Through the skin covering the skull, the scientists could look directly at blood vessels on the surface of the murine brain, and through the skin of the abdomen they observed internal organs and even the process known as peristalsis, the contractions that move food through the digestive passage.
Pretty cool, huh?
The physics behind this discovery aren’t actually all that complicated. Basically, when added to water, tartrazine changes the water’s refractive index—the way it bends light—so that it matches the refractive index of molecules like lipids in the skin, reducing the degree to which light scatters as it passes through the skin. Instead of scattering, the light travels straight and true, meaning you get to see what’s on the other side.
The process is totally reversible. It only takes a few minutes, the tartrazine solution can be washed off, and when it is the effects disappear. What tartrazine is absorbed by the skin is metabolized and excreted through the urine.
The researchers’ next goal is to test the solution on humans. Human skin is about 10 times thicker than a mouse’s, so it’s likely a larger dose will be needed, and it’s not clear if the delivery method—just rubbing the stuff on the skin—will be adequate.
A miraculous discovery, for sure, and one that will no doubt benefit medicine. But it’s also a reminder of an unpleasant, dangerous truth about the food supply in America today: that it’s full of substances whose properties and safety we know virtually next to nothing about. There are thousands upon thousands of additives—texturizers, colorings, humectants, anti-fungals, anti-caking agents, preservatives—in Americans’ food that have never been independently tested by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or by scientists who aren’t employed by the companies that make those chemicals and add them to their food.
It sounds absurd—insane, actually—but it’s not a glitch or an organized system of corporate deception. We’re not talking about companies lying to regulators or acting beyond the boundaries of the law. No, this is all above board. The system even has a name. The FDA calls it “generally recognized as safe” or “GRAS” for short.
The GRAS system was first introduced by the FDA in 1958 after the passage of the Food Additive Amendments, to “grandfather” through additives that were already used in food. The new additive regulations were intended to ensure ingredients capable of causing long-term harm never entered the food supply, but something very different happened. The GRAS designation mutated into a system that allowed companies to introduce and safety-test additives themselves without the FDA ever getting a look-in.
This happened in large part because the FDA simply couldn’t keep up with demands from companies to test their new additives for the burgeoning processed-food category. So companies started testing additives themselves and adding them to their food products without any consultation with the regulator.
Companies did this for decades, and instead of stepping in to assert its authority, the FDA did what any poorly staffed, hopelessly compromised organization would do: It simply chose to regularize the process, which was completed in 2016.
According to one study, since 2000, there have been only 10 applications to the FDA for full approval of a new food additive, out of a total of 766 that have been added to the American food supply. The safety of the other 756 was self-determined by the manufacturers themselves, in secret.
And so we’ve ended up in a situation where a company can produce a new food additive, decide it’s safe by whatever means it chooses, and then bring it to market without any scrutiny at all from the FDA. Like I say, nobody knows the exact amount, but a common estimate is that there are as many as 10,000 food additives in use in the United States, compared to around 2,000—all known quantities, by contrast—that are permitted in the EU.
Thankfully, the FDA and the GRAS system are now firmly in the sights of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been tasked by president-elect Trump with Making America Healthy Again.
“If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you,” he continued. “1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.”
Strong stuff.
Although Trump has yet to specify exactly what role Kennedy will play in the new administration, Kennedy himself has already made clear that other priorities, beside root-and-branch reform of agencies like the FDA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Department of Agriculture, will include fluoridation of the water supply, vaccinations, environmental pollution, and processed food. This is a comprehensive program, and if Kennedy can make meaningful changes in all of these areas in four years, he will have done the American people and their health an enormous service.
If anybody can get to the bottom of why Americans are so sick, it’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a man who has spent decades campaigning on environmental and health issues, and suffered personal loss and public vilification as a result—but still kept on going. He knows as much as anybody the corruption that lies beneath the façade of public health in America, and now, at long last, he’s in a position to do something about it.
