Food scientists confirm additives and hyperactivity link
Scientists at Europe’s food safety watchdog have concluded that two mixtures of certain food colourings and the preservative sodium benzoate do have an effect on children’s levels of hyperactivity.
However, the link is so small that the European Food Safety Authority's (EFSA) AFC Panel has decided that the findings cannot be used as a basis for altering the acceptable daily intakes of the respective food colourings or sodium benzoate.
The debate surrounding additives was fuelled even further last September when medical journal The Lancet published their conclusions of children's hyperactivity significantly increasing after consuming additives and preservatives.
The Food Standards Agency now plans to review the EFSA's research and discuss any further action to be taken at the FSA open Board meeting in April.
Julian Hunt from the Food and Drink Federation described the steps the industry has already taken to reduced additives and colourings in products: "The UK food and drink manufacturing industry has for a number of years been responding to consumers' demands for fewer artificial additives in food and drinks. Our members have been reducing the use of the colours highlighted in the study and there is now a wide range of food and drinks on supermarket shelves that contain no artificial colours.
"Last month FDF co-hosted with the FSA a successful technical symposium on additives for smaller companies, at which they could hear first hand the technical and regulatory issues around changing or reducing artificial colours in products.
"Neither the EFSA opinion nor the Southampton study suggested the safety of the colours researched were in question. Food additives are strictly regulated under European law and any additive must be approved as safe by the appropriate European scientific committee (now EFSA) before they can be used in food and drinks. Manufacturers must also label the additives they use in their products, so consumers wishing to avoid certain ingredients can do so by looking at the food label."
Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming reacted with anger to
EFSA's findings.
Sustain's Campaigns Director, Richard Watts, hit out at their lack of action in particular: "It would be unthinkable for no significant action to be taken as a result of the Southampton Study. No one now disputes that these artificial additives pose a threat to children's health and well being. Given EFSA have let down consumers, our own Food Standards Agency (FSA) must now act to remove them from the food chain."
He added: "Over 1000 products containing these additives have now been found in the UK. This explodes the myth that the food industry is working to solve this problem. The FSA must now act."
Words: Clare Riley
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