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European scientists have rejected calls to introduce an EU-wide ban on a number of common food and beverage additives after a study conducted in the UK last year. The British study suggested a link between hyperactivity in children and a range of food and beverage colourants, consumed in combination with the preservative sodium benzoate (E211).

Experts at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in Milan, Italy, decided the results of the study were too inconclusive to form the basis for immediate action. However, EFSA is continuing its own reassessment of all colouring agents authorised for use in the EU, and expects to reveal first findings before the end of this year.

The £750,000 (€955,000) research programme at Southampton University in England was commissioned by the UK’s official Food Standards Agency (FSA). Scientists examined the effects of consuming a juice cocktail containing sodium benzoate and six colourants on two groups of children – 137 children aged three years and 130 aged from eight to nine years.

Colourants used in the study were: Sunset yellow (E110), Quinoline yellow (E104), Carmoisine (E122), Allura red (E129), Tartrazine (E102) and Ponceau 4R (E124). Sodium benzoate and one or more of these colourants are used in some soft drinks as well as many food products.

In September, the Southampton researchers reported that either the sodium benzoate or the colourants produced signs of hyperactivity in both groups of children. A furore erupted in the UK press after the FSA announced the findings, and advised parents of hyperactive children to avoid giving them food or drink containing any of the colourants used in the study.

The FSA forwarded the study to EFSA to be considered for further action – but critics claimed the UK agency itself should have immediately banned all the “suspect” colourants from British food and drink.

After examining the research with the help of experts in behaviour, child psychiatry, allergy and statistics, EFSA’s special review panel on food and beverage additives conceded that the study provided “limited evidence” that the mix of additives “had a small effect on the activity and attention of some children.” But the EU experts added that the results were inconsistent between the two age-groups of children, and did not indicate which of the various additives might be responsible for the effects observed.

“Considering the overall weight of evidence, and in view of the considerable uncertainties,” EFSA said in an official statement, “the panel concluded that the findings could not be used as a basis for altering the ADI of the respective food colours or sodium benzoate.”

In its own ongoing review, the EFSA panel is studying additives individually. Its first formal recommendations are expected to include some of the colourants used in the Southampton study, such as Allura red.

EFSA’s decision not to act on the Southampton study was welcomed by the British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA), which said: “All ingredients used by the soft drinks industry are approved as safe in use by the Food Standards Agency.

“Soft drinks manufacturers have for some time been responding to the public’s increasing desire for more ‘natural’ ingredients. A wide variety of beverages are now available to meet this need, and innovation in this area is ongoing.”

But the Food Commission, an independent consumer organisation, was critical of the European regulators. Anna Glayzer, co-ordinator of the commission’s “Action on Additives” campaign, said: “We do not need them in our food, and we would urge the European Commission to pursue a ban. Further testing would cost millions and take years, and is simply not a viable option.

“In the meantime, the Action on Additives campaign calls on responsible food manufacturers to take steps to remove these food additives as soon they can.”