> Do US laws allow companies to use any random chemical without any review? Is it a whitelist or blacklist approach and should it be changed? Yeah, pretty much

> Do US laws allow companies to use any random chemical without any review? Is it a whitelist or blacklist approach and should it be changed? Yeah, pretty much. It's a blacklist unless it's a food additive in which case it needs to be generally recognized as safe [1]. Unfortunately herbicides like paraquat don't fall under that regulatory umbrella. It's also a relatively weak blacklist so when something gets banned companies frequently switch to an close analog like when plastics manufacturers went from BPA to BPS/BPF. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generally_recognized_as_safe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generally_recognized_as_safe