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The United States should ban eight foodstuff dyes, used in products including General Mills Inc.’s Lucky Charms breakfast cereal, because of links to hyperactivity and other disruptive behavior in children, a health advocacy group said.The Center for Science in the community Interest said yesterday it petitioned the Food and Drug organization to outlaw coloring listed on ingredient labels under names such as Blue 2 and Red 40.Studies over three decades have shown that some children’s behaviors are worsened by the dyes, whose use has been rising, according to the center. The FDA says it hasn’t seen evidence the food coloring has cause harm. The dyes can copy the blush of fruits or vegetables and are often used in candy, soda, and snack foods intended at children.

“The sustained use of false food dyes is the secret shame of the food industry and the cops in Washington that are supposed to be protecting the public from unhealthy ingredients,” said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Washington-based center.The FDA said in a brochure posted on its website, dated November 2004, that there was no evidence linking food coloring to hyperactivity. The agency is unaware of any in order since then to change its position, said a spokeswoman in an e-mail.”Although this theory was popularized in the 1970s, well-controlled studies conducted since then have produced no proof that food additives cause hyperactivity or learning disabilities in children,” according to the agency’s brochure.

foodstuffs contain the dyes include Kraft Foods Inc.’s guacamole flavor dip, which gets its “greenish” color from Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and Blue 1 rather than from avocados, according to the center, which wants to ban each of those dyes. The “blue bits” in Aunt Jemima blueberry waffles, made by a company owned by Blackstone Group LP, are blue since of Red 40 and Blue 2, not blueberries, according to the middle.The group also wants the FDA to ban Green 3, Orange B, and Red 3. Many of the dyes are produced in China and India, according to the center.The center’s petition urges the FDA to require a warning label on foods with false dyes while it consider the ask for to forbid them.