Pedro Navio, North America president at Kraft Heinz, said in a statement that the company removed artificial colors, preservatives and flavors from its Kraft macaroni and cheese in 2016 and that its Heinz tomato ketchup has never had artificial dyes.
“As a food company with a 150+ year heritage, we are continuously evolving our recipes, products, and portfolio to deliver superiority to consumers and customers,” Navio’s statement read, in part. “The vast majority of our products use natural or no colors, and we’ve been on a journey to reduce our use of FD&C colors across the remainder of our portfolio. … Above all, we are focused on providing nutritious, affordable, and great-tasting food for Americans and this is a privilege we don’t take lightly.”
It comes after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unveiled a plan in April to start phasing out eight synthetic food dyes in the American food supply.
At a news conference announcing the plan, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said health agencies were looking to revoke authorization for two synthetic food colorings and to work with the food industry to eliminate six remaining synthetic dyes used in a variety of food products.
Kennedy said the agencies had reached an “understanding” with major food companies to voluntarily remove artificial food dyes from their products. It’s unclear what action Kennedy could take if the companies don’t comply.
Shortly after Kennedy’s announcement, PepsiCo’s CEO said on an earnings call that the company had already begun phasing out artificial colors. In-N-Out also announced in May it was removing artificial food dyes from menu items.
Other companies, like Kellogg’s, have previously stated their products are safe for consumption, and they are following federal standards set by the FDA.
Some studies have linked dyes to behavioral changes in children as well as to cancer in animals, suggesting this could extend to humans.
Some nutritionists and dietitians say that it’s best to avoid artificial food dyes, while others say more research needs to be done and the potential negative effects are still unclear.
Alyssa Pointer for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee voted on Thursday to recommend infants receive a newer monoclonal antibody shot for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 5-2 to recommend clesrovimab, made by Merck, for infants 8 months and younger who are not protected by a maternal vaccine.
In a second vote, the committee voted unanimously to update the resolution for the federal Vaccines for Children program to include details about the newly approved antibody shot. About half of all U.S. children are eligible for free or low-cost vaccines.
Usually, the CDC director signs off on the votes for final recommendation but, because there is currently no CDC director, the final decision will go to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
If signed off by Kennedy, clesrovimab will made available along with another RSV shot made by Sanofi/AstraZeneca.
This marks the first vote of the panel since Kennedy dismissed the entire panel and appointed his own hand-selected members.
Currently, RSV vaccines are recommended for pregnant women between 32 and 36 weeks of pregnancy to pass on protection to a fetus, which should last throughout their first RSV season.
For babies 8 months and younger born to mothers who did not receive a maternal RSV vaccine, monoclonal antibody shots are available.
Monoclonal antibodies are proteins manufactured in a lab and mimic the antibodies the body naturally creates when fighting an infection. They do not activate the immune system as would occur with vaccination. The shot is also recommended for a small group of children from 8 months old through 19 months old who are at increased risk for severe RSV.
During the first day of the meeting, on Wednesday, Dr. Georgina Peacock, director of the Immunization Services Division in the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), shared CDC data showing 57% of infants born between April 2024 and March 2025 were protected from RSV by maternal vaccination or receipt of nirsevimab, the shot made by Sanofi/AstraZeneca.
Dr. Cody Meissner, one of the new ACIP members, described the vaccine and antibody data, showing its real-world impacts as a “truly spectacular accomplishment.”
“People should understand this is a truly spectacular accomplishment and will have enormous impact on public health,” he said.
Another ACIP member, Retsef Levi, expressed some skepticism, saying he wanted to see more data on how efficacy for the maternal vaccine changes over time, adding that RSV is a “tricky” virus that “fools interventions in unexpected ways.”
In response, Dr. Adam MacNeil of the NCRID said vaccine efficacy does wane over time, but the maternal RSV vaccine protects newborns and infants when they’re at their most vulnerable, before they develop more robust immune systems.
