort (which translates into taxpayer money) that could have better been spent on things which are causing active harm.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        I’m not playing Devil’s Advocate, I’m saying this is a really minor good in the greater scheme of things and I imagine the cost and time breakdown in terms of what it took to accomplish took a lot away from other, more important things.

      • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        Assuming a person eats ~1.8kg of food per day, that would be ~72 grams. Basing that math off of a number I had heard previously stating that adults eat anywhere from 3-5lbs of food daily.