BHA Took 65 Years to Ban

When the FDA approved butylated hydroxyanisole as a food preservative in 1961, Dwight Eisenhower had just left office and the agency's testing standards reflected mid-century optimism about better living through chemistry. Sixty-five years later, that same additive—known as BHA—sits in your breakfast cereal, your frozen pizza, and your chewing gum, even though the National Toxicology Program has classified it as "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen" since 1991.

On February 10, 2026, the FDA finally announced it's moving to ban BHA from the American food supply. The question isn't why the agency is acting. It's why it took 35 years after the cancer classification to do so.

The Preservative in Everything

BHA does one thing exceptionally well: it keeps fats and oils from going rancid. This single property made it invaluable to food manufacturers producing shelf-stable products. Walk down any grocery aisle and you'll find it in potato chips, cookies, butter, sausage, dehydrated potatoes, and hundreds of other products. The FDA permits BHA at concentrations up to 0.02% of a food's total fat or oil content—a seemingly tiny amount that Americans consuming processed foods encounter repeatedly throughout the day.

The chemical works by preventing oxidation, the process that turns oils rancid and gives old food that characteristic stale taste. For an industry built on long supply chains and extended shelf life, BHA became nearly indispensable. By the early 1980s, U.S. food manufacturers were using roughly 660,000 pounds of it annually.

What the Science Actually Shows

The evidence against BHA comes primarily from animal studies, which is both its strength and its weakness. Rats, mice, hamsters, and even fish developed tumors when exposed to BHA. In rats of both sexes, the additive caused benign and malignant tumors in the forestomach—a part of the digestive system humans don't have. This anatomical difference is where defenders of BHA have long planted their flag.

But the cancer findings weren't limited to the forestomach. Studies on a hermaphroditic fish species found BHA caused liver cancer. The variety of species affected and the multiple tumor sites suggest something more than a quirk of rodent anatomy.

Human epidemiological data remains thin. A large Netherlands study found no increase in stomach cancer risk at typical dietary intake levels, but that single study can't overcome the broader pattern. As Marion Nestle, the food policy expert at NYU, put it: BHA "has been on the Center for Science in the Public Interest's 'avoid' list for ages."

The National Toxicology Program doesn't classify substances as probable carcinogens lightly. The designation requires sufficient evidence from animal studies, and BHA met that threshold back in 1991. For 35 years, Americans have been eating a substance their own government considers likely to cause cancer.

The "Trust Us" Era Ends

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. framed the FDA's move as a philosophical shift: "This reassessment marks the end of the 'trust us' era in food safety." That's a pointed statement from an agency that has operated on trust—or perhaps inertia—for decades when it comes to additives approved in the mid-20th century.

The FDA's safety standard for food additives is "a reasonable certainty of no harm." That's a lower bar than zero risk, but it should still exclude probable carcinogens. The agency determines an Acceptable Daily Intake with built-in safety margins, but those calculations assume the starting substance doesn't cause cancer in multiple animal species.

What changed? In May 2025, the FDA launched a new program to reassess additives already in the food supply, naming BHA as a top priority. This represents a reversal of the usual regulatory approach, where substances approved decades ago remain on the market unless someone proves them dangerous enough to warrant removal. The new framework puts the burden back where it arguably belongs: on manufacturers to demonstrate ongoing safety under current scientific standards.

Why Manufacturers Kept Using It

Here's the puzzle: BHA use has actually declined over the past few decades. U.S. production and imports dropped from as much as 10 million pounds in 1996 to less than 500,000 pounds by 2006. For industrial applications, manufacturers largely switched to tert-butylhydroquinone, a different antioxidant. Yet BHA persists in consumer food products, including those marketed to children.

The answer likely lies in regulatory inertia on both sides. Reformulating products costs money and requires new testing. As long as the FDA continued to classify BHA as "generally recognized as safe," manufacturers had no incentive to change. The agency's GRAS designation created a perverse equilibrium: the additive stayed legal because it was already in use, and it stayed in use because it was legal.

No major food company has publicly defended BHA in the wake of the FDA announcement. The Consumer Brands Association, the industry trade group, declined to comment. That silence speaks volumes. These are organizations that typically fight regulatory changes aggressively. Their quiet acceptance suggests they know the science doesn't favor them and have likely been preparing alternatives.

The Additives Still Waiting

The FDA has signaled that BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) and azodicarbonamide will face similar scrutiny. Azodicarbonamide is particularly notable—it's used as a dough conditioner in bread products and as a blowing agent in yoga mats and shoe soles. The fact that a chemical serves double duty in food and foam rubber should raise questions, though admittedly, chemical function depends on context and concentration.

The broader implication is that dozens of additives approved under 1960s-era science may not survive modern toxicological review. The FDA has asked the public to submit information about how BHA is currently used, suggesting the agency doesn't have complete data on its own approved additives—an admission that should trouble anyone who assumed comprehensive oversight.