In a statement sent to USA TODAY on Sunday, Justin Comes, vice president of research and development for Skittles maker Mars Wrigley North America, said the company couldn't comment on pending litigation – but that its use of titanium dioxide and all Mars Wrigley ingredients are safe and manufactured in compliance with strict quality and safety requirements established by food safety regulators, including the FDA.
A safety review conducted by the EFSA in 2021 assessed thousands of studies published on titanium dioxide.
Lithopone is manufactured by a process (Fig. 1) in which barium sulfide solution is prepared by reducing barite ore (BaSO 4) with carbon and leaching the resulting mass.
The most significant uncertainty identified by the EU experts was the concern that TiO2 particles may have genotoxic effects. Genotoxicity refers to the ability of a chemical to directly damage genetic material within a cell (DNA), which may lead to cancer in certain situations. Although the experts did not conclude that TiO2 particles in E171 are genotoxic, they could not rule out the concern that they might be.