At an FSA board meeting, members agreed to advise ministers to lobby for an EU-wide ban on the additives and have called for food manufacturers in the UK to remove them voluntarily by 2009.
The meeting took place to discuss research published by the university of Southampton in September, which found a direct link between certain artificial food colourings and preservatives and behavioural problems.
In March, the European Food Safety Authority claimed the Southampton research was flawed and provided limited evidence of a 'small effect on the activity and attention of some children' (News, 27 March 2008).
But Dame Deidre Hutton, chair of the Food Standards Agency, said, 'It is the Agency's duty to put consumers first. These additives give colour to food but nothing else. It would be sensible, in light of the findings of the Southampton study, to remove them from food and drink products.' The FSA board also said the FSA must simplify and strengthen its advice to parents.
Current FSA advice to parents of hyperactive children is that cutting out artificial colours such as Sunset yellow (E11), Quinoline yellow (E104), Carmoisine (E122), Allura red (E129), Tartrazine (E102) and Ponceau 4R (E124) may prove beneficial.
Richard Watts, campaign co-ordinator of the Children's Food Campaign, said, 'The FSA is finally doing the right thing.
'Research shows the additives are as harmful to children as exposure to lead. We now want urgent research into other, similar additives that were not covered in the Southampton study, as food manufacturers are not required to remove these.'
Last Thursday, Europe's main consumer watchdog, the BEUC consumers association, also called for an EU-wide ban in a letter, which was signed by 41 public interest groups, to the European Health Commissioner, Mrs Androulla Vassiliou.