In the case of Young, Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration v. Community Nutrition Institute et al., 1985, the Supreme Court ruled that consumers do not have standing to challenge FDA regulations regarding food additives. The Community Nutrition Institute (CNI) and several individuals had filed a lawsuit against the FDA for allowing low levels of cancer-causing substances in food. They argued that this violated federal law which prohibits any amount of carcinogenic substance in food unless it's impossible to remove or is produced by cooking necessary for palatability. However, the court held that only those directly regulated by an administrative action can seek judicial review under these circumstances - typically manufacturers rather than consumers. The majority opinion reasoned that if Congress intended to create such a dramatic departure from traditional rules about who has standing to sue, they would have done so explicitly.

In the dissenting opinion for Young v. Community Nutrition Institute, Justice Brennan argued that consumers should have the right to challenge FDA's decisions not to enforce certain regulations. He disagreed with the majority's interpretation of "case-by-case" enforcement discretion as an absolute bar on judicial review and believed it was inconsistent with previous court rulings. Furthermore, he contended that denying consumer challenges would undermine public confidence in regulatory agencies and could lead to arbitrary or self-serving agency actions without any checks or balances. In his view, allowing such challenges would promote more responsible decision-making by these agencies while providing a necessary avenue for public accountability.