The votes comes after the group announced on Wednesday it would review the current childhood immunization schedule.
Martin Kulldorff, the ACIP’s new chair, said two new work groups would be established, one focusing on the cumulative effects of children and adolescents receiving all recommended vaccines on the schedule and another reviewing vaccines that haven’t been examined for more than seven years.
The latter group may discuss whether the hepatitis B vaccine is necessary at birth before a baby leaves the hospital, according to Kulldorff.
“The number of vaccines that our children and adolescents receive today exceeds what children in most other developed nations receive and what most of us in this room received when we were children,” Kulldorff said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics put out a video on Wednesday, saying immunization policy through ACIP is “no longer a credible process” and that it will continue to publish its own vaccine recommendations for children.
In the morning, CDC staff presented data on COVID-19 vaccines, showing safety and efficacy as well as a reduction in hospitalizations and deaths.
For the 2024-25 updated COVID vaccine against emergency department and urgent care encounters, the CDC found 79% effectiveness for children between nine months and 4 years old, 57% effectiveness among children between five and 17 years old and 34% effectiveness for those aged 18 and older.
Kulldorff asked where the data shows COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness from placebo-controlled trials. Dr. Adam MacNeil, from the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), said the CDC’s evaluation of effectiveness came from real-world data.
“Randomized clinical control trials are not necessarily comparable to what we’re currently seeing with the vaccine,” MacNeil said. “Where we’re trying to now monitor is the real-world impacts of these vaccines as opposed to clinical trial data, which was certainly extensively documented.”
The ACIP members also discussed questions about potential safety signals surrounding the COVID vaccine, with the CDC determining that myocarditis and pericarditis — inflammation of the heart muscle and the sac around the heart, respectively — are still risks, but no other risks have been found.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., before a House committee Wednesday morning, defended the massive cuts to the department’s workforce and laid out his priorities for the Trump administration’s proposed budget — all while he is expected to field questions about his history of promoting conspiracy theories and controversial comments about vaccines.
Kennedy is appearing before the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday morning. He will then head to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee in the afternoon. The appearances mark the first time Kennedy has testified before Congress since his confirmation hearings in late January, and he may be forced to confront statements he made that critics say are evidence of promises broken.
In his opening statement before the House committee, Kennedy said his goal at HHS is to focus on the chronic disease epidemic and deliver effective services for those who rely on Medicare, Medicaid and other services by cutting costs to taxpayers.
“We intend to do more, a lot more with less. The budget I’m presenting today supports these goals and reflects two enduring American values, compassion and responsibility,” Kennedy said in his opening statement.
Kennedy said the new budget addresses priorities including tackling mental health and addiction; addressing nutrition, physical activity and healthy lifestyles; equipping the FDA to expand food safety experts; eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion funding; strengthening cybersecurity and rebuilding.
Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, slammed Kennedy and the Trump’s administration for the cuts to HHS, including the elimination of entire divisions.
In April, HHS began laying off about 10,000 workers and consolidating 28 institutes and centers into 15 new divisions.
Including the roughly 10,000 people who have left over the last few months through early retirement or deferred resignation programs, the overall staff at HHS is expected to fall from 82,000 to around 62,000 — or about a quarter of its workforce.
“Mr. Secretary, you are gutting the life-saving work of the Department of Health and Human Services and its key agencies while the Republicans in this Congress say and do nothing,” DeLauro said. “Because of these cuts people will die.”
In a video statement posted on X prior to the layoffs, Kennedy said that he plans to bring to the agency a “clear sense of mission to radically improve the health of Americans and to improve agency morale.”
Kennedy has defended the cuts as necessary to weed out wasteful spending at one of America’s largest departments, but he has drawn criticism for laying off people who are responsible for regulating tobacco usage, monitoring lead exposure in children and diagnosing black lung disease in miners.
The secretary himself has appeared not to know about some of the cuts, telling CBS News last month he was “not familiar” with several cuts cited by the outlet.
