FDA Finally Bans Soda Ingredient Banned Worldwide: ScienceAlert

This article has been modified to reflect an update to the FDA’s decision in July 2024.

An ingredient once commonly used in citrus-flavored sodas to keep the drink’s tangy taste well-blended has finally been banned in the United States.

The FDA has now revoked the registration of a modified vegetable oil known as BVO following recent toxicological studies that make it difficult to support its continued use.

“The proposed action is an example of how the agency monitors emerging evidence and, when necessary, conducts scientific research to investigate safety issues, and takes regulatory action when the science does not support the continued safe use of additives in foods,” said James Jones, FDA deputy commissioner for food, in announcing the proposal.

Brominated vegetable oil (BVO) has been used as an emulsifying agent since the 1930s to keep citrus flavors from floating on the surface of sodas. By sticking a dozen bromine atoms to a triglyceride, a dense oil is created that floats evenly in water when mixed with less dense fats.

But that’s not the only downside to BVO. Animal studies have strongly suggested that the compound can slowly accumulate in our fat tissues. Given bromine’s potential ability to prevent iodine from doing its essential job inside the thyroid, health officials around the world have been wary of the risks associated with this emulsifier for decades.

In fact, BVO is already banned in many countries, including India, Japan, and countries in the European Union, and was banned in the state of California in October 2022, with the legislation set to go into effect in 2027.

The FDA was slow to convince, though. In the 1950s, the agency considered the ingredient generally recognized as safe (GRAS); an official classification gave priority to products that had been adequately tested or—for ingredients commonly used before 1958—did not appear to be dangerous.

That changed the following decade, when questions were raised about its possible toxicity, prompting the FDA to rescind its GRAS classification for BVO and temporarily limit its use to relatively low concentrations of no more than 15 parts per million exclusively in citrus-flavored beverages.

Data on the risks posed by these small amounts of BVO over time have not been easy to gather, relying largely on long-term studies that reassess health effects in a significant sample size of people. Yet the evidence is slowly accumulating.

A British study in the 1970s found that bromine accumulated in human tissues, with animal studies linking high BVO concentrations to heart and behavioral problems.

It took time and a number of additional studies, but in light of more recent animal studies based on the relative concentrations of BVO that humans are likely to ingest, the FDA is finally confident that there is enough evidence to ban its use altogether.

Fortunately, most major soft drink companies are ahead of the curve. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Co. have phased out the ingredient from their products over the past decade.

“Over the years, many beverage manufacturers have reformulated their products to replace BVO with an alternative ingredient, and today, few beverages in the United States contain BVO,” Jones said.

The ban could be a sign of more to come, as Jones announced that the agency is revising regulations that allow the use of certain food additives, with the goal of automatically banning approval of any food coloring known to cause cancer in humans or animals, making the bureaucratic process more flexible.

The FDA’s final decision regarding the reclassification of BVO followed a lengthy review process that is now complete.

With suitable alternatives to BVO already being used to give citrus drinks around the world a tangy taste down to the last drop, the ingredient is unlikely to be in short supply.

An earlier version of this article was published in November 2023.