The Food Standards Agency recommended ministers call for manufacturers to remove six artificial colors by the end of 2009 and lobby for a European Union-wide ban. The FSA's advice to parents will be strengthened to warn them about the dangers of the E-numbers tartrazine (E102), quinoline yellow (E104), sunset yellow (E110), carmoisine (E122), ponceau 4R (E124) and allura red (E129).
These colors and the preservative sodium benzoate (E211) were linked to hyperactivity in a £750,000 study by Southampton University, which found they made primary school children become distracted and fail a computer attention test.