Group - Amaranth dye

Amaranth, FD&C Red No. 2, E123, C.I. Food Red 9, Acid Red 27, Azorubin S, or C.I. 16185, is a dark red to purple azo dye once used as a food dye and to color cosmetics, but since 1976 it has been banned in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as it is a suspected carcinogen. The FDA showed a significant increase in cancer among aged female rats that had been fed large doses of the dye. Alexander Schmidt of the FDA stated that the FDA found "no evidence of a public health hazard". It usually comes as a trisodium salt. It has the appearance of reddish-brown, dark red to purple water-soluble powder that decomposes at 120 °C without melting. Its water solution has absorption maximum at about 520 nm.[citation needed] Amaranth is made from coal tar. Amaranth is an anionic dye. It can be applied to natural and synthetic fibers, leather, paper, and phenol-formaldehyde resins. As a food additive it has E number E123. In 1960 the FDA was given jurisdiction over color additives and gave "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) provisional status to substances already in use. The agency extended Red No. 2's provisional status 14 times. In 1971 a Russian study linked cancer to the dye and consumer activists in the United States put pressure on the FDA to ban it. By 1976 over 1 million pounds of the dye worth $US 5 million was used as a colorant in $10 billion worth of foods, drugs and cosmetics. The FDA banned FD&C Red No. 2 in 1976. FD&C Red No. 40 (Allura Red AC) replaced the decertified color.