Do Food Dyes Make Children Hyperactive?

The latest in a string of scientific misrepresentations by the Trump administration.

Pictured: Dyed. Loops don’t naturally come in all of those colors, in the wild they’re just all purple. Photo by Caleb Minear on Unsplash

Artificial food dyes have been in the news a lot recently due to the Trump administration and the MAHA movement. There is a strong belief among these groups that artificial dyes are behind various problems that children face in the modern world, and that we can mostly fix children by banning the dyes. This was exemplified by a recent comment from FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary:

In his quote, Dr. Makary references a study that supposedly proves that food dyes are bad. Specifically, he says “we have randomized controlled trial data in the Lancet”, which can only be a reference this famous 2007 randomized trial conducted in the UK. The study looked at whether various food additives caused children to be more hyperactive compared to a placebo.

The problem is that the data in this trial doesn’t really support the arguments that Dr. Makary is making. If anything, the study shows that artificial food additives probably have no…