Before the House committee, Kennedy also rebuked criticism of his agency’s response to the measles outbreak.
“We are doing a better job at CDC today than any nation in the world controlling this measles outbreak. I’m happy to elaborate on that afterward,” Kennedy said.
DeLauro replied that Kennedy’s comparison of the U.S. response to measles to the response of other countries was unfair.
“Mr. Secretary, you keep comparing the U.S. to other countries compare us to Europe, but the Europe you are referring to is the WHO European region has 53 countries in Europe and in Asia, including those with low vaccine vaccination rates like Romania and that has never eliminated measles,” she said. “If you compare us to western Europe countries that we often compare ourselves to, like Great Britain, they have seen no measles death.”
Kennedy argued that the U.S. is doing better than other countries in the Americas with smaller populations, including Canada and Mexico.
Kennedy said several times during his hearing in January that he supports vaccines, although he refused to unequivocally say that vaccines don’t cause autism, despite numerous existing studies already showing there is no link.
“I support the measles vaccine. I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking either of those vaccines,” Kennedy said.
However, in March, the HHS confirmed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will study whether vaccines cause autism.
Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan asked Kennedy if he would vaccinate his own children today with the measles vaccine, chickenpox vaccine or polio vaccine, and Kennedy refused to say he would.
“My opinions about vaccines are irrelevant,” Kennedy said. “That question directly, it will seem like I’m giving advice to other people, and I don’t want to be doing that.”
“But that’s kind of your jurisdiction, because CDC does give advice, right?” Pocan replied.
DeLauro scolded Kennedy for promoting vaccine skepticism in the wake of a measles outbreak spreading across the U.S.
In the wake of several ongoing measles outbreaks across the U.S. and over 1,000 cases so far this year, Kennedy has shared contradicting views about vaccines.
In a post on X on April 6, Kennedy said that the “most effective way to prevent the spread of measles” is to receive the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine. However, in a post later that evening, he said more than 300 children have been treated with an antibiotic and a steroid, neither of which are recognized treatments or cures for measles.
Kennedy’s embrace of anti-vaccine ideas nearly put his confirmation in jeopardy, as he faced resistance from Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician who heads the HELP committee. Cassidy expressed concerns about Kennedy’s views on vaccines before ultimately voting to move him through the confirmation process in February.
Cassidy said, at the time, that Kennedy assured him he would not alter vaccine policy without “ironclad” scientific evidence. The senator added that Kennedy and Trump officials promised him an “unprecedentedly close collaborate working relationship” with the secretary.
Kennedy’s controversial moves on fluoride came up with Republican Rep. Mike Simpson, a dentist, telling Kennedy he was concerned about the secretary’s comments on it.
Last month, Kennedy said he plans to assemble a task force and ultimately change the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance to stop recommending adding fluoride to drinking water and other products. He has claimed that fluoride in drinking water affects children’s neurological development.
The Food and Drug Administration said it will conduct a scientific review of fluoride-containing supplements sometimes used to strengthen children’s teeth by late October with the aim of removing them from the market.
“I’ve seen the benefits having been a practicing dentist for 22 years. … You don’t prevent cavities by fluoride killing the bacteria in the mouth,” Simpson said. “What it does is make the enamel more resistant to decay. So, I want to see the studies on this and where we’re headed with this.”
Previous reviews by public health experts and dental professionals have not shown any serious health risks with the addition of fluoride.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — In a major policy change, the Food and Drug Administration has announced a plan to limit access to future COVID-19 shots only to people over 65 years old or those with an underlying health condition.
This change would apply to any future updated versions of the vaccine, a spokesperson at the department of Health and Human Services told ABC News. For the past several years, COVID shots have been updated ahead of the winter respiratory virus season to better match the evolving virus.
But FDA Commissioner Dr. Martin Makary and FDA vaccine head Dr. Vinay Prasad argued this week that annual booster shots are not worth the risk for otherwise healthy people.
