The European Food Safety Authority has rejected suggestions in a study by researchers at Southampton University last year of a link between hyperactivity in children and two mixtures of food colours and the preservative sodium benzoate (Lancet 2007;370:1560-7; doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61306-3).

In a highly critical assessment, the authority points to considerable uncertainties, lack of consistency, and absence of information in the study, which was commissioned by the UK Food Standards Agency.

As a result, the authority, which advises the European Union on food safety, maintained that there is no basis for changing present recommendations on the acceptable daily intake of the food colours or …