Gov. Patrick Morrisey has signed a bill that will ban the sale of foods containing artificial food colors in West Virginia beginning January 1, 2028. (Leann Ray | West Virginia Watch)
The International Association of Color Manufacturers is suing West Virginia health and school leaders over a new state law that bans the apply of certain artificial food dyes in foods sold in school lunches.
The group is asking a judge to overturn the requirement.
Republican lawmakers are behind the bill, which Adopted earlier this yearsaid the synthetic red, blue, green and yellow dyes – commonly found in candy, cereal and soda – are unnecessary and harmful. Governor Patrick Morrisey signed the measure will take effect in March.
In the suitthe association says the West Virginia Legislature acted unlawfully in passing House Bill 2354 by asserting their power the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which has the authority to make food safety decisions.
The lawsuit was filed Oct. 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia against state Health Secretary Arvin Singh, state schools Superintendent Michele Blatt and named members of the state’s school board. Justin Davis, interim commissioner of the West Virginia Bureau for Health, was also named as a defendant.
“By expressly identifying and prohibiting the color additives in question, without any rational basis for believing that they are in fact unsafe in any way, HB 2354 violates the equal protection guarantees under the U.S. and West Virginia Constitutions,” the lawsuit states. “The court should declare the law unconstitutional and order its enforcement.”
The law banned the apply of seven artificial colors – Red No. 3, Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, Yellow No. 6, Blue No. 1, Blue No. 2 and Green No. 3 – in school meals starting August 1 and is currently being implemented implemented in schools nationwide. Some lawmakers linked the dyes to behavioral problems in children.
Starting January 1, 2028, the dyes, along with preservatives butylhydroxyanisole and propylparaben, would be banned in drugs and foods available for sale in the state.
Morrisey and other Republican supporters of the bill have drawn ties to the Trump administration’s “Make American Healthy Again” movement. Shortly after the law was passed in West Virginia, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his intention that the country’s food industry should avoid artificial colors. They want the industry to replace dyes with natural alternatives.
But IACM claims that there is no scientific evidence that the dyes are harmful when consumed. Those of the group website Includes information about why paints are secure and how they are regulated. The color additives are subject to a comprehensive safety evaluation as described by the FDA.
In the lawsuit, the IACM also stated that manufacturers of color additives and manufacturers of products that apply those additives “will suffer irreparable harm, both from the deprivation of their constitutional protections and from the significant economic costs that the law will impose on them.”
Before lawmakers approved the bill, the state’s food and beverage industry opposed the measure with paid advertisingwarning that this would lead to higher food prices and empty shelves. Alternative ingredients are not available at scale, they said.
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