West Virginia House Passes Bill Banning Red 40, Other Food Dyes

The House of Delegates passed a bill that would ban food that contained butylated hydroxyanisole, propylparaben, FD&C Blue No. 1, FD&C Blue No. 2, FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Yellow No. 5, and FD&C Yellow No. 6.

If this bill passes the legislature and is signed into law, products that contain these ingredients would have to be reformulated or taken off the shelves completely  

The bill is part of a push to “Make America Healthy Again”. The bill sponsored by Republican lawmakers got bipartisan support. 

Del. Sean Hornbuckle, a Democrat from Cabell County, said this is the first step to helping children be healthy again. 

“I’m excited. This is the work that we should be doing, in a bipartisan manner,” Hornbuckle said.  “My friend from the 42nd, he talked about the other countries around the world that are eating our lunch when it comes to caring for kids and their health. The gentlelady from Kanawha spoke about people over profit, and that’s what we’re going to do here today.”

The bill would take effect in 2027. A floor amendment to the bill adopted Friday would require that schools stop serving food that contains these ingredients by August 2025.  

Opponents of the bill, like Del. Gary Howell, R-Mineral, worried it could make groceries more expensive, or harder to get. 

“Being we’re a small state, that we may not justify the production change, and therefore they just will not sell,” Howell said. 

Howell also expressed concern that grocery shoppers would just opt to shop in other bordering states. 

“We have a large border population, I think the accepted term is, is 40% of our population lives within 30 miles of the border. (I’m concerned) that they’re gonna go out of state and buy what they’ve always bought because it’s no longer available here,” Howell said. 

The bill passed 93-5.