"Is This Chemical in Your Pizza Crust?"

"Why is potassium bromate, a possible human carcinogen, still available in U.S. baked goods, despite being banned around the world?"

"If you buy bread in Toronto, Paris, or Rio de Janeiro, it cannot by law contain the chemical potassium bromate. Yet if you eat baked goods in the U.S., you may be eating this substance unknowingly. Potassium bromate is used to whiten and strengthen dough, to reduce mixing time and enhance rising—but it was also classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a possible human carcinogen in 1999 after it was found to cause kidney and thyroid tumors in lab rats.

Declared unsuitable for use in flour by both the WHO and United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization in the early 1990s, potassium bromate—which can also cause non-carcinogenic adverse effects on the human kidney—is now banned in the European Union, China, and other countries around the world. It has also been listed as a carcinogen under California’s Proposition 65 since 1990.

But the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) continues to allow its use in flour. And according to a recent report from the Environmental Working Group (EWG), baked goods containing potassium bromate in the U.S. are widely available despite many companies’ shift away from the additive."
 
Elizabeth Grossman reports for Civil Eats October 26, 2015.