Professor Erik Millstone from the University of Sussex accused the FSA of 'disgraceful behaviour' for its failure to act after research from Southampton University showed a clear link between artificial colourings and behavioural problems in children.
After attending last Thursday's FSA board meeting as an observer, he said, 'From the point of view of parents whose children go to nurseries and the staff working in them, the FSA has let them and their children down very badly indeed.'
Professor Millstone said the agency had 'passed the buck' in three directions - to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the food industry and parents - in order to avoid taking action.
He said that the EFSA was 'less accountable than the FSA' and that the scientist Dr Sue Barlow, who will chair a meeting of EFSA's additives, foods and chemicals panel to assess the research findings, has been revealed as a paid consultant for the supermarket Tesco and chemicals company Unilever.
In a statement after the meeting, the FSA chair Dame Deirdre Hutton said, 'The board expresses its astonishment that industry has not moved more quickly to remove these artificial colours from their products in the light of serious concerns raised by consumers.'
But Professor Millstone said the FSA was avoiding using its power as a regulatory body and said its failure to act was even more astonishing in the light of 'indications from the cabinet office that Gordon Brown expected them to take action'.
In a letter to The Guardian last week prior to the FSA meeting, Professor Millstone and Professor Tim Lang of Thames Valley University urged the agency to get the School Food Trust to review its guidelines on food additives in products sold in schools or served in school meals.
After the Southampton research was published the FSA issued revised guidance to parents to stop giving their children certain products containing E-numbers if they showed signs of hyperactivity (News, 13 September).
But Dame Deirdre Hutton admitted, 'We have not been sufficiently helpful. There is a real difficulty for people in looking at every product to see whether it has particular E-numbers or not.'
Professor Millstone said that the issue should not be left to parents and that the additives in question should be banned immediately.
'These artificial colours are used to colour up sugars and fats, disguise them so it looks as though they derive from fruit,' he said. 'People would be more healthy and we would have less obesity if food and drink did not contain them.'