Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took aim at a long-criticized food safety loophole on March 10, directing the Food and Drug Administration to explore rulemaking that would end companies’ ability to “self-affirm” ingredients as safe without oversight.
The move, part of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) mission, promises “radical transparency” for consumers — but faces a steep climb against industry resistance and agency limits.
Kennedy’s order targets the FDA’s Substances Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) rule, which lets manufacturers deem ingredients safe by using internal data, often skipping FDA notification.
“For far too long, ingredient manufacturers and sponsors have exploited a loophole that has allowed new ingredients and chemicals, often with unknown safety data, to be introduced into the U.S. food supply without notification to the FDA or the public,” Kennedy said in a March 10 HHS news release. Closing it, he argued, will “help get our nation’s food supply back on track.”
A 2013 Pew Charitable Trusts study estimated 3,000 GRAS substances have evaded FDA review, a figure cited in The Guardian’s 2024 additive coverage and likely fueling Kennedy’s push. Currently, the FDA encourages voluntary GRAS notices — handling about 75 annually and publishing more than 1,000 since the program began, according to the HHS news release. But self-affirmation keeps many ingredients off the agency’s radar, with no public disclosure required. The new regulation would mandate companies notify the FDA with safety data before market entry.
The Consumer Brands Association, representing firms like PepsiCo, met with Kennedy Monday and signaled wariness.
“We look forward to continued engagement,” the group told Reuters, echoing 2024 U.S. News reports of trade groups defending GRAS as efficient. Mandatory reviews, they warn, could slow innovation — a tension Kennedy dismissed in his Fox News-reported industry talks.
The FDA’s plate is already full. Acting Commissioner Sara Brenner pledged to “further safeguard the food supply” in the HHS release, but with a food budget near $1 billion — tiny against the $2 trillion industry — enforcement doubts linger, as described in TIME’s 2024 analysis. HHS also vowed to push Congress for legislation to seal the loophole permanently, hinting rulemaking alone might not suffice.
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A Russian bride-to-be was found dead 5,500 miles from home. Investigators would soon learn Anna Repkina was unwittingly caught up in a love triangle and that her fiancé frantically researched time travel after her death, writing to strangers on WhatsApp: “… best friend made a mistake. I want to go back to keep from losing the woman that should be my wife.”
Will Hargrove and Anna Repkina met online and after a whirlwind romance, the pair got engaged. What Repkina didn’t know when she relocated to the U.S. from Russia to marry Hargrove was that she was moving right into the middle of a love triangle.
Benton County Sheriff’s Office
In 2016, Repkina was a 26-year-old Moscow native who loved rock music and cats and had a fun sense of humor. She had recently gone through a breakup with her boyfriend of seven years. In search of love, she decided to join some online dating sites. She thought she’d found what she was looking for when she met William Hargrove, a 26-year-old Oregonian who happened to have an affinity for all things Russian.
Their online relationship quickly took off, and Repkina decided to fly to the United States to meet her new love interest in person and spend the Christmas holidays with him in Oregon. After a whirlwind 10-day trip, Repkina returned to Russia with a souvenir — an engagement ring from Hargrove. She made plans to pack up her life in Russia, move to Oregon, and plan a wedding.
What Repkina wasn’t planning on was meeting Hargrove’s secret girlfriend.
Will Hargrove was dating Michelle Chavez the whole time he’d been romancing Anna Repkina.
Benton County Sheriff’s Office
When Repkina first met Hargrove, he was renting a room from a woman named Michelle Chavez, who was living with her husband in a loveless marriage. Unbeknownst to Repkina, Hargrove and Chavez were involved in a passionate affair even before she came to the states. Hargrove and Chavez continued their relationship after Hargrove’s proposal to Repkina, and when Repkina moved to Oregon to marry Hargrove, Chavez was shocked, and very angry.
Chavez wanted Hargrove to only be with her, and pressured him to end his relationship with Repkina. She issued an ultimatum — to choose between her and Repkina. Within days, Repkina was dead.
The day after Easter 2017, Repkina’s body was found on a remote logging road in Alsea, Oregon. She had been killed by a single shotgun blast to the back of the head. But who pulled the trigger?
That’s the question the lead detective, Lieutenant Chris Duffitt, was trying to answer when he first arrived on the scene. “We found several pieces of trash,” said Duffitt. “Fast food bags, cigarette cartons, candy wrappers that were here. And at that point, we don’t know what’s evidence and what’s not.”
A crucial clue: a KFC receipt found with other trash near Anna Repkina’s body led investigators to her fiancé, Will Hargrove.
Benton County Sheriff’s Office
One of the pieces of trash turned out to be a treasure. Investigators were able to trace the information found on a KFC receipt back to Will Hargrove.
In the days after Repkina’s death, Hargrove exhibited some rather peculiar behavior.
Hargrove went on a bizarre internet deep dive. “He is researching time travel,” said Detective Chris Dale. “He’s saved screenshots of web pages that show you how to do a particular spell to travel back in time. And we also see communication through WhatsApp in which he is trying to ask for help in how to travel back in time.” Hargrove said he wanted to correct a horrible mistake that his “best friend” made. He was so desperate to get this information on time travel that he offered his soul as a reward to strangers on the internet who might be able to help him.
Will Hargrove was caught on video surveillance at various ATM’s dispensing cash from Anna Repkina’s account
Benton County Sheriff’s Office
In addition to his strange internet encounters, Hargrove was caught on video surveillance at various ATM’s withdrawing cash from Repkina’s account. “He made a $200 withdrawal from this machine, and then engaged in some conversation with some employees at that gas station, where he actually ended up hugging one of them and crying about the fact that his girlfriend, Anna Repkina, had left him,” said Duffitt.
Hargrove withdrew a total of $800 from Repkina’s account. With a sudden influx of cash, he made a car insurance payment, went shopping at Walmart for Star Wars themed LEGOs, and bought candy and cigars.
After connecting Hargrove to the crime scene through the KFC receipt, investigators brought Hargrove in for questioning and ultimately charged him with Repkina’s murder. The trash left near Repkina’s body, Hargrove’s strange internet encounters, and theft caught on camera led Hargrove to be formally indicted for his fiancée’s murder in July 2018.
But when Hargrove’s trial began in October 2019, the defense would spin an entirely new theory as to what happened to Repkina.
EDITOR’S NOTE: On October 2019, Hargrove was was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 25 years. His murder conviction was overturned on appeal in 2023. The reversal was based on a flawed search warrant and the improper collection of some evidence. A new trial is set to begin in April 2025.
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