The FDA plans to impose these restrictions on future shots for younger, healthy people, unless vaccine makers are willing to pay for newer and and lengthy placebo-controlled trials.
“We are evaluating the details shared today and discussions with the FDA are ongoing,” Pfizer told ABC News in a statement.
“We appreciate the FDA’s clear guidance and remain committed to working with the Agency to provide the data they need to ensure access for Americans,” Moderna told ABC News.
Since the COVID-19 virus can mutate quickly, a lengthy clinical trial may result in a vaccine that no longer protects against currently circulating variants, experts cautioned.
“By the time you finish the trial, the strain that’s out there in the community is probably long gone. So, they’re basically saying, unless you’re in those higher-risk groups, you can forget about getting the COVID vaccine,” former acting CDC director Richard Besser, now president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, told ABC News.
A spokesperson for HHS, which oversees FDA, told ABC News, “The COVID-19 public health emergency has officially ended, and we are entering a new phase in our response to the virus. A rubber-stamping approach to approving COVID boosters in perpetuity without updated clinical trial data under the Biden administration is now over.”
Last month, more than 300 people died each week from COVID, according to the latest CDC data. Death rates were even higher earlier this year as the virus was spreading, with nearly 1,000 Americans dying weekly in January.
The new policy comes as the FDA’s vaccine committee of independent advisers are set to meet on Thursday to discuss the latest data on vaccine safety and efficacy, including COVID shots. Typically, FDA leadership waits until after hearing the advice of its advisers before implementing a new approval or policy change.
Previously, updated COVID vaccines had been recommended annually by the CDC for everyone over the age of 6 months. The CDC has historically set vaccine recommendations, while the FDA determines which vaccines to authorize or approve after being deemed safe and effective.
“The FDA has kind of usurped the CDC’s recommending capacity. Usually, the FDA is a regulatory body. They say the vaccine can be sold, and the CDC says, ‘Jere’s the groups who should get it,’” Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told ABC News.
Added Besser: “It’s also not something the FDA would normally do. It’s something CDC would do. And so that’s a really important issue here.”
The new COVID vaccine framework would allow an estimated 33% of the U.S. population to be eligible for the shots, or at least 100 million people, FDA officials noted. It matches recommendations from other countries such as the U.K., Canada and Australia.
Experts say there is a real scientific debate about whether annual boosters are necessary for otherwise young and healthy children and younger adults, especially now that most Americans now have some immunity gained from past vaccination and infections.
In mid-April, the CDC’s vaccine committee of independent advisers had discussed whether to keep the recommendation that everyone over 6 months receive an annual COVID vaccine.
Some experts have argued an FDA restriction could create insurmountable barriers for those who no longer qualify but want to get vaccinated anyway to protect vulnerable family members. Officials at the FDA have called for more evidence on whether vaccines prevent transmission before providing that option.
“To date, there is no high-quality evidence that you getting a booster protects your grandma, beyond your grandma getting the booster herself,” Prasad said at an FDA press conference Tuesday. “Does it lead to less transmission? Does it lead to fewer instances of severe disease? Again, we are interested in evidence to inform this claim.”
Insurance coverage of future COVID vaccines will likely be determined based on recommendations from the CDC and the agency’s independent panel of advisers later this summer. A final recommendation on who should be eligible for updated shots will likely come from the CDC director later this year.
Insurance companies will “continue to monitor the forthcoming recommendations and guidance from ACIP and CDC. As of today, there is no change in how plans cover the existing vaccines for the previously recommended populations,” according to AHIP, a national organization representing insurance companies.
“The ultimate goal of the vaccine is to keep people out of the hospital. But people could reasonably say, moderate infections aren’t fun either, so I’m going to choose and get this vaccine,” Offit noted. “I think that’s fine. I think it’s a reasonable choice. I just hope that we’re not restrictive.”
