Federal judges have too much power: Yet another example
By Easton Martin | December 27, 2025
This week, a federal judge blocked enforcement of West Virginia’s newly passed ban on several artificial food dyes and additives, issuing a preliminary injunction that stops the law before it can take effect. The ruling was framed as a merely procedural matter, centered on statutory clarity and federal regulatory overlap. But the decision exposes a deeper and more troubling issue about who is actually qualified to decide matters of public health. Federal judges are trained in law, not toxicology, nutrition, epidemiology, or long term risk assessment. So why do we allow them to make such rulings?
In this case, a single judge effectively halted a state legislature’s attempt to respond to growing concerns about chemicals linked by some studies to behavioral and neurological effects in children. While the court claimed not to weigh the science, the outcome functionally overruled a policy choice driven by scientific concern.
The judge justified the decision by pointing to vagueness in the law and the fact that the targeted dyes have existing federal approval. That reasoning reveals the limits of judicial competence in health related policy. FDA approval is not a permanent declaration of safety. Much of the agency’s food additive framework is decades old and reflects regulatory inertia rather than ongoing scientific consensus. Treating those approvals as definitive substitutes outdated standards for evolving evidence.
