- FDA - Color Additives Fact Sheet - What the FDA says about artificial colorings.
Note this sentence:
"The color certification program is self-supporting because the law requires manufacturers to pay FDA a user fee for each pound of color the agency certifies."They do not say that they get paid per pound examined. They get paid per pound passed. This is a serious conflict of interest, and they are proud of it!!
- FDA Listing of Color Additives, details of requirements for certification - amounts of contaminants allowed
- FD&C; Yellow #5, Code of Federal Regulations - note how much benzidine is allowed, as well as how much lead, mercury, and arsenic.
- FDA Summary of Color Additives Listed for Use in the United States in Foods, Drugs, Cosmetics, and Medical Devices, November 2000
- FDA - Color Additives for Medical Devices
- How much do we use? - FDA - Color Certification Reports
- Ninth Report on Carcinogens, 2000
- Dyes That Metabolize to Benzidine
- Benzidine - note only 1 ppb (1 ng/g) is allowed by Code of Federal Regulations)
- Lancaster & Lawrence study, 1999, finding 5 to 270 ng/g of benzidine in tartrazine
- Peiperl, Prival, & Bell, 1995, finding that half the samples (34 of 67) tested had more than 10 ng/g of benzidine, ranging from 11 to 104 ng/g, except for one sample containing 941 ng/g.
- Peiperl, Prival, & Bell, 1993, finding that 25 of 53 samples tested had 7 to 83 ng/g of benzidine
- Encyclopaedia Britannica
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- Other General Information Resources about Colorings:
- The American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Drugs in Pediatrics in October 1985
- E Is For Additives
- Health Letter by Public Citizen Health Research Group, March/April 1985
- Complete listing of E-Numbers from Northern Allergy Center, Australia.
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