February 10, 2026 – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reassessing the safety of a common chemical preservative used in foods like frozen meals, deli meats, and breakfast cereals.

Under the reassessment, announced Tuesday, the agency will look into the safety of butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), a chemical that health advocates have raised concerns about for decades. That will mean evaluating the safety of its current uses in food and as a “food-contact substance,” like food packaging. As part of the assessment, FDA issued a request for information on the use and safety of BHA.

BHA was first listed as “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) in 1958 and approved as a food additive in 1961. It is currently used in more than 4,600 foods, according to a 2024 Environmental Working Group report.

The chemical can be found in many food products marketed to children, like breakfast cereals, cookies, candy, ice cream, frozen meals, and meat products, according to the FDA announcement. The chemical itself is intended to prevent spoilage of fats and oils.

In 1990, the FDA received a petition from researcher Glenn Scott to ban the additive in food due to concerns about the health effects of BHA, based on existing animal studies. In 1991, the National Toxicology Program classified BHA as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen,” and California listed it as a known carcinogen in 1990 under Proposition 65.  Both classifications are based on studies that linked the chemical to cancer in rats, mice, and hamsters.

However, the FDA still lists that 1990 petition as under review, allowing the chemical to remain on the market.

By reassessing BHA, the FDA said it is taking steps toward the Trump administration’s broader goals of reworking food chemical additive reviews.

“This reassessment marks the end of the ‘trust us’ era in food safety,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in the FDA announcement. “If BHA cannot meet today’s gold-standard science for its current uses, we will remove it from the food supply and continue cleaning up food chemicals—starting where children face the greatest exposure.”

Under the Biden administration, the FDA began developing an “enhanced systematic process” for assessing food chemicals already on the market. Several public comments recommended BHA for reassessment.

The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, spearheaded by Kennedy, has prioritized food chemicals and dyes. Kennedy and other MAHA leaders in the administration have also promised to reform the GRAS process, under which food makers can self-certify food ingredients as safe without the government evaluating potential health risks. However, achieving this goal could be made more difficult by staffing cuts to the agency. (Link to this post.)

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