Fear for kids as colouring linked to cancer
COLOURING may be banned from cereal and confectionery amid evidence is poses health risks.
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AUSTRALIAN food authorities may ban artificial food colours from breakfast cereals and confectionery items following new scientific evidence that shows it may pose a cancer risk, as well as causing hyperactivity and allergic reactions in children.
The new research conducted by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in the US recommended the common colours be banned.
"These synthetic chemicals do absolutely nothing to improve the nutritional quality or safety of foods, but trigger behaviour problems in children and, possibly, cancer in anybody," said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson, co-author of the report, Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), along with its American counterpart the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said they have been closely looking at the new findings in the past week.
"We are currently assessing the data and if there is good scientific evidence, we can and will make changes," Lydia Buchtman from FSANZ said.
The CSPI said the colours were contaminated with known carcinogens and shown to cause cancer in rats.
Each year, manufacturers worldwide pour close to seven million kilograms of artificial colours into common foods such as biscuits, ice creams, cordials and confectionery but many consumers complain of adverse reactions.
Jenny Heasman suspected something was wrong with her six-year-old son Zach, whose teary and aggressive outbursts were out of the ordinary. After putting him on an elimination diet and then reintroducing the artificial colours in water, she identified tartrazine (E102) as the culprit.
"He reacted immediately," the Gordon mum said.
Sue Dengate from the Food Intolerance Network said: "I'm very pleased FSANZ is assessing the research, but I think they have failed in their consumer-protection duty because the UK and Europe are leading the charge on this."
FSANZ has no plans to follow Europe's lead by requiring manufacturers to apply warning labels.
From Tuesday, European food manufacturers will be required to carry a warning if their products contain the artificial colours that are now known as the "Southampton Six" following a UK university's study on the issue.
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