Still the FDA tries dancing around activist sensitivities.
In a letter to Environmental Health Perspectives, FDA food additive chief Mitchell Cheeseman writes,
… The FDA’s comprehensive literature review and weight-of-evidence analysis of the data to date support the conclusion that:
“Food-related triggering of problem behaviors is not due to an inherent neurotoxic property of the food or food components, including any of the artificial food colors and preservatives, but appears to result from a unique intolerance exhibited by certain predisposed children to a variety of food items and color additives. (FDA FAC 2011a)”
According to Weiss (2012), this conclusion suggests that “the central nervous system is not the essential substrate for behavior or that behavior is a phenomenon independent of the brain.” The commentary is incorrect; the FDA’s conclusion is that the evidence suggests that certain food components, including AFCs, do not appear to have inherent neurotoxic properties but that some neurobiologic and/or immunologic properties of a subpopulation predispose the group to have an intolerance to specific food items, resulting in a behavioral response. These responses can vary between individuals in nature, magnitude, and triggering item.
We don’t think there’s anything to the food coloring scare, but this explanation is somewhat tortured.
The more likely phenomenon is misreporting of whatever is going on with the kids.
CSPI is one of the most unreasonable and illegitimate outfits on Earth. They are now and always have been agenda driven Nanny Staters. Please cite any scientifically vetted research of theirs that passes the smell test. Time after time they are debunked as junk science.
More than 30 years’ worth of research, according to The Center for Science in the Public Interest — link food colorings to hyperactivity and behavior problems in children.
I use only natural food colors, it cannot do problems.
More Junk Science from Bernie Weiss – some things never change. So now we have government agencies giving grants to publish papers contadicting another government agency. Not what your average taxpayer would consider a good use of borrowed Chinese funds. But then again, NIEHS has always had too much grant authority and too little oversight.
Thomas C. Brown
FDA (retired)